Adolescent and Parent Emotions and Perceptions Regarding News Media Stories About Bullying: a Qualitative Study

Abstract

News articles covering bullying have often focused on tragic situations. The purpose of this study was to understand adolescents' and parents' emotions and perceptions related to bullying news media coverage. Participants were recruited as adolescent-parent dyads from pediatric clinics. During qualitative interviews, participants read and commented on two news article excerpts: (1) a tragic "fear-based" individual bullying news story and (2) a public health-oriented bullying news story. Qualitative analysis used the constant comparative approach. Our 50 participants included 25 adolescents with mean age 16.1 years (SD = 0.97), 44% female and 72% Caucasian, and 25 parents with mean age 49.2 (SD = 6.7) years, 80% female and 76% Caucasian. After reading the fear-based news excerpt, 19 adolescents (76%) and 18 parents (72%) responded that they felt negatively. For the public health-oriented excerpt, 12 adolescents (48%) and 20 parents (80%) felt positively. Further, over half of participants felt the news articles related to their lived experiences. Our data support that fear-based articles were associated with feelings of sadness and hopelessness, while public health-oriented news articles contributed to positive feelings and perceptions. This finding supports the potential of news media about bullying to serve as a venue for education or empowerment for families.