Gender, Social Class and Peer Group Influences on Teenagers’ TV Involvement in a Developing Country

The aim of this paper is to develop and confirm a multi-item measurement scale for peer group influences on teenagers’ TV involvement in a developing country and report on the role teenager’s gender and social class background plays in this regard. Various researchers have proposed reinforcement, modelling, motivation, co-viewing and mediation as the domain items for peer group influence on teenagers’ media involvement. Using a multi-step process, this research refined and tested a multi-item measurement scale for peer group influence on developing country teenagers’ TV involvement. Results show that peer groups influence teenagers’ TV usage behaviour by sharing information and knowledge, giving preferences and opinions about different TV programs and also watching them together. However, there is limited variation between teenagers’ of different genders and social class backgrounds in this regard.