Too much too young...child sexualisation and the mass media

[flowerofGod]

Hello
I am an undergraduate student writing a dissertation on whether the mass media (television, magazines, internet etc) contributes to the sexualisation of children. Sexualisation of children is the idea that children are being exposed to sexualised imagery through television, internet etc.

I am writing asking for your help, please can you complete the following three questions about your opinions and how these issues affect you as parents. It is completely anonymous; your online identities will be kept secret however please note that confidentiality will only be guaranteed in so far as no harm to anyone else or illegal activities are disclosed in this thread.
Your responses will only be used in my work and after this they will be destroyed and deleted. Apart from me, my supervisor and markers will be the only other people to see your responses in my work.

You can withdraw anytime, to do so just send me a message in which case your questionnaire results would not be used in my study. Please no sensitive information such as names or pictures.

The questions are:

1. What are your opinions concerning television adverts and programmes aimed at children aged?

        7-10

       10-13

       13-15

1. Do you believe that your children's attitudes and behaviour about themselves could be affected by a television adverts' portrayal of sexuality?

1. Do you think that there is enough being done to deal with this issue?

Thank you very much for helping me.

Hello. Saw your post in Unanswered threads so thought I'd give it a go.

I'm not sure your questions are the right approach to get people talking about this. I fear it might be a bit vague, but closed questions too. There have been hundreds of threads on MN about sexualisation of children through media and generally it's considered to be a very bad thing. Obviously.

I'm not sure I could break TV programmes into thos three age ranges.

Question 2. No one TV advert is going to affect a child's attitude, it's accumulative.

1. No, there's not enough being done but do you really want yes / no answers?

As for no one else seeing the response and it being torn up afterwards, this is a public forum on the internet....

1. Like answer above, couldn't break down adverts beyond younger children and older children.

1. Of course they could.

1. No. But you're not likely to get many yesses from people who care about this subject enough to answer a questionnaire about it. In fact it makes me want to put yes, just cos I feel you're looking for a 'no' so you can say something like '98% of parents think not enough is being done about this'.

agree with previous posters: the questions are too vague

particularly question 1:

1. What are your opinions concerning television adverts and programmes aimed at children aged?

7-10

10-13

13-15

How do you mean what is my opinion? That you shouldn't have adverts aimed at children of a particular age group or that you shouldn't have television programmes aimed at them or that there is something wrong with the adverts/programmes currently aimed at them?

If the answer you wanted was related to sexualisation, that should have been mentioned in the question and the question should have been far more specific.

Your questions 2&3 are too leading
And qi too long,and necessarily answerable by all eg if children not in that age range then it's hard to def say

Good luck with studies

Oh dear we haven't been very helpful have we

I'm trying to think what you really need for your dissertation. Is it quotes from parents?

Have you seen this Mumsnet campaign?
www.mumsnet.com/campaigns/let-girls-be-girls

There's quite a lot of discussion on the subject on this site, so I'm sure you'll find something.

I think it's good that you've also clearly considered things like data protection and confidentiality, and this thread is a good example of how it's not always straightforward to apply your academic knowledge to real life - I mean, do you really think someone on here would be posting pictures???

Either way, don't let us scare you off, come back and tell us what you really need to know.