Sexualization of Female Adolescents in Music Videos

Presenter Information

Lauren Finley, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Amber McHugh, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Location

CSU Ballroom

Start Date

16-4-2013 2:00 PM

End Date

16-4-2013 4:00 PM

Student's Major

Psychology

Student's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mentor's Name

Eric Sprankle

Mentor's Department

Psychology

Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Second Mentor's Name

Shelby Afflerbach

Second Mentor's Department

Psychology

Second Mentor's College

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Description

The sexualization of female adolescents has become a concern for media viewers in the last decade. Young girls in the media are being seen as sexual objects as opposed to being seen as independent people with defined characteristics. The current study presents a content analysis that analyzes participants’ (N=31) sexual ratings of six music videos featuring adolescent female artists.

Preliminary statistical analysis found that five out of the six videos were not rated as sexualizing for the artists. However, one video was rated to be sexualizing on several levels including: solo dancing, clothing, body language, environment, and videography (e.g., camera angles). These findings were interesting as the video that was found to be sexualizing is the only video that could be categorized as a rap video and is the only video with an African American artist. The videos will continue to be rated throughout the semester in order to obtain a larger sample size.