Thesis
TV exposure and parent-child communication about health issues
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2004
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/282
Abstract
Television content might influence how teens think about certain health issues in an indirect way through conversations with their parents. This study analyzed a matched sample of parents’ (N = 410) and children’s (N = 409) recollections of frequency of conversations about health issues (alcohol use, drug use, tobacco use, sex practices and eating habits) they had while the children where in high school. The goal was to examine parent-child conversations about health issues, gender-biased conversations and the influence of parents’ TV exposure on the frequency of conversations they have with their children. The results show that children report talking with their parents about eating habits more than any other health-related topic. When analyzed by gender, girls report having more conversations with their parents across most issues, except for alcohol, where boys report being talked to more frequently than their counterparts. Parents report talking with the same frequency to their sons and daughters across all issues except for sex, where they report talking more to their daughters. Regarding the parents’ TV exposure and the influence this might have on conversations about health issues, this study found that the more TV parents are exposed to, the more they talk about drugs and alcohol to their children, while children of TV viewers report talking less about eating habits. TV news was the genre that showed the strongest relationship with the frequency of parent-child conversations about alcohol, drugs and tobacco, the more TV news parents were exposed to, the more they reported having conversations about those issues. No significant correlation was found for the TV entertainment genre influencing health-related conversations.
Metrics
15 Record Views
Details
- Title
- TV exposure and parent-child communication about health issues
- Creators
- Maria F. Ortega
- Contributors
- Rick W. Busselle (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525182701842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis