Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas

Facultad de Ciencias y Educación

Licenciatura en Educación Básica con Énfasis en Inglés
IV Encuentro Bi-Universitario de Futuros Maestros de Lenguas Extranjeras sobre Investigación Formativa
e Innovación Pedagógica
Research Proposal: EFL Class: Teenagers talk about sexuality in Mass Media
Shannon E. Casallas - Francisco G. Rodríguez
Bogotá D.C., Octubre 16 de 2015
______________________________________________________________________

EFL Class: Teenagers talk about sexuality in Mass Media.

Abstract

This proposal rises from the inquiring about teenagers’ sexuality and how this is shaped by Mass Media
using as pedagogical alternative English as foreign language. By using a foreign language a democratic
practice can be experienced inside the classroom and meaningful learning can be constructed starting
from a sociocultural view of learning. Thus, this research project welcomes the guidelines proposed by
the M.E.N. with the “Educative Program for Sexuality and Public Construction” that includes a
pedagogical approach to form critic individuals, experience a democratic practice and innovation in
teaching sexuality. The general objective is to describe the answers gotten from the teenagers regarding
imaginaries, identities and stereotypes based on their reflection of audiovisual discourses.
Consequently, carry out an applied research with teenagers in an academic context allows us to obtain
data from the students. Additionally, the research model adopted in this research is qualitative and
follows the approach named Applied Research. Grounded Theory will be the methodology to analyze
the data provided by the participants. Freud’s and Lacan’s work will shape the theoretical framework
and will guide the examination of the answers given by the participants to categorize them following a
psychoanalytical model about the sexual concepts that teenagers find in audiovisual communication.

Purpose of the presentation

The purpose of this presentation is socialize our research project in a scientific community in order to
receive feedback taking into account numerous and diverse points of view around educational
experiences related to sexuality as content in an FL classroom. We think that the best way to nurture
our research and foster the understandings that be useful for this purpose is to share our standpoints
and confront them in a space where FL teachers can provide us with some instruments and perspectives
from their own experiences and knowledge on how teenagers express their feelings and opinions in
relation to their self-awareness in topics such as: body perception, sexual development, relationships
(inter and intra), and identity.
 Problem addressed

Our research inquiries about how Mass Media shapes teenagers’ sexuality and their understanding
about it. Hence, the main purpose of this research is to provide answers to the question: What is the
impact of Mass Media in teenager’s sexuality? In order to find out the impact of the Mass Media on
teenagers’ sexuality, two questions guide the research: 1) how do teenagers respond to Mass Media
discourses about sexuality? and, 2) how teenagers shape their understandings about sexuality under the
influence of Mass Media?

Lastly, the information obtained with this research and the questions that guide it will provide
understanding about how the FL class can include topics such as sexuality to enhance the experience
and provide new resources to the teaching of a foreign language.

Theoretical considerations

Following our purpose we build a theoretical framework in order to observe and find out the ways in
which teenagers use and obtain gratification from audiovisual discourses, in fact, students have filters or
boundaries that allow them to select how the mass media's messages could be useful for their own
goals. This framework is constructed from the psychoanalytic tradition in authors such as Freud (1905),
and Žižek (1994) who state notions that explain teenagers’ development in the sexual dimension.
Specifically in Žižek whose audiovisual discourse is impregnated with views of human sexuality.

Human being’s sexuality is an evolutionary process that is determined by stages and these stages in turn
depend of the external environment and the internal reactions product of stimulus for its constitution.
With the audiovisual discourses going every time broader respect their scope and deeper in relation to
the issues they transmit that seem to have no boundary, the human being is not only exposed to the
diverse content that exploits the needs of the individual no matter their nature: relaxation,
entertainment, sex, behavior, help, knowledge and so on; he is also a participant because is in what the
individual decides to use and how he uses it that the gratification comes. Although, the content
presented in the audiovisual discourse has a main purpose regarding consumption, it’s the sexual ideas
ready-made and transmitted what concern us in this reach and the possible impact these messages have
on teenagers in the development and understanding of their sexuality.

The stage that concerns us is sexuality in teenagers that haven’t reached yet adulthood and that in legal
terms are included in what is understood as childhood. This childhood is often assumed from different
perspectives such as affective, mental, physical, academic, etc. although the one that concerns us is the
sexual dimension of the individual. This sexuality goes beyond the intercourse to recognize the intra and
inter relationships of the human being in search of the knowledge about himself inside a multifaceted
social space with which has constant interaction and which might or not contribute to the individual’s
sexual construction (at least during the firsts and lasts stages)

Freud states in his three essays about sexuality, in the third chapter entitled “The metamorphosis of
puberty” (1905), that in the puberty stage, the teenager goes under a sexual evolution that includes not
only the complete development of genitalia and the internal sex organs also but the search of outside
objects, sexual objects that provide “the preliminary pleasure” and the consequent “pleasure of
satisfaction”. Is in this section that we meet with Freud in one of the ideas that give rise to this research;
that the subject during puberty is in pursuit of sexual arousal and is excited by external factors that
provide him with pleasure by fulfilling the fantasies and offer consummation to the sexual needs, the
definite ecstasies is the expulsion of “full reproductive products”

Following the Freudian idea of sexuality in teenagers, unlike childhood the pleasure is not found when
touching and stimulating the genital area but in obtaining pleasure by the increasing sexual tension in
certain situations that include contact between the individual and the sexual object and the culmination
of the exchange by the release of the full reproductive products. Whereas, the idea that concerns us
here is the construction of the sexual tension –sexual arousal- is this idea that comes from the
psychoanalysis theory which allows us the possibility to examine this stage not completely from the
individual’s perspective but from the external entities that provide the elements to satisfy the sexual
needs.

Along puberty not only the hands are useful for exploration to discover erogenous zones; the other
senses are added since these become utensils to get sexual arousal and satisfaction. What the individual
finds in the external world (consider external word everything that is not the individual) has the
possibility to affect and mold the sexuality in short and long terms. This outside world, to which the
teenager belongs to, is grounded on natural conditions that highlight the diversity in human sexuality;
we must consider how the sexual freedom has increased gradually over the past decades showing that
sexuality is not a white and black issue but a complexity of the human being. The nature is then a market
where the individuals find what they are looking for in a conscious or unconscious process. This quest
has as purpose to find the sexual object (this understood as individuals, objects, situations, and so on)
that provides pleasure without the need of intercourse in all the possible scenarios, real or not.

However, is in this nature and the ways it is used that the possibility of individual’s sexuality being
molded by audiovisual discourse and transformed to satisfy the individual or put him in a state of
discomfort, doubt and insecurity about his own sexuality becomes real. What the individual uses to
satisfy the natural needs and how he uses those resources from the outside world have an impact in a
conscious and unconscious level that change the perceptions and subverts the current state of sexuality.

The "uses and gratifications" approach

In relation to a model to interpret how mass media shapes the teenagers sexuality we found as an
useful resource the “uses” approach that regards the audience point of view of communication process.
In this manner, develop a window to observe sexuality as a phenomenon of inquiry. First, we define the
“uses” approach from its pioneer. Then we define communication as a model to understand the
interaction between individuals and media. And, lastly we examine the principles that guide this
approach regarding some possible gratifications in the use of media.

In order to state the way that the mass media is interpreted in this paper, we introduce the “uses”
approach. This theory was developed by Elihu Katz who argues that an actual media research should ask
for “what do people do with the media?” (1959). This point of view switches the traditional model which
asks about the influence of mass media in spite of asking about how people get gratification and shape
the media. For instance, the internet as a resource can provide gratifications for each user from its
personalized setting. We know (from our own experience) that each interface in the internet can be
adapted to specific uses and necessities creating a particular manner to surf and obtain useful
information and also promoting several ways of communication . This view regards that mass media do
not have influence on an individual who do not use them for social and psychological factors. So, values,
interests, groups, social roles are behind the impact over the audience.

