Investigating Critical Media Literacy As a Potential Antidote to Attitudes Related to Intimate Partner Violence Among Black Adolescents

Background: Mainstream media use has emerged as a significant predictor of higher acceptance of intimate partner violence (IPV). Efforts to understand this connection indicate that stereotypical racial and gender beliefs may be at play, as they are common in the media and are linked with IPV acceptance. Because IPV rates show consistent racial disparities between Black youth and their white counterparts, and Black youth also consume the highest rates of media across platforms, it is an urgent racial justice issue that we identify both the mechanisms involved and potential buffers.

Accordingly, this study investigated critical media literacy (CML; i.e., a set of skills related to the analysis and interpretation of media content) as a predictor of three constructs that have been found to be associated with the acceptance and perpetration of IPV. These three ideologies include: traditional gender roles, normative beliefs about proper behaviors for men and women; sexual objectification, the belief that women are passive sex objects; and two stereotypes that represent Black women as hypersexual (i.e., the Jezebel) and aggressive (i.e., the Sapphire). Among Black adolescents, we tested whether media use and CML predict beliefs associated with IPV acceptance.

Methods: Data were collected from a sample of 94 Black adolescents ages 15-19 (M=17.38, 80.9% girls, 67% high school students) using a cross-sectional survey design. Participants completed scales reflecting their weekly exposure to music videos (3 items) and television (3 items). The three ideologies were assessed via Teten et al.’s (2005) modified Sex Role Stereotyping Scale, the Jezebel and Sapphire subscales from the Stereotypic Roles of Black Women Scale (Townsend et al., 2010), and Ward (2002)’s Women Are Sexual Objects subscale. CML was measured with a modified version of Bindig’s (2009) Media Literacy Index. Linear regression was used to test critical media literacy skills as a predictor of sexual objectification, endorsement of the Jezebel and Sapphire stereotypes, and traditional gender roles.

Results: Participants reported a mean of 28.97 hours of weekly television exposure and 25.32 hours of weekly music video exposure. Pearson correlations showed significant associations between music video exposure and more accepting attitudes toward IPV. As expected, greater support of each of the three gender and racial stereotypes was associated with greater IPV acceptance. CML scores significantly predicted weaker endorsement of stereotypes about Black women, b = –.32, t(92) = -3.19, p<.005, but greater support of traditional gender roles, b =.27, t(90)=2.67, p<.05.

Conclusions and Implications: These findings suggest that CML may mitigate greater endorsement of stereotypes about Black women but may also strengthen endorsement of traditional gender roles. Future scholarship should replicate this work with a larger sample that will afford statistical equation modeling to better understand critical media literacy’s relationship to media exposure and ideological beliefs. This study brings CML into scholarship that has largely ignored media’s role in adolescent IPV experiences, particularly among Black adolescents. As social workers work to develop effective interventions for adolescent IPV, more work must explore mainstream media as an instigator of specific racial and gender beliefs.