Beyond effects: Adolescents as active media users

Intense‐personal celebrity worship and body image: Evidence of a link among female adolescents

“…Increasingly, researchers have moved away from the simplistic idea that mere 'exposure' to media is enough by itself to trigger body image disturbance and eating disorders. This is consistent with research that treats media audiences as active users and meaning-makers rather than passive recipients of mediated stimuli (Arnett, Larson, & Offer, 1995;Giles, 2003;Livingstone, 1998). For example, Harrison (1997) included in her study a measure of attraction towards thin celebrities that predicted all the measures of eating disorder symptomology and body image disturbance in her undergraduate sample.…”

Media Internalization and Social Comparison as Predictors of Eating Pathology Among Latino Adolescents: The Moderating Effect of Gender and Generational Status

“…During adolescence, importance is placed on peer relationships, societal norms, and gender-role identification (Ata et al 2007;Klaczynski et al 2004). Since the media serve as a strong source of information about cultural norms and ideals (Arnett et al 1995;Strasburger and Donnerstein 2000;Ward 1995), adolescent boys and girls often look to the media for information about their role and value in society in an attempt to become what would be considered most socially desirable (Clay et al 2005;Pope et al 2000;Thompson et al 1999).…”

Catalan adolescents’ media uses and leisure preferences related to new media and television

“…First, we applied the concept of the active audience, that is an audience capable of understanding, decoding and interpreting media texts (e.g., Fiske 1987;Hall 1999;McQuail 1997), to current teenagers, who are active and frequent users of traditional and new media (Arnett et al 1995).…”