{"id":23843,"date":"2014-01-19T12:59:24","date_gmt":"2014-01-19T17:59:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=23843"},"modified":"2014-01-19T12:59:24","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T17:59:24","slug":"tv-as-a-form-of-birth-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/01\/19\/tv-as-a-form-of-birth-control\/","title":{"rendered":"TV as a form of birth control"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s been some noise made about how the “reality TV” show 16 and Pregnant<\/em> has influenced teens to such a degree that the teenage pregnancy rate dropped by a significant figure. Nick Gillespie<\/a> has a few questions about the claims:<\/p>\n

Television: Is there anything it can\u2019t do?<\/p>\n

After decades of being slammed by bluenoses, bureaucrats, and Bruce Springsteen for sexing up and dumbing down the masses, it turns out that the small screen has accomplished what no amount of promise rings, Twilight<\/em> movies, or mandatory banana-on-a-condom classes have managed to do: reduce the number of teenage births.<\/p>\n

At least that\u2019s what the authors of a widely discussed new study say. In \u201cMedia Influences on Social Outcomes: The Impact of MTV\u2019s 16 and Pregnant<\/em> on Teen Childbearing,\u201d (available online for the low, low price of $5.00 from the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists Melissa S. Kearney (University of Maryland) and Phillip B. Levine (Wellesley College) write \u201cThe introduction of 16 and Pregnant<\/em> along with its partner shows, Teen Mom<\/em> and Teen Mom 2<\/em>, led teens to noticeably reduce the rate at which they give birth.\u201d According to their calculations, the shows are responsible for \u201ca 5.7 percent reduction in teen births in the 18 months following [their] introduction.\u201d<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The study is far less interesting for the specific claims it makes about teen birth rates than it is as a variation on persistent attitudes toward cultural production and consumption redolent of Frankfurt School anxieties over media\u2019s impact on the proletariat. In many ways, \u201cMedia Influences on Social Outcomes\u201d is simply the latest echo of the idea that TV, music, movies, novels, and the like don\u2019t simply move audiences to laughter, tears, or contemplation but compel them to act in particular ways.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, we’re all just mindless, easily brainwashed dupes who are being programmed by our media.<\/p>\n

In more doctrinaire versions of Frankfurt School analysis, the producers of content are drivers and audience members are, well, just passengers along for the ride. To their credit, Kearney and Levine aren\u2019t nearly so deterministic, even though they are quick to ascribe causative power to a particular set of programs.<\/p>\n

In 2002\u2019s Is Art Good for Us?<\/em>, University of Tulsa professor Joli Jensen refers to this sort of thinking as an \u201cinstrumental view of culture.\u201d It presumes \u201cthat art is an instrument like medicine or a toxin that can be injected into us and transform us.\u201d This view, says Jensen, \u201cis very tempting because if certain kinds of culture cause bad things in society, then you can change that culture and fix society.\u201d The instrumental view implies formal or informal commissars that must oversee and direct cultural production, making sure more \u201cgood\u201d art is made. After all, you are what you read, or watch, or hear. Morally suspect art leads to crime, chaos, and bad behavior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s been some noise made about how the “reality TV” show 16 and Pregnant has influenced teens to such a degree that the teenage pregnancy rate dropped by a significant figure. Nick Gillespie has a few questions about the claims: Television: Is there anything it can\u2019t do? After decades of being slammed by bluenoses, bureaucrats, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[102,248,42,504],"class_list":["post-23843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","tag-art","tag-realitytv","tag-sociology","tag-teenagers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6cz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23844,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23843\/revisions\/23844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}