Following this argument, we find that communication media is employed by social groups which have
influence over the individuals through the establishment of roles in the community. “The key to the
newer approach is in the prior selection of significant social and psychological variables” (Katz, 1959, p
3) this fact implies that each function in mass media should be associated to the distribution of their
frequency in the population (in this research, we point out adolescents). That action avoids misinterpret
or reduce the data obtained in a research into categories that do not realize the satisfaction that
provides the use of media as a tool. And it promotes mass media studies from the human action in
relation to the notion of communication.

Human beings use media in their daily labors, each use involves audiences whom choose in a conscious
or unconscious manner how use these tools (radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, and books, Internet
sites, video games, DVDs, and MP3 players). In consequence “uses” approach ask for “why do people
make particular media choices? What needs are they filling by doing so? What impacts do their choices
have on them? Under what conditions are some choices made and not others?” (Eadie, 2009, p 506).
From this perspective we understand media-audience relationship as a communication relationship
rather than merely a transmission relationship.

Thereby we should comprehend that the use of mass media is a way to communicate instead of inform,
and there is always a feedback that allows a communicative cycle of experiences among audience and
media.

William Eadie states five essential propositions in order to apply “uses” approach in a current research:
“(1) audiences are actively selecting from different media; (2) audience media selection is goal directed;
(3) the media and other potential sources compete for audience attention; (4) personal, social, and
contextual worlds mediate audience activity; and (5) the uses people make of media and the effects
media have on people are interconnected. Each of these assumptions is reviewed below” (2009, p 508).
Those propositions show a path in order to develop a research where the focus is about the impact on
the audience who is immersing in the use of communication media. Also, Eadie provides a chart with
some examples about possible gratifications obtained by specific sets of population.

Chart 1.

List of gratifications. Taken from: 21st Century Communication: A Reference

Handbook: Media Uses and Gratifications. Original source: As Reported by McQuail (1987, p. 73).

Gratifications as listed in McQuail Examples

(1987)
Entertainment
Escaping, or being diverted from Working-class man whose work
problems challenges his aging body collapsing at
home into escape into sports TV
Relaxing Teenager turning to the reggae music his father
introduced him to in order to relax when school is
stressful
Getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic
enjoyment
Filling time
Emotional release
Sexual arousal
Integration and social interaction
Gaining insight into circumstances
of others, gaining social empathy
Identifying with others and gaining a
sense of belonging
Finding a basis for conversation and
social interaction
Having a substitute for real-life
Companionship
Helping carry out social roles
Enabling one to connect with family,
friends, society
Personal identity
Finding reinforcement for personal
values
Finding models of behavior
Identifying with valued others
Gaining insight into one's self
Information
Finding out about relevant events
and conditions in immediate
surroundings, society, world
Seeking advice on practical matters
or opinions and decision choices
Satisfying curiosity and general
interest
Learning and self-education
Gaining a sense of security through
knowledge
Besieged parent of twins sensing the joy of being human
in a Longfellow poem
Patient filling time with a portable
electronic game player in doctor's office
Third-grade boy working out aggressions
with a video game
Young woman feeling sexual stirrings
watching romantic movies
Voter coming to understand how lack of
health insurance is affecting his neighbors
Lonesome teen learning he is not the only
one interested in collecting rocks
Secretary anxious to discuss last night's
TV drama with friends at work
Isolated mother comforted by feeling she
shares in human compassion on a talk
show
Young boy seeing that even world-famous
jocks have to apologize sometimes
Grandfather comforted by the e-mailed
photos of his grandchildren
Mother seeking confirmation that her
decision to instruct her daughter about
birth control is wise
Mother seeking models for convincing her
daughter to practice abstinence until she
marries
Teenager gaining a sense of self by
hearing a teenage celebrity share his
views
Employee struggling with boss seeing in
a TV drama a possible way to think about
his own behavior
Father concerned about his son's draft
status seeking information on military
actions
Woman just diagnosed with high
cholesterol seeking medical advice
Newspaper reader doing his habitual
morning skimming of latest news
Student writing essay required for his
English class
Passenger seeking assurance that
weather is conducive for flying
This list brings some examples of labels which can be applied in a further research. For our research
purpose it is a clear example to clarify how we can portrait the impact of each communication media in
relation to the adolescent sexuality and its features.

