Who wants to be an adult, anyway?
Content analysis comparing the concept of (emerging) adulthood across Friends
and New Girl
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Master’s Programme Communication Science: Entertainment Communication
Stefanie Karst
Student Number: 11571578
Supervisor: Dr. Monique Timmers
Date of completion: February 2, 2018 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
Abstract
Friends and New Girl– although 17 years apart in their release date – are said to be two of the most popular sitcoms of today on Netflix (Banks, 2017). Both shows focus on a group of friends who figures out how to get through life together. Emerging and established adulthood play an important role in both shows, but how is growing up actually represented?
Are there differences, given that Friends was produced 23 years ago and our cultural discourse today is moving away from traditional adulthood markers more and more? And which character actually represents which topics? The following research implemented a content analysis to answer these questions. Results showed that identity exploration is more prominent than established adulthood markers in both shows and that societal pressure has higher frequencies in Friends than in New Girl. Furthermore, unique profiles for each character are given, that call for further studies on character identification and parasocial interaction.
1 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
Introduction
“This small, weird show about a bunch of people who aren’t doing a very good job at life” – that is how Liz Meriwether characterizes her sitcom New Girl (Weinstein, 2016). But what does it actually mean to ‘do a good job at life’ as a young adult? Finding a spouse, a proper job, getting married, having children? Historically, concepts of becoming an established adult where strongly connected to the biological age and the fulfilment of societal expectations (Nelson & Luster, 2016). It is the idea of a social clock that was invented by
Neugarten in the seventies: A timeline of when to accomplish typical markers of adulthood such as establishing a career, a relationship, having children and becoming fully independent
(Nelson & Luster, 2016). In each culture, people share a sense of this timeline that suggests at what point in life which events are supposed to happen (Scherman, 2013; Jansen & Rubin,
2011) However, contemporary scholars suggest that “the social clock of Neugarten’s time has shifted, with today’s youth having fewer guidelines for when and what they should accomplish to become adults” (Nelson & Luster, 2016). But where do those norms come from, who decides on the guidelines and how do they change over time? One key source that shapes personal but also societal life scripts are media characters (Moyer-Gusé, 2008; Morgan
& Shanahan, 2010; Valkenburg, Peter & Walther, 2016). Extremely popular in regard to the topic of how to deal with shifting into adulthood are sitcoms such as Friends and New Girl, for example (Bernstein, 2014; Sternbergh, 2016; Imdb, 2017a, b). Their content is purely focused on a group of friends of twenty to thirty somethings and how they deal with finding jobs, love, apartments and pressure they feel society puts on them: “So, no one told you life was gonna be this way. Your jobs a joke, your broke, your love life’s DOA” is literally the title song for Friends. Although sitcoms have been a genre that was recognized purely for being hedonic entertainment (Mills, 2004), it has also proven to have eudemonic value
(Oliver & Raney, 2011) as can be seen in the case of Sex and the City, for example, a provocative show about four women openly discussing their sexual explorations. The show is
2 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL said to be a milestone in culture and media by empowering women, their representation in television and changing the cultural discourse around post feminism (Arthurs, 2003; Nash &
Grant, 2015; Doudaki, 2012). The idea that entertainment media can lead to changes in norms and beliefs is routed in multiple theories and perspectives, the most popular amongst communication scientists being cultivation (Gerbner et al., 2002; Valkenburg, Peter &
Walther, 2016) and social learning theory (Bandura, 2001, 2004; Valkenburg, Peter &
Walther, 2016), but also rather recently in the idea of entertainment education (Moyer-Gusé,
2008). Multiple studies from a cultivation theory perspective have found that watching certain media productions can lead to an adoption of the fictional reality and norm system in one’s own reality (for an overview see Morgan & Shanahan, 2010). One study that is focusing on sitcoms and the view on romance could show, that those who watch more “romantic” programs express more idealistic and romanticised views such as that they want to get married at a younger age and believe that their own marriage will last forever (Segrin & Nabi,
2002). This implies that watching sitcoms might be related to the wish of fulfilling adulthood markers earlier. Studies on social learning theory and entertainment education theories could show that it is especially the relationship between the TV show characters and the viewer which is influential on what and how much the audience takes away from watching something
(Bandura, 2004; Cohen, 2017; Moyer-Gusé, 2008). The question arises, what beliefs and norms about traditional adulthood markers and establishing adulthood the characters of
Friends and New Girl represent, as they might influence their viewers perspective on how their own life is supposed to be at a certain stage and age. The two shows are very successful, judging by the number of awards they received (Imdb, 2017a, b), the huge body of popular press articles about them, and statistics that try to map out their success on Netflix putting them amongst the top five watched shows on Netflix worldwide in 2017 (Banks, 2017). This is especially interesting, given that Friends first aired in 1994 and New Girl in 2011, which puts 17 years between their first seasons. The two shows might, therefore, differ in the
3 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL importance of adulthood markers for their characters, due to societal changes that happened over the past two decades. This leads to the research question if there are differences in the way markers for established and emerging adulthood are represented by the main characters of the two shows. This research is of interest to multiple groups, from parents that have to decide which content they want their adolescent children to watch, to media developers conceptualizing shows and characters that offer eudaimonic entertainment experiences to their target audience (Greenwood & Long, 2014; Oliver & Hartmann, 2010). On a societal level, media has been discussed as a powerful tool to reach social change and knowing how to guide or not to guide emerging adults into adulthood might help to reduce unrealistic life expectations, perceived social pressure or quarter life crises amongst them. It adds on to the rather new field of researching media in connection to emerging adulthood and adulthood.
Since the idea of segmenting target audiences has only been developed in the recent past, there is still a huge gap concerning the media usage of emerging adults and especially young established adults.
Theoretical Framework
Friends
The TV show Friends first aired 23 years ago, in 1994 and ran on NBC in the USA.
