The teen series and the young target. Gender stereotypes in television fiction targeted to teenagers

This paper presents the key results arising from a study about representation of male and female characters of the teen series. The main aim of the study is to build knowledge about the images of young people portrayed in a television show featuring teenagers. The study has consisted in the analysis of the antecedents about gender representation on television fiction and the content analysis of the American teen drama Dawson.s creek. The content analysis was conducted on a representative sample of 18 episodes of three seasons of the series, measuring 29 variables. The key findings on gender role representation are based on physical and social descriptors, personality traits attributed to the characters, and plot-related variables. Among the principal results, it has to be stressed the presence of traditional gender stereotypes within the socio demographical characteristics of the characters, especially the physical and social traits. Copyright © 2011 (Núria García-Muñoz, Maddalena Fedele).