Since 2009, when shows such as “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom” aired, there have been many debates as to whether these shows condoned or condemn the behavior of teen pregnancy. The shows looked at the lives of teenage girls during their pregnancy and in the following years afterwards. In The Media’s Glamorization of Teen Pregnancy, author, Briana Bosworth, suggest that these MTV shows do not accurately depict how a teen mother’s life would be, and that they create celebrities out of the teens on the show. Bosworth is not alone in her stance as the comparison of the salaries and lifestyles of the teen moms to those who are unrecognized teen mothers yield to the same conclusion that MTV has glamorized the life of a teen mother.
According to an article by Katy Hall, in 2010, the stars of teen mom average salary were between $60,000 to $65,000 each season (Hall). Even if a teen mother worked a part time job that paid twenty-four dollars an hour, she would still only make $23,040 a year. In 2010, the poverty guideline for a household of two, say a mother and child, was $14,570 (The HHS). That means that a single mother would be living barely above the poverty line, even with a well paying part time job. MTV’s glamorization of teen pregnancy is exposed in just the salaries of these mothers alone. None of the episodes show how the mothers would have to struggle to make ends meet, on the contrary most show more emotional struggles that the mothers have to go through when dealing with their relationships with the people in their lives. These shows give a false representation of how a teen pregnancy would affect a girl’s life because they only show the psychological and physical struggles without addressing how in real life the mother wou...
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Erica Zhang Professor Nelson Intro to Mass Media & Communications 3/11/2013 Media Analysis Assignment In today’s media, the sexualisation of women has unfortunately also extended to young preteen girls, through a myriad of detrimental social constructs and internalized prejudices spanning centuries. The commodification of their sexuality is unnerving, as it encourages predators to project their fantasies onto unwilling participants that are too young to understand the nature of these harmful actions, and know how to escape or refuse them. In an attempt to shed light onto this issue as a concerned parent, Rachael Combe wrote the article Little Girls Gone Wild as a response to this sudden boom in increasingly sexualised behavior among and towards preteens. While her intentions remain sincere and her concerns as a mother legitimate, the article is flawed in the sense that she is not delving deeper into the causes behind this phenomenon, shaming the young girls for indulging in their outward appearances and for participating in a role that society has forced them into, instead of the predators that reinforce this sexualised image and make it something to be desired and aspired to.
Teen Mom II is the second incarnation of MTV's number one rated reality series 16 and Pregnant. The show documents the lives of four teenage mothers as they struggle to cope with the burden of childrearing in a financially demanding society while trying to navigate through the journey of adolescence. Once catering to a music oriented teenage consumer, MTV has reinvented itself as a teen reality television powerhouse, with many of its reality shows, including Teen Mom II, consistently dominating in the ratings. Although advertisers eagerly race to gain the attention of the much sought after 18-49 demographic, critics question the stereotypes that may be reinforced through the television program and the negative sociological effects, the show could have on its viewers.
The District of Columbia is the 23rd most population city in the United States with a population of 658,893 (Census). According to UNICEF, teen pregnancy is defined as “A teenage girl, usually within the ages of 13-19, becoming pregnant” ((Link 1). Nationally in the United States, there has been a steady decline of teen pregnancy within the past decade. However, it is not occurring in the District of Columbia, specifically Southeast DC (Ward 7 and 8) which includes areas such as: Lincoln Heights, Twining, Anacostia and Woodland. As of 2011, DC was ranked number nine in the nation for the highest rate of teen pregnancy. For the total amount of births, only 908 were from young women who were below the age of 20 in Washington DC. About 879 were from young women that were around high school ages 15-19. Specifically, Southeast DC is a low-income area, with approximately ¼ of teen mothers going on welfare within three years after their child’s birth (Link 2). As of 2012, out of the 790 births from teenage mothers, more than half, or 457 of the births mainly occurred in the Southeast DC area (Link4). This area has been plagued through various social determinants of health. This includes having repeated cycles of poverty, lack of comprehensive sexual education, especially in regards to contraception and a lot of violence occurring as a result of crimes. Ward 7 has approximately 95% of its citizens being Black and 2.3% of their citizens are Hispanic(Link 5). While in Ward 8 have about 94% of their citizens that are Black and 1.8% are Hispanic. Between both wards, about 63% of households including both Blacks and Hispanics are living below the federal poverty line and about 37% of births from the 2010 census were from teenage mothers. Abo...
This essay will look at the different ways in which young people are portrayed in the media. It will focus on how the idea of childhood innocence has been challenged by the media and rather than ‘little angels’ children are now seen as ‘little devils’ in the public eye. By looking at ‘The Bulger Case of 1993’ we can see where the idea of ‘little devils’ and children as evil beings began. It will examine why media stories of young people are focused much more on negative aspects such as crime and gang culture rather than positive ones. It will also look at how television programmes such as ‘Teen Mom’ and ‘Skins’ portray the youth of today and whether these programmes come across as a positive or negative portrayal of teenagers. The idea of a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ will also be examined and whether the way the media portrays children can be harmful to the construction of their identities and possibly lead to alienation.
Today I will be talking about the way the authors and creators of a television commercial and newspaper article influence us to their opinion by writing the way they do. The topic that I am studying is Teenage Pregnancy. This topic is always going to be in the media for different reasons, and occasionally you hear about a story of a young girl getting pregnant due to un-safe sex. There will always be issues with this subject within society because so many people have different opinions and views of this topic and weather or not it right or wrong.