Since then it was distributed worldwide and gained huge success (Imdb, 2017a). Scientific research has also acknowledged the show, for example regarding parasocial breakup with the characters after the show’s final (Eyal & Cohen, 2006) or about its sexual health messages
(Aubrey, 2004). The show has been converted to Blue-Ray in 2012 (Welch 2015) and recently found its way onto Netflix (Chowdhry, 2015), that now has the rights for the show in the Netherlands, the UK and Germany amongst other countries. It was said to be the second most popular show on Netflix worldwide in 2017 (Banks, 2017), however, it has to be kept in mind that Netflix does not reveal any statistics about their viewers themselves. T-shirts with 4 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL the iconic Friends Logo are sold at shops like Urban Outfitter again and the official Friends
Instagram account has 4,3 Million followers. It is safe to say, that the show is a huge part of the millennials’ cultural context and is currently finding its way into younger target audiences
(Mangan, 2016). Many popular press articles (eg. Macke, 2017; Sternbergh, 2016; Mangan,
2016) discuss how this show is still so successful after all those years and the current research tries to shine light into the discussion.
New Girl
New Girl can to some extend be understood as a modern version of Friends, given that it shares the key feature of focusing around a group of friends that find their way through life together. The sitcom first aired in 2011 on multiple markets across the world and gained good critiques, as it won numerous awards and was nominated for five Golden Globes, for example
(Imdb, 2017b). The show is currently in production off the final 7th season (Plummer, 2018).
In 2017, it was supposedly amongst the top five of the most watched shows on Netflix worldwide (Banks, 2017). Given the release years of the two shows, their success amongst millennials and similarity in narrative focus, they are a communication medium showing cultural scripts of the last two decades that are comparable to some extent.
Emerging and Established Adulthood
The characters of both shows are somewhere in the transition from emerging to established adulthood, which is the central topic behind multiple storylines. Emerging adulthood is the developmental stage of young adults that are exploring jobs, relationships and their identity in general before taking on adult obligations (Arnett, 2006). Although the stage is mostly perceived as a positive time, it is also characterized by insecurity, the feeling of being in-between (eg. homes, jobs, partners), and the struggle of finding the way into
(financial) independence (Arnett, 2006) Established adulthood is mostly said to begin
5 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL somewhere between the mid-twenties and mid-thirties (Arnett, 2006; Nelson & Luster, 2016).
The key features of established adulthood are the end of the exploration and instead establishing a relationship, career, getting married and having kids (Nelson & Luster, 2016).
Identification and Identity Development
When talking about Friends and New Girl, people often ask questions like ‘Who’s your favourite one’ or even ‘Which one of them are you?’. The idea of ‘being’ a certain TV show character is the basic explanation for the process of identification, which is a (temporal) imaginative experience where the personal view is replaced by someone else’s (Cohen, 2017).
Through identification one can, therefore, experience an alternative social reality (Cohen,
2017). To be able to identify with others is a crucial process in the development of one’s personal and social identity. When children are around the age of seven, they start to understand that there are other perspectives then their own, making them actively look for psychological similarity – not only in their actual peers, but also in media characters
(Valkenburg & Piotrowski, 2017). Especially for adolescents, identifying with media characters can be highly influential to their socialisation and personal development (ibid.,
Cohen 2017). Identification is said to minimise counter arguing and therefore heightens the acceptance of the portrayed norm and belief system of the character (Moyer-Gusé, 2008).
Research on what specific characters represent and therefore teach their audience, however, is scarce and for Friends and New Girl non-existent. The idea of identification and the effect it has on the viewer implies, that for example adults of today who grew up watching Friends as an adolescent identifying with Monica integrated her view on marriage as an important goal of adulthood more, than someone who identified with Joey, who likes dating and switching partners. It is therefore important to look at each of the characters and what they represent separately. Given, that the show Friends was aired in 1994, today’s adults grew up with
Monica, Chandler and the rest of them. This implies that it is interesting to see what these
6 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL characters offer to identify with before accessing how adults of today made sense of it. At the same time, New Girl being a show of today might include different views on adulthood that are more in line with modern idea of adulthood. The setting alone of five characters in the end of their twenties or beginning of their thirties who are all single and live in a shared flat, struggling to be financially independent, might be more realistic in today’s world than the
Friends, who are supposedly around 25 and do not have troubles affording rooftop-terrace apartments in the middle of New York. However, it is important to note that different characters might have different views in the shows, meaning that they also teach their audience different scripts.
Parasocial interaction and Entertainment Education
Although the terms character identification and parasocial interaction are often used interchangeable, they are two different concepts of character engagement (Cohen, 2017). The key difference is the point of view: for character identification, the audience adapts the view of the character and becomes part of the media text. Parasocial interaction occurs, when viewer stays him or herself while forming a bond with the character that is similar to a friendship (Cohen, 2017; Blanchet & Bruun Vaage, 2012). Although it is not a real social relationship, it does carry similar emotions and implications. How real the relationship with a media character can seem becomes obvious when looking at parasocial break-up: Studies could show, that viewers feel emotional distress similar to a break-up when they are separated from a media character they have formed a bond with, for example due to the end of a show
(Cohen, 2003, 2004). The study by Cohen (2003) also found, that teenagers experience parasocial breakup more heavily than adults. However, a study about how young adults reacted to the final of Friends could show that the effect also occurs for young adults: the stronger the parasocial interaction was, the more distress in parasocial breakup was found
(Eyal & Cohen, 2006). Theories about how to use entertainment for education believe, that
7 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL norm and belief changes in the audience can best be reached if the viewer has a parasocial relationship with the media character, who the viewer seeks guidance and learns from
(Moyer-Gusé, 2008). A study by Schiappa, Greg and Hewes (2005), for example, could show that parasocial relationships can change attitudes about homosexuality. If a young adult is struggling with a current job situation or something similar he or she might, therefore, watch
New Girl and feel relieve or guidance in how important or unimportant career has to be.
Depending on how markers of adulthood are portrayed through the characters of the two shows they can therefore offer different forms of guidance for their viewers.
