Congratulations to Elliana Lamprianidou and her colleagues on their publication! As part of her PhD, Elliana explored how the media talks about adolescent sexting, and how that storytelling influences parents. Her study compared a “deviance” discourse (which considers sexting as a danger for adolescents) with a “normalcy” discourse (which considers sexting as a part of teenage intimacy) to see how it shaped the reactions of over 300 Belgian parents.

The findings reveal that reading a more balanced, “normalcy” article helped parents adopt more positive attitudes. For parents who feel pressure to be a “perfect parent,” this balanced media framing significantly lowered their urge to resort to controlling or overprotective tactics. On the other hand, parents with stronger traditional beliefs reported more negative parenting practices regardless of the media framing, while the gender of the teenager didn’t impact the findings. This study underscores that the way the media frames teen sexuality has a powerful, real-world impact on how parents react at home.

Want to know more? You can read the paper here or download it!