Youth tobacco smoking rates are higher now than at any time in the past 17 years. Every day another 3,000 American children and teenagers become regular smokers. Alcohol consumption among adolescents remains at unacceptably high levels. Although teens make up only 16 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 26 percent of all movie admissions. Watching videos is one of America s favorite leisure time activities, with video revenues almost triple that of theatrical box office receipts.
Popular music is the backdrop for much of adolescent life.
Teenagers name music listening as their most preferred non-school activity. For the most part, content analyses have concentrated exclusively on alcohol or tobacco. Few studies have attempted to examine the deeper issues explored in this research, such as the types of characters involved in substance use or the consequences attached to use. A long tradition of empirical research documents the extent to which people s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors are influenced as a function of the frequency with which media portray particular behaviors, their prevalence within specific populations or contexts, and such elements of the portrayal as motives, consequences, and setting. For instance, a recent study of high school students found that frequent talk show viewers dramatically overestimated the frequency of high-risk behaviors, such as teen sexual activity, teen pregnancy, and running away from home.