Young people and television fiction: representations and effects

Abstract

Research on young people and television fiction is a field of study rather unexplored. The attention devoted to children and other television genres, such as information, have been keys of the relative lack of interest that is observed. Since 2000, the appeal of fiction for young people, new technologies and attention dedicated to the processes of construction of social identity in the television, is helping to increase the visibility of this issue. In general, investigations reveal the “appropriation” of contents by this age group, which seems to dominate the narrative conventions and be able to question the plausibility of representations. However, studies also tend to confirm the recurrent association between this typology of characters with sex and leisure, although it is noteworthy that most of the contributions also recognize the educational aspect of the programmes analyzed.