Similarity, wishful identification and social learning
Similarity itself is the extent to how much a viewer thinks the character is alike to him or herself, whether it is in terms of beliefs, demographical values, or physical attributes, for example (Moyer-Gusé, 2018). The concept of perceived similarity plays an important role since it is highly intertwined with all other forms of character engagement and is often seen as an antecedent. A study by Hoffner & Buchanan (2009) found that young adults were most likely to show wishful identification (i.e.: the desire to be like or act like a character) with characters that they perceived as similar to themselves and also successful and admired. The idea of similarity as a moderator is also highly prominent in Bandura’s social cognitive theory, stating that people learn from models (e.g.: media characters in this case) and take over the scripts they see (Bandura, 2001, 2004; Valkenburg, Peter & Walther, 2016). If the viewer integrates the script and behaviour he or she is shown depends on two factors: if the perceived outcome of the behaviour for the media character is reward or punishment and secondly, how close the model and its world is to the viewer’s self and reality, or short: the perceived similarity (Bandura 2001, 2004; Moyer-Gusé, 2018). Given, that social cognitive theory functions as a shortcut in personal and societal development (Bandura 2001, 2004) showing a liberal and individualistic view on established and emerging adulthood as socially
8 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL acceptable (therefore rewarding) in sitcoms such as Friends or New Girl could lead to a
(faster) change in cultural life scripts.
The main research question guiding this paper, therefore, is if there are differences in the prominence of and attitude towards key markers of adulthood, between Friends and New
Girl. More specifically, the research will compare the two shows in general, but also their main characters to answer the two research questions:
RQ1: Are there differences in prominence and tone towards established and emerging adulthood between friends and new girl, specifically in
a. The topic of marriage
b. The topic of work
c. The topic of identity exploration
d. Societal pressure on establishing adulthood
e. The characters’ belief system towards emerging and established adulthood
RQ2: Are there differences in how these topics are connected with the characters and in the
attitude the characters have towards the topics?
Methods
A quantitative content analysis was conducted, which is a prominent research methodology in order to systematically and objectively identify characteristics of media texts
(Macnamara, 2005). Content analyses are also the best research methodology to analyse cultural topics in television programmes (Wester & Weijers, 2006). When analysing narratives in sitcoms it is crucial to take the characters into account as they are the fulcrum of the plot (Wester & Weijers, 2006).
Sample
The sample of the present study consisted of all 24 episodes of the first seasons from
New Girl and Friends, 48 episodes in total. The first seasons were chosen because this is
9 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL where the characters get introduced and characterized. Furthermore, it is not likely that someone who is not developing any kind of character engagement with the characters in the first season will stay with the show and watch further. The units of analysis were the main character in each episode. The sample therefore included six Friends characters Rachel,
Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler and Ross and the five New Girl characters Jess, Cece, Nick,
Schmidt and Winston. Each of them was coded separately across 24 episodes of the first season (N=264).
Coding Instruments, Internal and External Validity
The code sheet was implemented in Qualtrics in form of an online survey. This made coding easier than directly in SPSS, for example, since this way there was space to give a short description of each variable on the code sheet. It is therefore helpful to improve internal validity and transparency. In addition, all coding instructions and variables were explained in a codebook (see appendix A). Given that all episodes were coded by me, the internal validity is higher than it would have been with multiple coders. To insure the external validity, 10 percent of the sample (five episodes) were double coded by a second coder. Krippendorff’s alpha (KALPHA) was used to calculate intercoder reliability. Table 1 shows the results for all
15 variables that were used in for the analysis. Generally, the kalpha results are good, as the minimum Kalpha required is .6 is the minimum requirement and everything above .8 is considered to be a good reliability. Three out of 15 variables showed perfect reliability
(kalpha = 1). Only one variable, pressure on becoming and established adult, shows a rather low kalpha = .63.
Tabel 1: Intercoder Reliability
Variable Kalpha Bootstrapping Topic Work .82 13.3% Topic Marriage 1 0.4%
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Topic identity .92 0.002% exploration Pressure on becoming .63 59.13% an established adult Support for being an .79 17.84% emerging adult Societal pressure .84 13.80% Marriage neg .87 8.17% Marriage pos 1 1.34% Job sat .78 30.9% Job disssat .82 30.42% Job long .75 32.45% Job short .84 28.31% Job unempl 1 4.19% Identity explo pos .67 5.79% Identity explo neg .72 32.56%
Coding System
Key themes
Multiple fields of research were taken into account for identifying key themes in the transition from emerging to established adulthood. Whether it is from a psychological perspective of what individuals perceive as the perfect life cycle (i.e. cultural life scripts,
Janssen & Rubin, 2011; Willoughby & Carroll, 2016), a sociological view on society’s timeline of experiencing certain events at a specific age (e.g., the social clock, Nelson &
Luster, 2016), or a clinical-psychologic perspective of what troubles individuals belonging to those age groups the most (i.e. crisis episodes in early adulthood, Rossi & Mebert, 2011) – all of the different fields of science share the dominance of two main topics: relationships and work. For emerging adulthood, the idea of exploring one’s identity is additionally of crucial importance. Table 2 shows all items that were coded for the following key themes of this research.
Marriage. Characteristic for established adulthood in terms of love and relationships is getting married and having kids (Arnett, 2006; Nelson & Luster, 2016). Recently, there have been notable changes in delaying marriage in western, industrialized cultures 11 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
(Willoughby & Carroll, 2016). Instead of marrying, people nowadays mainly start with cohabitating, which is also used as a marker of adulthood (Nelson & Luster, 2016;
Willoughby & Carroll, 2016; Eisenberg, Spry & Patton 2015). Nevertheless, getting married and having kids is still one of the main goals and markers of becoming an adult (Janssen &
Rubin, 2011; Willoughby & Carroll, 2016). Multiple items were measured to assess the topic of marriage, which can be found in Table 2.
