The Effects of a Television Drama-Based Media Literacy Initiative on Taiwanese Adolescents’ Gender Role Attitudes

For the present study, we developed a television (TV) drama-based media literacy program for Taiwanese adolescents. A quasi-experimental design was used to determine the effects of the program on their media literacy and gender role attitudes. Participants were ninth-graders (aged 14 and 15 years, 50.6% male) from eight classes at one school which were randomly divided into two groups (four classes each). The experimental group (n = 126) received a three-unit media literacy program based on the constructs of the Message Interpretation Process Model and utilizing popular TV idol dramas as the material. The control group (n = 122) did not receive any gender or media education. A repeated measures analysis of variance was used to examine mean changes in participants’ media literacy and gender role attitudes at pre-test, immediate post-test, and at one-month lagged post-test. We found that the experimental group showed significantly better media literacy abilities and more positive gender role attitudes at post-intervention compared to the control group. At the one-month lagged post-test, compared to pre-test, the experimental group had significantly better performance in media literacy and gender role attitudes. The intervention in the present study could be used as the reference for school educators to guide adolescents into breaking gender stereotypes on TV dramas and to reducing their frequency of watching them.