Adolescent room culture: Studying media in the context of everyday life

For the past several years, the authors have been investigating adolescent room culture in order to learn more about the relationship between teens and the media. The bedroom, they have found, is an important haven for most teenagers, a private, personal space often decorated to reflect teens' emerging sense of themselves and where they fit in the larger culture. Teens listen to music, read magazines, watch television, do homework, and consider the events of the day in their rooms. They appropriate and transform media messages and images to help them make sense of their lives. By looking closely at how teens draw from the media as they construct their identities and personal worlds, the authors have come to see adolescent media use as a dialectical process played out through everyday practices. Their Adolescents' Media Practice Model highlights the connections between adolescents' identities and media selection, interaction, and application.An earlier draft was presented at the Society for Research on Adolescence conference in San Diego, California, February 1994.Received M.S. in television-radio from the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. Research focus is on the relationship between the media and public health.Received Ph.D. in mass communication from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Research focus is on adolescent health and mass media.