Examining the Effect of Celebrity Status on Tolerance for the Sexualization of a Teen Girl in the Media: An Experiment

Celebrity teenage girls are routinely sexualized in the media, but it is unclear whether these depictions are tolerable because it is relatively more socially acceptable to exploit celebrities. This study presents the results of an experiment comparing readers’ ( N  = 237) responses to two nearly id...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sexuality & culture 2024-04, Vol.28 (2), p.813-824
Main Authors: Ghani, Samaha, Cohen, Elizabeth L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Actors
Adolescents
Celebrities
Children & youth
Content analysis
Culture
Experiments
Fame
Females
Girls
Mass media images
Original Article
Personality and Social Psychology
Psychology
Regional and Cultural Studies
Sexuality
Sexualization
Social Sciences
Teenagers
Tolerance
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Celebrity teenage girls are routinely sexualized in the media, but it is unclear whether these depictions are tolerable because it is relatively more socially acceptable to exploit celebrities. This study presents the results of an experiment comparing readers’ ( N  = 237) responses to two nearly identical versions of a fashion article sexualizing a teen girl identified as either a celebrity or non-celebrity. Even though participants in both conditions correctly identified the teen as being a minor, they deemed the article that sexualized a non-celebrity as being more inappropriate than the same article sexualizing a celebrity. However, perceptions of fame did not mediate this effect.
ISSN:1095-5143
1936-4822
DOI:10.1007/s12119-023-10147-2