How Social Influence Mediates Media Effects on Adolescents’ Materialism

Abstract

This study proposed a theoretical framework by which it can be identified how media influence and social influence interplay and produce joint effects on adolescents’ materialistic values. The framework began with how adolescents estimate parents’ and friends’ materialistic values from media exposure and interpersonal communication and then facilitated an examination of how the parents’ and friends’ materialistic values, in turn, influence adolescents’ materialistic values. This framework was tested with survey data of 697 adolescents in Singapore. Results showed that an adolescent’s exposure to advertising was both directly and indirectly associated with his or her materialistic values. The indirect association was mediated by the adolescent’s perception of advertising effect on friends and by the adolescents’ interpersonal communication with parents and with friends.