I can recall a time when the media was influencing my life and actions. The week after I graduated high school, my girlfriends and I took a trip to Cancun, Mexico, where the MTV beach house was located that summer. As I look back on the week of drunken partying and sexy guys, I can only wonder how I made it home alive. How could any young woman find this behavior acceptable? Every young woman there was flaunting their bodies to the young men around them. They were proud to be sexual objects. Where did they learn such debauchery? This is the kind of woman that is portrayed throughout MTV and various other aspects of the media. They have even coined the term “midriff”—the highly sexual character pitched at teenage girls that increasingly populates today’s television shows—in order to hook the teen customer. Teenage women increasingly look to the media to provide them with a ready-made identity predicated on today’s version of what’s “cool.” The media is always telling us that we are not thin enough, we’re not pretty enough, we don’t have the right friends, or we have the wrong friends… we’re losers unless we’re cool. We must follow their example and show as much skin as possible. The type of imagery depicted by MTV-- as well as people like Howard Stern, the famous “Girls Gone Wild” videos, and various Hip Hop songs—glorifies sex and the provocative woman.
Red and blue lights are flashing and the noise of the ambulance impels everyone to a point where they have to look outside and observe the situation, as if a mystical force was compelling them. From what they can see, the paramedic is holding a tiny hand telling her to hold on. As the stretcher rolls by, the onlookers notice a huge lump, or ball as a few may say, under the pallid cotton covers. What they also take note of is that the pregnant woman is not a woman at all, but in fact a teenager. As some are astounded that a child is being born from a child, others possibly will look at it as a “blessing in disguise.” The issue of teenage pregnancy is affecting our society in innumerable ways and has become one of our top social issues of all time. “The latest estimates show that approximately 1 million teens become pregnant every year” (East, Felice, and Associates 1). With this high number of teenage pregnancy, it is no wonder that many authors try to exemplify this common subject matter. Katrina L. Burchett, author of Choices, accurately and effectively depicts teenage pregnancy among female adolescents living with domestic issues.
Mtv hopes that younger people understand that its difficult to take care of a baby and will wait to start families. Enjoy your teen years, avoid peer pressure and the responsibilities that come with being a parent to early. Most of the teen moms barely graduate or get any type of job training. Basically it’s hard to take care of a baby.
Altogether, I think that Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant are not giving us the realistic views of young pregnancy and life after. These shows are not showing a good example for young girls out there. With all of the teen pregnancy our world has now, it is important that teens are taught the dangers and consequences of what could happen if they get pregnant. Instead of glamorizing teen pregnancy, the shows should have made these girls’ lives and situations more realistic so that young viewers would have a better understanding of what could actually happen
Around 200,000 children are born to teen mothers around the age of fifteen to nineteen. With teen pregnancy, sixty percent of them result in birth. Eight in ten of the fathers don’t marry the mother and pay less than eight hundred dollars in child care due to being poor himself. School is a problem as teen mothers will drop out and have a harder time finding a job. How society looks at teen mothers is also a problem. Three effects being a teen mother are: education, source of income, and medical complications.
Teenage pregnancy has always been present in society. There is research stating that about half the women, born between 1900- 1910, who were interviewed were non-virginal at marriage (17 Ravoira). This contradicts some thoughts that premarital sexual behavior is something new. There was another study done in 1953, it found that one fifth of all first births to women were conceived before marriage (17 Ravoira). Even before our modern openness in discussing sexual behavior and acceptance that it does occur, it was quite routine. In earlier society, the incidence of teenage pregnancy was a moral problem. This was because people looked at the child as filius nullius (nobody's child), or illegitimate and the mother as bad, immoral, over- sexed, etc. (18 Ravoira). The child was being blamed for mearly being born, this is unfair to the child who had no fault in the matter (18 Ravoira). The real problem that was seen was the fact that the children were born out-of-wedlock. People seemed to have real difficulty accepting that the baby is still a baby no matter what conditions it was born under.
Unarguably, teenage pregnancy is menace to society and detrimental to the teenage mother, father and families involved (Danawi, Bryant, & Hasbini, 2016, p. 28). Schools provide a perfect setting for sex education and implementation of teenage pregnancy prevention programs. However, there is great controversy in regards sex education and approaches to teenage pregnancy prevention fueled by parents’ preferences and opinions on sex education in schools. (Constantine, Jerman, & Huang, 2007, p. 167). Despite the controversy, a course or a class on reducing teenage pregnancy should be based on a comprehensive sex education which includes contraceptive use rather than being
The concept of comprehensive social intervention has been defined as the process of identifying social problems in an attempt to eradicate them. In looking at the broad range of social characteristics and the behavior associated with teen pregnancy, it is obvious that the emphases placed on the effort to recognize and alleviate teen pregnancy can be celebrated through the effectiveness of education, family planning, and abstinence. However, the attempt to analyze and deal with the cause-and-effect relationship with teen pregnancy is an attempt in understanding the social world itself. In 2006, statistics show that there was a significant increase in teen pregnancy after a decade long decrease. The potential for understanding this increase motivates us to look beyond simple explanations for cause-and-effect behavior and to look at what interactions may be occurring between variables that result in specific behaviors or social conditions. What is it that influences behavior? In looking at teen pregnancy in the realm of the family, it is evident that a large number of family structures have evolved, or perhaps devolved, into a variety of combinations which challenge responsible parents to consistently expose their children to the role models and the types of behaviors that are important for their children to emulate as they mature. People are molded by circumstances and experiences, all of which can positively or negatively influence our behavior.
Is teen pregnancy a significant problem? There needs to be a change in teens decision’s on pregnancy. In today’s society, teen girls are getting pregnant because it is the new trend. In which, there are too many teen girls getting pregnant and dropping out of school because they are not able to care for the baby the way they should, reality television shows reveal sexual content in media, and teens are spreading STD’s because of unprotected sex.