Intimacy in Television Programs: Adolescents’ Perception

Abstract

Despite the negative criticism leveled at them, certain television genres which treat intimate problems and issues as a kind of spectacle may also help adolescents learn how to cope with interpersonal situations and gain awareness of key social problems. This study focuses on examining the arguments that adolescents use to explain their possible participation (or lack of participation), either as guests or members of the audience, in Celebrity Gossip Shows (Salsa Rosa) and Talk Shows (Diario de Patricia), within the interpretative framework of Turiel’s theory (2002). To this end, interviews were conducted with adolescents from the Basque Autonomous Region and the answers given were grouped into three domains: conventional, moral or private. The results found show that the vast majority would not consider attending these programs for private reasons, and when asked to think in what hypothetical case they would consider participating, any change of opinion was always «Diario de Patricia» or almost always «Salsa Rosa» prompted by moral motives. All of those who said they would participate in the two programs justified their answer using conventional arguments. We can conclude that the adolescents participating in the study continue to value personal privacy, even in association with certain television programs in which the limits between private and public are transgressed..