Open AccessThe Association Between Soap Opera and Music Video Viewing and Fear of Crime in Adolescents
Author(s) -
Kathleen Custers,
Jan Van den Bulck
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
communication research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.915
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1552-3810
pISSN - 0093-6502
DOI - 10.1177/0093650215605152
Subject(s) - seriousness , psychology , fear of crime , opera , mass media , association (psychology) , social psychology , media consumption , advertising , law , business , literature , political science , art , psychotherapist
The potential impact of mass media has been virtually neglected in the study of adolescent fear of crime. This is remarkable, given adolescents’ heavy media consumption and developmental vulnerability. Music videos and soap operas have been completely overlooked in the TV-fear association, even though they have a large adolescent audience and contain a lot of violence. An online survey of 3,372 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years found that the relationship between exposure to soap operas and music videos on the one hand and fear of crime on the other hand was mediated by perceived personal risk of criminal victimization, perceived ability to control crime, and perceived seriousness of crime. Exposure to soap operas and music videos was associated with these cognitive factors of fear. Some relationships differed by age and sex. Our findings suggest that the age of 14 to 15 is pivotal for the development of media-induced fear.
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