El espectador adolescente. Una aproximación a cómo contribuye la televisión en la construcción del yo

Abstract

This article is a reflection on the path followed by recent studies on the vast, unknown juvenile audiences, and on what has been known about their modalities of consumption, and the results of our own investigation on the contributions of television in the construction of self identity (knowledge, opinion and action). The latest studies about teenage audiences usually focus their investigations on two main issues: teenagers and new technologies and the relation between consumption of health harmful products, such as alcohol, tobacco and drugs, and tv viewing. Even though there's a certain uniformity in juvenile tv viewing of fiction, music and, more recently, the info-shows, it's still difficult for tv programmers to approach this target consumer. From our own investigation we found that the teenagers do consider television-watching as escape for entretainment, without depreciating its use for information. They also deny that tv influences their opinions about things, and although they admit that tv suggets certain attitudes to face some social problems, it dosen't really help them to behave concretely.