Work. To establish a career is considered to be one of the key markers of transitioning into adulthood. A study across 25 European countries could show that it was considered to be the most important marker of adulthood for woman as well as for men (Spéder, Murinkó &
Settersten, 2013). Scholars that argue that traditional markers of adulthood have no value anymore today (Arnett, 2003; Nelson & Luster, 2016), they do find that financial independence is the “new” marker of adulthood. Financial independence, however, is closely connected to having a job (Arnett, 2003; Nelson & Luster 2016). Studies do suggest that the importance of work in adulthood has a tendency to be more important for men than for woman (Spéder, Murinkó & Settersten, 2013), which is also visible in the reasons of adults experiencing a quarter life crisis with work-related struggles being more prominent for men and romantic related issues for women (Robinson & Wright, 2013).
Identity exploration. A key feature of emerging adulthood is to explore one’s identity
(Arnett, 2006). In emerging adulthood, love and relationships are exploratory, led by the guiding question of what partner would suit not only for a relationship but also for life. Dating different people and “trying out” different partner is therefore one marker of emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2006). Similar to that, working in different jobs as an emerging adult is laying the groundwork for a long-term occupation in adulthood.
Societal pressure & character beliefs. Cultural life scripts are the beliefs a society shares of how and when someone is supposed to reach a certain goal (Sherman, 2013; Jansen
& Rubin, 2011). This is also the idea behind the concept of the social clock, with the
12 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL difference that the social clock is very connected to a biological age, whereas cultural life scripts are more broadly about the exact time (Nelson & Luster, 2016). Various items were coded to see if these ideas of societal norms on when to grow up were present for the characters and made them felt pressured (see Table 2). At the same time, it was also measured if the characters themselves reinforce these societal norms by pressuring their peers to become an established adult or supporting them for being an emerging one. An overview of all items that were coded for each of the topics is given in Table 2.
Table 2: Coding for variables of interest Variable Coding Categories Coded items Attitude towards Marriage status Character is or recently has been married Marriage Character is or was recently close to getting married Character is far from getting married Concept of Marriage Character talks about the broad concept of marriage positively, negatively or neutral Character’s view on Wants to get married in general personal marriage Does not want to get married in general Neutral attitude towards on future marriage Social network Character talks about or is present at someone’s wedding with a weddings positive, negative or neutral attitude
Satisfaction with Long-term position Character talks about being satisfied, complains, complains Job situation with the intention of changing something, actively changes the situation or is neutrally talking about his job in a long-term position Short-term position Character talks about being satisfied, complains, complains with the intention of changing something, actively changes the situation or is neutrally talking about his job in a long-term position unemployment Character talks about being satisfied, complains, complains with the intention of changing something, actively changes the situation or is neutrally talking about his job in a long-term position Attitude towards Dating Character asks out or dates a new person identity Moving Character talks about or is moving exploration Identity exploration Character is exploring other possibilities related to identity Character expresses insecurity about own identity Topic societal Work Character feels pressured to find a (different job) pressure Relationship Character feels pressured to find a partner Marriage Character feels pressured to get married Character belief Pressure on becoming Character pressures someone about finding a (different job), a system an established adult partner, getting married, becoming financially independent Support for being an Character supports someone for current job situation, being
13 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
emerging adult single, not being married, being financially dependent
Results
Key Topics
Figure 1 shows the total amount of codings for the above-mentioned key topic per show. Both shows taken together, marriage is the least mentioned topic (coded 86 times in 50 episodes), whereas identity exploration is by far the most prominent topic (505 times coded in
50 episodes). The other coded topics were prominent in the following ranking: pressure to become an established adult, work, support to be an emerging adult and societal pressure.
If comparing the frequencies of topics over the two shows, the ranking is slightly different as
Figure 1 shows: Although both of them have identity exploration as the most frequent topic, the second most prominent topic in Friends is societal pressure, followed by supporting each other to be emerging adults, pressure to become an established adult, work and lastly marriage. For New Girl on the other hand, work is the second most frequently assessed topic, followed by societal pressure, support for being an emerging adult, marriage and pressure to become and established adult as the least prominent topic.
Figure 2 shows the ratio of the coded topics between the two shows. Identity exploration and marriage are coded nearly the same amount of times in Friends and New Girl, whereas 75% of all times that pressure to become an established adult was coded, it was in
Friends.
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Figure 1: Topic frequencies in both shows
Topics frequency 300
250
200
150
100
50
0 Marriage Bpressest work suppemerg Norms societal Identity explo press
Friends New Girl
Figure 2: Topic ratio across the two shows in percent
Topic ratio in percent
80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Marriage Pressure Work Support Societal Identity established A emerging A Pressure exploration
Friends New Girl
Topic contexts
Marriage. Overall, the topic of marriage was presented slightly more positively than negatively as Figure 3 shows. This result also holds when comparing across the two shows.
The difference between negative and positive representation is very small (positive was only coded 3 times more often than negative in both shows).
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Figure 3: Context of the topic marriage
Context marriage 50
40
30
20
10
0 Friends New Girl Total
Marriage pos Marriage neg
Work. Figure 4 shows the sum of codings for the items: “Character talks about being satisfied in a short-term position” and “Character talks about being satisfied in a long- term position” compared to the sum of codings for the items: “Character complains, complains with the intention of changing something or actively changes the situation” in both, long-term and short-term positions. The numbers are shown to be rather equal in Friends but dissatisfaction towards the current job in situation is highly more prominent in New Girl.
Figure 4: Context of the topic work
Job satisfaction 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Friends New Girl Total
Jobsituation pos Jobsituation neg
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Identity Exploration. Figure 5 shows the sum of codings for all items measuring positivity towards identity exploration (character likes dating, moving and exploring other possibilities related to identity exploration) opposed to negativity towards identity exploration
(i.e., character does not like dating, moving or exploring other possibilities related to identity exploration). The topic of identity exploration is presented positively more often than negatively across all 48 episodes. This is also the case for both shows individually. In New
Girl, 74% of the cases are presenting identity exploration positively. In Friends the ratio is slightly more equal, with 60% being positive.
