Media and Communication (ISSN: 2183–2439) 2019, Volume 7, Issue 1, Pages 32–42 DOI: 10.17645/mac.v7i1.1489 Article Risk and Culture of Health Portrayal in a U.S. Cross-Cultural TV Adaptation, a Pilot Study Darien Perez Ryan * and Patrick E. Jamieson Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; E-Mails:
[email protected] (D.P.R),
[email protected] (P.E.J.) * Corresponding author Submitted: 22 March 2018 | Accepted: 17 September 2018 | Published: 5 February 2019 Abstract Because media portrayal can influence adolescents’ health, we assessed the health-related content of a popular tele- novela—a Spanish-language TV soap opera genre—and its widely watched English adaptation. To test our “culture of corruption” hypothesis, which predicts that the English-language adaptation of telenovelas will “Americanize” their con- tent by increasing risky and reducing healthy portrayal on screen, we coded the depictions of five risk variables and five culture of health ones in ten episodes each of “Juana la Virgen” (2002) and its popular English-language counterpart, “Jane the Virgin” (2014). A significant increase was found between the Spanish and English-language shows in the risk category of sexual content and a marginally significant increase was found in violence. “Jane” also had larger numbers of charac- ters modeling alcohol consumption, sex, or violence. Across culture of health variables, “Juana” and “Jane” did not exhibit significant differences in the amounts of education-related content, social cohesion, and exercise at the episode level. However, “Jane” had significantly more unhealthy food content (specifically, fats, oils, and sweets and takeout food) and more pro-health messaging than did “Juana.” “Jane” also had a larger amount of modeled food/beverage consumption.