Next we introduce how the theory about sexuality is linked to the communicative approach using as
reference Žižek’s work. In this headland we create a transaction process between psychoanalysis and
media analysis discourses taking as a starting point the possible conscious and unconscious process
involve in the use of audiovisual discourse.

In his book: “Everything you always wanted to know about Lacan (But were afraid to ask Hitchcock)”
(1994, p 119-131) Žižek explores the idea that every element in the audiovisual discourse has a meaning
that provides three different concepts that constitute this discourse: what is real (always seen as an
obstruction, a traumatic experience that cannot be expressed into words and takes the images as a
resource to accomplish this purpose), what is symbolic (understood as the means to construct and
represent what is real) and finally, what is imaginary or the desired object that presents itself but cannot
be reached because it is external to the one that is watching, the viewer.

These concepts taken by Žižek from Lacan deliver a general understanding of the audiovisual discourse
and the relation it constructs with the viewer. The individual is a spectator immerse in the images
presented, a receptor of the thoughts sold in the discourse, even when in reality the subject is not part
of it, being a witness of what is been told provides the possibility to discover other worlds, other
realities that might surprise or tell something that should not be told; that is why in the second part of
his book entitled: “The particular: Movies”, in the fifth section entitled: “The man behind his own
retina”, Žižek presents Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) to explain this relation between the one that
observers the reality from a singular point of view and what happens in the outside; even when the
spectator cannot interact or take part in the “reality” presented to him, he can take the necessary
objects to build up ideas that satisfy the needs and expectations created around this idealized reality.

Let us consider this theory by making a comparison between Žižek’s explanation of the viewer and the
outside reality and how it adapts to the teenagers and the audiovisual discourse that shapes sexuality. In
the movies, when a character has the option to “spy” on people’s lives, he becomes part of the narrative
in a symbolic manner, our character is never part of their story, is never in contact with those other
characters and their lives nevertheless the fact that there is a door open to take a look inside and
interpret what is going on and allow the imagination to provide infinite scenarios to interact with these
objects of desire is enough to understand that the audiovisual discourse (in this case a movie) is in
contact and exchange with the viewer and has the possibility as it is to be molded to someone’s will and
therefore, permeate and alter the outsider’s life. In the case of the teenagers and taken Žižek’s ideas on
Descartes about the eye and what is sees, every image imprints itself as perfect in the eyes and the mind
of the one that is watching (p 120) therefore, the image transforms not only the viewer’s experience but
himself by introducing new thoughts, new ideals or restructuring the ones that exit already.

Every image presented in a commercial, a movie, a poster, a video, a book, a magazine and so on
produces changes on the spectators and these react to those impressions by reproducing what they
connected with or think they must replicate and imitate, altering what was originally there and replacing
it with ideas that have been designed with specific purposes. In the case of this research, the teenagers
take the sexual content and thoughts presented in the audiovisual discourse and adapt to it following
stereotypes and damaging imaginaries that affect the way they see themselves and others to satisfy
natural and generated expectations regarding sexuality.

Instructional Design

Our instructional design is based on creating experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge
engaging. This process consists on determining the current state and needs of the learner, defining the
general objective, and creating field works. The purpose of this design is gather outcomes of this
instruction. Those responses are directly observable and scientifically measured. We state six field works
that follow a logical path which starts from a questionnaire that searches for info about general ideas
about sexuality in the participants (LEBEI students under 18). During the development of the research
we plan some topics that address debates in the classroom. Finally, we develop an academic event
where the participants and the academic community can know the impact, and results of our inquiry.

Topics, objectives and activities

Chart 2
Instructional Design
 Objective The main purpose of this Field Work is to observe how students get ideas and information on Mass Media and the impact they generate in
the development of sexuality in students of First Semester of the LEBEI under 18.