Figure 5: Context of the topic identity exploration
Context of Identity exploration 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Friends New Girl Total
Iexplopos Iexploneg
Characters
Attitudes towards topics. Figure 6 shows wether the characters shows a positive or negative attitude towards identity exploration, marriage and his or her job situation. The y- axis shows the percentage of codings for the topic that falls upon a character. For example: of all codings where a character expressed positivity towards marriage, one forth falls on Jess.
She is therefore the most positive character towards marriage.
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Figure 6: Topic attitude ration across characters
Topic attitude ratio across characters 35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00% Jess Cece Nick Schmidt Winston Rachel Monica Pheobe Joey Chandler Ross
Iexplopos Iexploneg Marriage_pos Marriage_neg Job_sat Job_unsat
Factor analysis. Factor analyses were invented and are frequently used in differential psychology to study individual differences (Batschelder, 2015). With the help of a factor analysis, it can be deducted if there are correlation patterns between items and if multiple items together measure a latent construct. In the present research, the factor analysis was used to measure which of the topics are correlating and measure the latent construct of the character itself the best. Therefore, a principle factor analysis was conducted for each of the eleven characters with the items: societal pressure, identity exploration, work, marriage, pressure on becoming an established adult and support for being an emerging adult. Items loading on factor one, explain the most variance and are, therefore, the topics that are most useful in characterising the protagonists. An oblique rotation was used, given that the factors were expected to correlate with each other. If an item was only coded as zero (i.e. totally absent) for a specific character and therefore had zero variance, the item was excluded for the factor analysis. This was the case for the topic marriage for the character Phoebe, and work for the character Ross. In most cases, three factors were extracted for each character with an
Eigenvalue above 1. Only for the characters Rachel, Monica, Joey and Ross, the factor analysis resulted in two factors only. A table with an overview of all eigenvalues, the variance
18 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL explained and the cumulative variance explained for each character and factor is given in the appendix.
Figure 7 shows the factor loadings (that can have a maximum of 1 and a minimum of -
1) of the items for each character on factor one. Characters are presented in colours, factor loadings on the y- and topics on the x-axis. A loading of zero means that the topic does not load on factor one, but on factor two or three. Figures for those two factors can also be found in the appendix. Firstly, it was found that all characters have a unique structure and individual differences in the way the items load on factor one. Secondly, a close look does reveal overlaps for some characters in the way specific topics are loading on factor one: Phoebe and
Ross share a similar structure as well as Joey and Chandler. Thirdly, the figure shows that the topics supporting each other for being emerging adults, pressuring each other to become established adults, societal pressure, identity exploration and work load on factor one for at least four out of the eleven characters, meaning that there is an overlap in the personality structures of the characters in these topics.
Figure 7: Factor loadings per topic and character on Factor 1
Factor 1 1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00 Support Pressure Societal Identity Marriage Work -0.20 emerging established pressure exploration adulthood adulthood -0.40
-0.60
-0.80
-1.00
Jess Cece Nick Schmidt Winston Rachel Monica Pheobe Joey Chandler Ross
19 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
Discussion
Findings
Regarding the first research question, it was found that the differences between topic prominence for work, marriage and identity exploration was not significantly different between the first season of the shows Friends and New Girl. Although this can seem surprising, given that traditional adulthood markers might have been expected to be more prominent in Friends than in New Girl when taking the cultural discourse into account, it might explain why the show Friends is still so popular today: the same topics connect to the audience of twentysomethings today as they did to the ones twenty years ago. Especially when looking at the extremely high prominence of identity exploration in both shows, it becomes clear that both shows focus on emerging adulthood more, than on established adulthood. This is especially interesting, given the fact that emerging adulthood was only recognized as a developmental stage in the late nineties (Swanson, 2016) which is a few years after the first season of Friends had been produced. Through new technology like social media and apps like Tinder, for example, being a twentysomething today might look different than it did in the time of Friends and popular press articles are saying that the show does not fit in our modern times due to that reason (Macke, 2017; Sternbergh, 2016). However, the key topics of emerging adulthood and the insecurity that comes with the developmental stage might not have changed that much and could be enough for today’s emerging adults to still relate to the show and its characters (Sternbergh, 2016; Arnett 2006).
In line with the idea of establishing adulthood being more important in the past then today (Nelson & Luster, 2016), the results do show that Friends has a higher prominence of societal pressure (e.g, Monica’s parents constantly telling her that she needs to find a husband, or Rachel’s friends being shocked by her preferring to be a waitress in the middle of the city instead of being the wife of a dentist) and the pressure the characters put on each other to become established adults compared to New Girl. At the same time, the topic of
20 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL supporting each other for being an emerging adult (meaning that they help each other through break-ups, like when Ross gets divorced and Joey and Chandler tell him how nice it is to be single, or financial dependence when Chandler constantly lends Joey money, or Monica letting Rachel move in with her) also has a higher frequency in Friends which might seem counter-intuitive. However, it can be explained by the topic’s importance as such: struggling between transitioning from emerging into established adulthood is simply more discussed and prominent in Friends than in New Girl, which is consistent with what literature tells us about the importance of the topic in the cultural discourse in the nineties compared to today (Nelson
& Luster, 2016).
