Are there social stereotypes in teenagers' viewing habits?

Abstract

Our general aim is to analyze whether television viewing habits contribute to defining the meaning of gender in a sample of 577 teenagers (270 boys and 307 girls) from the Basque Autonomous Region. With the aim of establishing the participants' television viewing habits, the answers to the CTV (Television Habits Questionnaire) were grouped according to various indicators. The results show that television reproduces social gender stereotypes and may contribute to their perpetuation. Furthermore, the female teenagers are the most exposed group to contents with an explicit lack of distinction between private and public life, and between the most conventional values and the personal ones.