Sociétés et Jeunesses en Difficulté (Dec 2011)
Contenus médiatiques à risque et construction identitaire des préadolescents
Abstract
Some pre-teens early proclaim their taste for media contents (TV and videogames especially) that they consider as violent. In the schools ZEP (Priority Education Zone), this tendency becomes the main one in the first year of junior high school (6th grade in France). Could it serve as a rite of passage? In the modern societies characterized by self expression, understanding of others, sensitivity, respect of the right, could these contents produce an integration of the pre-teens to global society? The systematic recourse to multiple transgression forms in media undertakings is actually related to commercial strategies that try to involve young people, relying on their desire of opposition against adults and institutions rather than to a will to integrate them to global society. When one looks at the identity shaping of pre-teens who love violent TV programs, one notices that they are overexposed to risky contents that are high rated. Their taste tends to be normalized, and they show certain signs of intolerance toward people who don’t share it; they move away from academic dispositions. The development of this taste, at this early age, can make their integration in the global society more complicated. The results in this article are drawn from a survey done between June 2006 and June 2007, which examined 1142 children in their final year of elementary school (5th grade in France), and in their first year of junior high school (6th grade in France), 40% of them studying in a ZEP, in five different regions of France.