When assessing the context of the topics, the results show that marriage is represented slightly more positive than negative in both shows. Although marriage in society today is delayed, this finding is in line with research about cultural life scripts showing that marriage is still one of the major goals in life today (Janssen & Rubin, 2011; Willoughby & Carroll,
2016). Regarding the topic of work, it is interesting to see that New Girl seems to feature negativity towards job situations more than Friends. It could be the case that since the New
Girl characters are supposed to be older then the Friends characters (late twenties and beginning of thirties compared to mid-twenties), they are showing more signs of a quarter life crisis, meaning that they now evaluate the jobs they got a few years back and wonder if this is what they had expected their life to be like (Robinson & Wright, 2013). Very interesting, especially given the age difference between the Friend’s and New Girl’s characters, are the results of attitude towards identity exploration. Although both shows present it in a positive way, it is prominent that New Girl has a strong focus on presenting the topic positive, although all of the characters could easily or might already be established adults in view of their age. The changes we can see in societies perception of the meaning of adulthood and when a certain stage has to be reached to be less about biological age (Nelson & Luster, 2016) are therefore also present in New Girl. Following the idea of entertainment education (Moyer-
21 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
Gusé, 2008), cultivation theory (Gerbner et al. 2002) and social learning theories (Bandura
2001, 2004) watching New Girl could therefore lead to a more positive attitude towards identity exploration with a disconnection from biological age.
For the second research question, the interest was to find similarities and differences between characters in relation to the topics of emerging and established adulthood. Factor analysis for each character could show that they indeed have unique profiles that do not only differ from each other, but also from the shows’ overall take on specific topics. For example, in the topic of identity exploration: Although both shows feature the topic heavily and present it as positive, the characters Monica, Phoebe, Winston and Cece are either not touched by the topic at all or even negative towards it. This is an important finding since it shows how crucial it is to take the different characters into account when assessing how the audience makes sense of the shows (Valkenburg & Piotrowski 2017; Cohen, 2017). Someone forming a parasocial relationship with one of the above-mentioned characters as opposed to a character that shows high positivity towards and a high factor loading of identity exploration, like
Schmidt who loves dating, for example, might have different implications on what scripts the viewer incorporates in his or her own personality (Moyer-Gusé, 2008; Cohen, 2017).
Although there is no easy way of grouping the characters since they all show enormous differences in their factor structure, it can be seen that some of the characters are highly structured around reinforcing societal norms as the topic of “pressuring others to become established adults” and “supporting each other for being emerging adults” load heavily on their first factor, which explains most of the variance of their personality traits
(Ross, Phoebe, Monica and Cece). In contrast, other characters seem to be more about feeling pressured by societal norms and focused on themselves with work and identity exploration
(Chandler, Joey, Jess, Winston, Rachel). Social learning theory suggests that the viewers are more likely to incorporate behaviour that is awarded rather than punished (Bandura, 2001,
2004). When identifying with one of the “pressure-receiving” characters, like Rachel for
22 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL example, and seeing how she is getting pressured by her social network to become financially independent by cutting her father’s credit cards and rewarded with their happiness when she does, might lead the viewer to learn the social norm suggesting that it is good and important to become financially independent. It is, therefore, important to not only take the character, but also the group dynamics around the character into account when talking about identification and social learning.
Finally, exploring the topic ratio across the characters could further prove their complex profiles that were revealed in the factor analysis. It also shows, that the characters in
New Girl are more multi-layered than the ones in Friends, since some of the items where not a topic for certain Friends at all (Phoebe: marriage, Joey: marriage, Ross: work). This could be connected to the trend in contemporary storytelling of making TV shows and their characters more and more complex (Mittell, 2015). Also, it has to be taken into account that only the first season was coded and the characters might just be developed more slowly in
Friends than in New Girl. The most complex character in terms of attitudes is one of the
Friends, however: Rachel shows the most oppositional attitudes with being positive towards identity exploration, her job, and marriage to nearly the same extent as she is negative towards these topics. This makes her the “poster-girl” of emerging adulthood, since it shows how she is completely in-between and tries to figure out how to navigate these life guiding topics (Arnett, 2006; Eyal & Cohen, 2006). For the New Girl characters, the picture is not as clear since Nick shows high importance of supporting his friends for being emerging adults but identity exploration, as one of the key markers of emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2006), does not have a high importance for his character. For Jess, identity exploration is heavily connected to her character, but so is the topic marriage, which is a marker of established adulthood (Nelson & Luster, 2016). Neither, Jess nor Nick can therefore be connected to either emerging or established adulthood as clearly as Rachel.
23 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
Work has found to be one of the most important markers of adulthood with a slight tendency to be more important to men then for women (Spéder, Murinkó & Settersten, 2013) which is also reflected in the characters with work having a high factor loading on factor one for Winston, Joey, Chandler, Nick and only one woman, namely Rachel. Interestingly, Joey scores very high on job satisfaction, although he has a hard time making it as an actor and gets constantly teased by the rest of the Friends. His struggle is prominent since he also shows high job dissatisfaction, however, the positivity predominates. Winston, on the other hand, is by far expressing the highest job dissatisfaction. Where Joey is following his dream, and takes on every project he can to make it work, Winston is feeling high pressure to find a career after his recent one as a basketball player just came to an end. This shows, that although the topic might be of similar importance to the two characters, identification with one or the other has very different implications for the coping strategies they teach their viewers (Robinson & Wright, 2013; Hoffner & Buchanan, 2009). For Ross, on the other hand, work is not a topic at all in the first season, he is concentrated on dealing with having to be an emerging adult although he much rather would be an established one: He likes to be married and is negative towards identity exploration. All in all, this analysis of the characters shows how important it is to take the different personalities of the protagonists into account when researching any effects on the audience, since it is crucial to understand who the viewers feel connected to and what this character represents (Hoffner & Buchanan, 2009; Moyer-Gusé,
2008). Identifying and forming parasocial relationships with one of the characters can lead to different sets of beliefs and attitudes towards certain adulthood markers than with another, since it is highly dependent on the characters’ profile.
Limitations
It is not the aim of this research to draw inferences of the complete population of the shows, since the sample is too small to do so and the characters further develop in the following seasons. Rather, the nature of this study is exploratory to gain insights in the way
24 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL the shows and characters represent the topics of established and emerging adulthood. It is necessary to keep in mind that the sample size of 24 episodes per character are a rather small sample size for a factor analysis, which could also be found in the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin
(KMO) tests that were ranging from .45 to .54, meaning that the sample is really on the edge of having an adequate size. However, given the exploratory and novel character of this research the results do give an indication of how the characters are structured.
