Adolescent and parent emotions and perceptions regarding news media stories about bullying: A qualitative study.

News articles covering bullying have often focused on tragic situations. The purpose of this study was to understand adolescents' and parents' emotions and perceptions related to bullying news media coverage. Participants were recruited as adolescent-parent dyads from pediatric clinics. During qualitative interviews, participants read and commented on two news article excerpts: 1) a tragic 'fear-based' individual bullying news story; 2) a public health-oriented bullying news story. Qualitative analysis used the constant comparative approach. Our 50 participants included 25 adolescents with mean age 16.1 years (SD=0.97), 44% female and 72% Caucasian, and 25 parents with mean age 49.2 (SD=6.7) years, 80% female and 76% Caucasian. After reading the fear-based news excerpt, 19 adolescents (76%) and 18 parents (72%) responded that they felt negatively. For the public health-oriented excerpt, 12 adolescents (48%) and 20 parents (80%) felt positively. Further, over half of participants felt the news articles related to their lived experiences. Our data support that fear-based articles were associated with feeling sadness and hopelessness while public health-oriented news articles contributed to positive feelings and perceptions. This finding supports the potential of news media about bullying to serve as a venue for education or empowerment for families.

Adolescent Health on Social Media and the Mentorship of Youth Investigators: Five Content Analysis Studies Conducted by Youth Investigators.

Although the literature on adolescent health includes studies that incorporate youth perspectives via a participatory design, research that is designed, conducted, and presented by youth remains absent. This paper presents the work of 5 youth investigators on the intersecting topics of adolescent health and social media. Each of these youths was equipped with tools, knowledge, and mentorship for scientifically evaluating a research question. The youths developed a research question that aligned with their interests and filled a gap that they identified in the literature. The youths, whose projects are featured in this paper, designed and conducted their own research project, drafted their own manuscript, and revised and resubmitted a draft based on reviewer input. Each youth worked with a research mentor; however, the research questions, study designs, and suggestions for future research were their own.