Abstract:
Sexual development is one of the challenges that teenagers encounter during adolescence
(Tulloch & Kaufman, 2013). According to experts, it is extremely important to impart sexual
education among young adults in order to prevent dangerous sexual behaviors which might result
in unprotected sexual activity leading to unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted
diseases (Bell, 2009; Borawski, Tufts, Trapl, Hayman, Yoder & Lovegreen, 2015; Tulloch &
Kaufman, 2013; UNESCO, 2018; E. Hebron and S. Hebron, 2017). In addition, given that media
has been found to be a main source of sexual information among adolescents and increasing
evidence reveals that sexual talk and behavior on the media contribute to sexual socialization
among young adults (Collins, et al., 2004, Eyal & Kunkel, 2008; Ward, 2002), based on social
learning theory that suggests that behaviors are learned through observation (Bandura, 2001;
2009), it is important to analyze the sexual messages to which adolescents are exposed to. The
purpose of this content analysis is to examine sexual messages portrayals in the media,
specifically in the first season of the show “Sex Education” that aired on Netflix on 2019.
Results demonstrate that sexual messages are highly frequent in this show: 100% of the episodes
depicted sexual talk, and 88% of the episodes depicted sexual behavior. Only eight scenes in all
episodes included risks and responsibility messages. The content analysis findings are discussed
in terms of their implications for audience effects. |