Regarding the coding, it might have been good to not only code the societal pressure on becoming and established adult, but also societal support for being an emerging adult.
Furthermore, it was harder than expected to assess what type of employment the characters have, since it could only be known after seeing all episodes how long the character actually worked in this position. This was also prominent in the intercoder reliability since the second coder only watched a random sample of five episodes and therefore could not assess what type of employment (i.e. short-term or long-term) it is. Regarding work, it would have been better to code whenever a character is changing jobs opposed to establishing a career. Same goes for relationships, since it was rather difficult to know when the character is dating a
‘new’ person: Rachel, for example, goes out with her former fiancé at the end of the season who she had left in the beginning of the season. He, therefore, is not a new person, but trying again if he might be the right one for her can also be seen as exploration, which was the underlying concept that dating a new person was supposed to measure.
Future Research
This research is an important first step in analysing two popular shows and their characters of today’s cultural discourse. A first step to improve and continue the present research, would be to have a bigger sample size, not only because it would heighten the validity of the factor analysis, but also because it would be interesting to see how the characters further develop in the following seasons.
25 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
With the data presented in the present research, future studies could try to find out who develops a parasocial relationship with which character, why they do so and what effects it might have on them. Viewers who form a parasocial relationship with the same character (or have formed one in their adolescents) might share similar views on adulthood markers than the character they identified with. Content analyses are often focused on the topics in general or the storylines (Segrin & Nabi, 2002; Doudaki, 2012) but neglect to take the characters into account. The present research could show that the characters can differ in their representation of the topics from the show and should therefore be analysed separately from it. Especially when talking about parasocial relationships, studies have rather focused on general character attitudes such as gender, intelligence and attractiveness for example (Jennings & Alper, 2016;
Chory 2013, 2003) instead of focusing on which specific characters viewers build a parasocial relationship with. Particularly for shows that run for multiple years it is important to do so in order to come to any conclusions about the shows effect on its audience. When studies do assess which character the audience engages with, like the study by Eyal and Cohen in 2006 did, they do not tell us anything about what the character embodies. The present research is suggesting, that one should not go without the other: research on parasocial relationships with characters should be connected to a content analysis about these characters.
In general, watching these sitcoms could be related to having a positive view on identity exploration since both shows feature the topic heavily and have an overall positive take on it. Especially regarding people experiencing a form of quarter life crisis, it might be comforting to see characters facing the same kind of problems and even inspiring to see how the characters cope with their issues. Future research could therefore try to assess if watching these shows could be used a coping strategy when experiencing crisis episodes.
Lastly, it would be interesting to see what scripts people who watched Friends in their adolescence incorporated and if it differs from adolescence today growing up watching New
Girl, for example. There are many options to derive further research based on the current
26 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL paper and the importance of such should not be underestimated, especially under the light of entertainment education.
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Appendix A: Codebook
Sample Episodes: Friends season 1 New girl season 1
Character: 1=Jess 2=Cece 3=Nick 4=Schmidt 5=Winston
6=Rachel 7=Monica 8=Pheobe 9=Joey 10=Chandler 11=Ross
Codebook Character ID: Select the characters ID (see above) Episode ID: Select the episodes number (see above) Unit of analysis: Each main Character in each episode.
Topic 1: Marriage Marriage can be understood in multiple different ways depending on the point of view being psychological, historical, cultural or religious, for example (Wardle, 2006). Given, that the product of analysis for this research are two American pop-cultural TV-shows, the concept of marriage will be looked at from a western legal definition, namely as an exclusive union of two people with the intention of staying together for life (Brummer 2003; Wardle, 2006). It will be assessed how many times a main character is engaging with the topic of marriage in one of the following ways:
M1 Concept of “marriage” in general Code this item every time the character talks about the broad concept of marriage. Examples: Marriage is completely overrated. M1-1 Positive When the character describes it as good or important. M1-2 Negative When the character describes it as outdated or overrated. M1-3 Neutral When the character clearly states that he thinks neutrally about the concept of marriage M1-4 Not explicitly rated/ unclear: When the coder cannot access the characters
32 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
attitude
M2 Character’s own marriage Code this item whenever the character explicitly (talking about it) or implicitly (e.g. trying on a wedding dress, looking for engagement rings without having a girlfriend) expresses the wish to get married or the opposite. Also code, if the character is neutral towards his/her own marriage (eg.: it would be nice to be married, but I also don’t mind if it doesn’t happen) M2-1 Wants to get married in general M2-2 Does not want to get married M2-3 Neutral way M2-4 Not explicitly rated/ unclear
M3 Character’s marital status Code whenever character talks about or shows an action concerning the own marital status. The M3 is similar to M2 but M2 meassures the hypothetical whish wherease M3 meassures the “reality”. For example: should a male character looks for engagement rings without having a person in mind to actually give it to, it should be coded as M2. If the male character looks for an engagement ring to give to a concrete person, it should be coded as M3. M3-1 Has recently been married (either divorced or in a recent breakup) M3-2 Is or was recently close to getting married (eg.: concrete plans, engaged, ran away at the alter) M3-3 Far from getting married (eg.: thinks it will be a very long time until he/she gets married. Difference to M1: character does want to get married in general but not yet)
M4 Social network weddings Code every scene where a character talks about or is present at a wedding of someone else. Eg. Social network, commenting a wedding on TV. M4-1 Positive When the character describes it as good or important. M4-2 Negative When the character describes it as outdated or overrated. M4-3 Neutral When the character clearly states that he thinks neutrally about the concept of marriage M4-4 Not explicitly rated/ unclear
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Topic 2: Work Having a stable job has been one of the most important markers of adulthood. During emerging adulthood, it is more common to change jobs frequently to find the perfect fit for a long-term position in adulthood. Long-term positions are Schmidt’s job in the marketing agency or Rosses job in the museum, for example. Temporary positions are freelance jobs such as Joe’s acting jobs or positions the character himself characterizes as temporal such as Rachel being a waitress in the coffee house. Code each time a character’s storyline is about his work, either in being shown working or talking about his/her job.
