Inspite of the overwhelming heterosexuality of conventional news representations, portrayals of homosexual and lesbian people on tv are becoming significantly more widespread since 1997 whenever Ellen became the initial tv series to own a gay character that is leading. This enhance is seen when you look at the introduction of homosexual figures on numerous programs such as for example Spin City, ER, Dawson’s Creek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, along with implies that concentrate on homosexual figures in leading functions such as for instance Will and Grace and it is All general. In addition, cable channels have actually included shows such as for example Queer as Folk, Six Feet Under, and Oz that depict homosexual figures much more complex plot lines sufficient reason for more explicit sexual actions.
Even though existence of lgbt figures might have increased recently on both commercial broadcast and cable sites, it’s ambiguous just just just how often television addresses the sexual dilemmas and issues of intimate minorities.
As noted earlier in the day, when homosexual and characters that are lesbian been incorporated into programs, they will have frequently been portrayed in asexual contexts. Furthermore, almost all of exactly just what happens to be posted up to now about homosexuality and television happens to be qualitative (including show that is single studies), centering on just how certain programs have actually portrayed homosexual figures. Although many content analyses have actually examined the quantity of sexual content shown on tv generally speaking (Cope Farrar & Kunkel, 2002; Greenberg et al., 1993; Kunkel et al., 1999, 2003; Kunkel, Cope Farrar, Biely, Maynard Farinola, & Donnerstein, 2001; Sapolsky & Tabarlet, 1991; Ward, 1995), none have reported regarding the prevalence of intimate portrayals and speak about sexual dilemmas pertaining to gays, lesbians, or bisexuals.
This paper centers around factors evaluating nonheterosexual content that had been included included in two bigger content analyses examining intimate content more broadly on US tv.
Data through the 2001 2002 and 2002 2003 tv periods are acclimatized to respond to questions concerning the prevalence and regularity of intimate behavior and intimate talk relating to nonheterosexuals. Particularly, the info analyses address two broad research concerns: (1) as to the extent are nonheterosexual intimate themes, especially intimate behavior and discuss sex, present in tv development general and just exactly exactly what habits emerge across system genres, system kinds, and prime time versus nonprime time programming? (2) When nonheterosexual intimate content does take place, what exactly is its regularity and exactly how does it differ across genres, sort of community, and prime time versus nonprime time development?
System Examples
A 3 composite week sampling plan ended up being utilized to acquire two big yearly random types of television programs of best interest to adolescents and therefore were comprehensive on most portions associated with television industry. Programs had been taped from 11 channels 6 commercial broadcast companies (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, UPN, and WB) and 5 cable systems (BET, Cinemax, HBO, MTV, and Showtime). The Steve Harvey Show, Moesha, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, One on One); WB, which tailors its programming to white youth, with programs such as Gilmore Girls, 7th Heaven, Sabrina, and Smallville; and MTV, which shows music videos and other programs (e.g., dating reality shows) watched by many teens and young adults because the content analyses were part of a larger research project on television exposure and adolescent sexuality, several networks were included because of their appeal to young audiences including UPN, which televises a substantial number of programs with young African American characters ( e.g.
Composite week sampling designs have now been utilized in previous analysis that is content to have representative types of tv development (Kunkel et al., 1999, 2001, 2003; Madden & Grube, 1994; Wallack, Grube, Madden, & Breed, 1990; Wilson et al., 1997). This sampling strategy involves arbitrarily picking times of the week or particular time slots for recording over many weeks to cut back prospective bias that might be introduced if all taping had been done within a solitary calendar week. Recording of this test took place mainly more than a 7 week duration into the autumn every year. Because season premiere episodes are staggered through the thirty days of September, we started taping as soon as all nonsyndicated show had been showing episodes through the season straight from the source that is current. Each three different days of the week were randomly selected for taping from all 11 stations, with all seven days of the week represented three times in the sample week. The 8 hour time block for taping extended from 3:00 p.m. (from which time many youth are away from college) to 11:00 p.m. (through prime time). The process of recapturing missed episodes (like those which is why the satellite sign ended up being lost or perhaps the show was pre empted by sporting or other unique events) proceeded for the winter season.