Do TV Content Rating Systems Necessary for Protecting Adolescents? Adolescents’ Perceptions and Parents’ Attitudes Towards Smart Signs

Abstract In addition to TV content rating system applications, The Guide of American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends to parents monitoring their children while watching TV. The aim of this research is to analyze the attitudes of adolescents towards Smart Signs (Turkish TV content rating system) depending on their perceptions and their parents’ attitudes. According to that, a developed questionnaire was conducted to 384 students who are attending 6th, 7th and 8th grades (11-16 ages) of the public schools in the capital city of Turkey by using stratified sampling method. The results indicate that adolescents whose mothers with a better education level found the sign more unnecessary, whereas adolescents whose mothers with lower education level perceive them mostly cognizable, attention-grabbing, effective on program decision, useful and consistent with the program content. Moreover, there is no influential role of fathers’ education level on adolescents’ perception on Smart Signs