Sampling Television Programs for Content Analysis of Sex on TV: How Many Episodes are Enough?(Report‪)‬

Researchers regularly conduct studies of sexual content on television using content analysis methods. Content analyses of television programs typically are conducted to examine what sexual messages people are exposed to (e.g., Kunkel, Eyal, Finnerty, Biely, & Donnerstein, 2005; Collins et al., 2004; Pardun, L'Engle, & Brown, 2005) and to explore cultural norms about sex (e.g., Ward, 1995). These studies make important contributions to our understanding of the kinds of sexual messages to which adolescents may be exposed by systematically analyzing a dominant medium for youth: television. Analyses of television's messages about sexuality often are driven by the assumption that television acts as a kind of "super peer" as youth acquire knowledge, information, and beliefs about who is sexual, when it is appropriate to behave sexually, and the risks and responsibilities of becoming sexually active. These assumptions are likely justified. In 2000, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that, among 1,510 12- to 18-year-olds, 23% reported television and movies as providing "a lot" of information about pregnancy and birth control (in Strasburger & Wilson, 2002). Moreover, recent analyses of prime time television programs do indeed indicate that sexual content is prevalent, appearing in 70% of prime-time television programs (Kunkel et al., 2005), and recent media effects studies find that sexual content is associated with sexual behavior patterns (Brown, L'Engle, Pardun, Guo, Kenneavy, & Jackson, 2006; Collins et al., 2004). Television content may be considered, and analyzed, many ways, depending on the theoretical framework underlying the questions. For example, researchers working from Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977) would argue that it is most important to examine the characters with which adolescent audiences identify, as studies have shown that viewers are more likely to imitate a character's behavior if they identify with that character. In this case, a character-based analysis--one that tracks one or more focal teen characters' relationships and sexual behaviors--is appropriate. In addition (or alternatively), one may work from a theoretical perspective that suggests that the prevalence of behaviors and the consequences of those behaviors are important to assess for their potential impact on teen sexuality. A theory such as the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) would privilege behavior-level variables as appropriate elements of the program to study.