Pregnancy and Exposure to Sexual and Pregnancy-Related Media Content: Evidence from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) Study

Eileen Patten, University of Michigan
Jamie Budnick, University of Michigan

The proposed poster presents findings from the on-going Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study. We investigate the relationship between having experienced a pregnancy or holding positive pregnancy intentions and media preferences—specifically for television programming depicting sexual content or teen pregnancy. Extending existing research that finds a correlation between sexual media content and sexual behavior in teens, we examine the subset of young women with the highest proportions of unintended pregnancies to investigate whether a similar correlation exists with pregnancy. The proposed poster aims to provide a detailed description of media preferences—focusing on sexual and teen pregnancy-related media—for young women who have experienced a pregnancy (and pregnancy-related behaviors or attitudes) in comparison with those who have not.