FIELD Questions that Guide

TOPIC SUBTOPICS OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
WORK the Field Work
1 Presentation of a video about Virginity.
To identify the ideas about sexuality
Discussion about ideas, stereotypes and
What are the most that students express when being met
Mass Media influence of Mass Media on the own
relevant and common with Mass Media.
in Real Life: sexuality. (20 -30 minutes)
Field Work Application of ideas students express To determine what are the specific
“False 2 Questionnaires: Collection of
No. 1 Questionnaire when talking about uses students give to the Mass Media
Virginity” quantitative data regarding sexuality in
Sexuality in Mass resources.
Mass Media. (20 minutes)
Media? To identify if there any fulfillment in
3 Introduction to the Research Project (15
the use of Mass Media resources.
minutes)
To recognize the possible stereotypes 1 Presentation of selected commercials
presented in Mass Media and Cover Magazines. (20 minutes)
What kinds of
advertisement. 2 Debate about the stereotypes found in
stereotypes are
Advertisement To debate about how those the advertisements (20 minutes)
presented in
Field Collage stereotypes shape the ideas about 3 Opinions about generalized ideas of
advertisement?
Work No. general standards of sex-appeal in sexuality (10 minutes)
How do those
2 society. 4 Personal opinions about how
stereotypes shape your
To express how the common ideas stereotypes modify the own image and
Sexuality in own ideas about
about sex and sexuality influence the sexuality (15 minutes)
Mass Media: sexuality?
thoughts and feelings about own
“Boobs
sexuality.
everywhere”
To recognize gender equality in 1 Read the Article provided in groups and
discursive fragments that manifest a provide general ideas about the message
new perspective regarding the equal it transmits. (10 minutes)
Gender- How people use Mass
Field Work treatment between men and women. 2 Elaborate a 10 seconds advertisement
equality Media to claim gender
No. 3 To identify what and how the Mass for Radio Broadcast in which the students
Speeches equality?
Media allows to reproduce new promote gender equality (10 minutes)
speeches that fight against prototypes, 3 In groups, provide one idea about a
fake idols, misleading thoughts, etc. gender (male-female) that would like to
 change around the world (10 minutes)
To portrait students’ self-perception 1 Debate about content posted online
How do you see about their own identities in social and hacking of private information
yourself?, How do you network (Facebook-Twitter-Instagram) around the world regarding sexuality (10
want to be perceived To know about the purposes students minutes)
Field Work by others?, How do the have when posting about themselves 2 Posting on your profile in Facebook and
No.4 Through the others see me? in social media presenting it to other students (20
Facebook To find out about how students handle minutes)
glass their privacy in social media and in 3 Survey about sexual content in Social
Expression daily life Networks and their impact in own
of the Own sexuality (15 minutes)
Sexuality 1 Collage of Iconic Sexual images or
To collect specific information about scenes in movies (10 minutes)
What are the students’
how students react to sexuality 2 Examination about the reactions,
Sexual reactions to Cinema’s
presented in cinema. feelings, ideas or perceptions regarding
Field Work identity: A ideas of sexuality and
To learn if students identify with the sexuality in the collage (20 minutes)
No. 5 look into the sexual icons? Do they
ideas of sexuality in the content 3 Collective interview on reactions and
Iconic Sexual identify with them or
presented or if they generate other self-identification with the perceptions
Ideas think differently?
kind of reactions. about sexuality presented in the collage
(15 minutes)
Sharing
To socialize the main findings Design and adequate a scenario where
Results:
Mass Media regarding understanding and influence the researches share the conclusions of
Field Work Closing Exchanging meanings
molding our of Mass Media in the own sexuality the field works about how Mass Media
No. 6 Event with of sexuality
sexuality and the conceptions of it. shapes individuals’ perception and
Participants
conceptions of sexuality.
and guests
 References

 Eadie, W. (2009). 21st Century Communication: A Reference Handbook. SAGE Publications, Inc. NY, USA.
 Freud, S. (1905). Tres ensayos de la teoría sexual. Alemania.
 Katz, E. (1959). Mass Communications Research and the Study of Popular Culture: An Editorial Note on a Possible Future for this Journal.
Departmental Papers, 2, 1-6. 2013, University of Pennsylvania Data Base. USA.
 Žižek, S. (1994). Todo lo que usted siempre quiso saber sobre Lacan y nunca se atrevió a preguntarle a Hitchcock, II. Lo Particular: Las
Películas, 5. El hombre detrás de su propia retina. Ediciones Manantial SRL.