Mass media: spaces for leisure or socialization agents in adolescence?

Abstract

The information and communication technologies are transforming ourways of living and our ways of being related with each other. They condition both the lives of individuals and the occurrence of social phenomena. In the last decade, have become a source of symbolic strategies for the younger sectors of society. The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact that these strategies have on 11 to 14-year-old students; socialization agents are those responsible for transmitting norms, values and behaviourmodels. From a sample of 846 students, who belong to schools situated in different geographical contexts, two variables have been researched into, with a Cronbach’s consistency index of 0,918: the first one analyzes the students’ implication factors, that is to say, the psychoeducational variables produced in their process of personal commitment and in their psychosocial development. The second one determines the organization into a hierarchy of those agents which play a socializing role on these students. Is an  utline of some frames of interaction among individuals and groups that enable new technologies. The results highlight the fact that mass media have took over from families and schools themselves as focal socialization points