W1 Job satisfaction working in a long-term position Code whenever a character who has a long-term position is talking about his work or is shown while working. W1-1 Satisfied (e.g.: character is happy and content with his/her job) W1-2 Unsatisfied (e.g.: character is complaining about the job, does not put effort into fulfilling the task correctly etc.) W1-3 Unsatisfied with the intention of changing something W1-4 Actively changing the situation (searching for a new job, talking to the boss etc) W1-5 Neutral (e.g.: no clear attitude towards job situation or action towards change)
W2 Job satisfaction working in a short-term position Code whenever a character who has a short-term job is talking about his work or shown while working. W2-1 Satisfied (e.g.: character is happy and content with his/her job) W2-2 Unsatisfied (e.g.: character is complaining about the job, boss, colleagues etc.) W2-3 Unsatisfied with the intention of changing something W2-4 Actively changing the situation (searching for a new job, talking to the boss etc) W2-5 Neutral (e.g.: no clear attitude towards job situation or action towards change)
W3 Satisfaction with unemployment Code whenever a character who is unemployed is talking about his work or shown while dealing with the situation W3-1 Satisfied (e.g.: character is happy and content with being unemployed) W3-2 Unsatisfied (e.g.: character is bored or depressed)
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W3-3 Unsatisfied with the intention of changing something W3-4 Actively changing the situation (e.g.: searching for a new job) W3-5 Neutral (e.g.: no clear attitude towards job situation or action towards change)
Topic 3: Identity exploration One main topic of emerging adulthood is identity exploration and the following items are sad to be indicators (Arnett, 2004 etc) of how prominent these topics in the lives of the main characters are. Dating will be understood as meeting someone or talking about meeting someone with a romantic motivation. Moving will be understood as changing the place of living in a broader sense (e.g. it does not have to be permanent new address, living on a friend’s couch for some time counts, too). Searching for identity will be coded whenever the character explicitly mentions that he or she feels the need to explore or find their identity or that he or she is insecure about who he/she is. The second category is coded to see what attitude the character has towards identity exploration, which gives an indication about how the character stands towards emerging and established adulthood.
I1 Identity Exploration Code everytime the character is shown or talks about I1-1 Dating a new person / asking sb out I1-2 Moving I1-3 is exploring other possibilities related to identity or expresses insecurity about own identity (eg. breaking up with sb, because it is not fun anymore, acquiring new skills like cleaning, washing, making coffee for Rachel, Chandler being insecure about why people think he is gay, etc.)
I2 Attitude towards identity exploration Code every time the character expresses that he or she I2-1 Likes dating I2-2 Does not like dating I2-3 Likes moving I2-4 Does not like moving I2-5 Likes to explore identity I2-6 Dislikes to search own identity
35 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
Topic 4 Societal Norms Progressing from emerging to established adulthood is closely connected to societal norms that regulate when and what is supposed to happen in someone’s life. Research as well as popular culture suggests, that traditional markers of adulthood are not as important as they were in the past. This category, therefore, measures what norms the characters themselves share by pressuring or supporting their social network.
S1: Pressure and support Code whenever a character talks to or about someone else and S1-1 Pressures someone to find a (different) job S1-2 Supports someone for current job situation S1-3 Pressures someone about being single (e.g.: makes someone ask sb out (importance of having a partner and dating vs. just being single) S1-4 Supports someone for being single (break up with sb, you don’t need her, let’s go to hockey instead) S1-5 Pressures someone about not being married S1-6 Supports someone for not being married S1-7 Pressures someone to become financially independent S1-8 Supports someone for being financially dependent
S2: Societal pressure Code whenever a character S2-1 Feels pressured to find a (different) job S2-2 Feels pressured to find a partner S2-3 Feels pressured to get married S2-4 Feels pressured to become financially independent
Appendix B: Factor Analysis Table
Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Cumulativ
Categories Eigenva Categories Eigenvalue, Categories Eigenvalue, e variance
36 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
lue, total total explained
total variance variance
varianc
e
• Support • Societal • Work for Pressure 1.91, • pressure 1.34, 1.09, Jess emerging 72.34% • Identity 31,81% established 22.37% 18.17% adulthood Exploration adulthood • marriage
• Support for
emerging
adulthood • Marriage • Pressure 1.91, 1.13, • Societal Cece established • Work 1.07, 18.0% 64,79% 31.81% 18.9% pressure Adulthood (negative) • Identity
exploration
(negative)
• Work • Identity • Support for • pressure exploratio emerging 1.63, 1.198, 1.145, Nick established n 66,27% adulthood 27.22% 19,97% 19.08% Adulthood • Marriage • Societal (negative) Pressure
• Societal
Pressure
• Pressure • Marriage established 2.26, 1.30, • Work 1.05, Schmidt • Identity 77.01 Adulthood 37.72% 21.68% (negative) 17.611% Exploration • Support for
emerging
adulthood
37 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
• Pressure
established • Marriage Adulthood • Identity • Work 2.42, 1.23, 1.03, Winston • Support for Exploratio 78, 24% • Societal 40.39% 20.63% 17.21% emerging n Pressure adulthood
(negative)
• Societal • Pressure
Pressure established
• Work 2.75, Adulthood 1.54, 25. Rachel - 71,61% • Marriage 45,92% • Support for 59%
• Identity emerging
Exploration adulthood
• Pressure
established • Work Adulthood 2.26 • Identity • Support for 1.37, Monica 37,638 Exploration 60, 41% emerging 22,77% % (negative) adulthood • Marriage • Societal
Pressure
• Pressure
established • Identity
Adulthood 1.71 Exploration Pheobe • Work 1.0, 20,05% 68,62% • Support for 34,20% • Societal
emerging Pressure
adulthood
• Support for • Work emerging • Societal 1.96, adulthood 1.57, 31. Joey Pressure 39.21% 70.58% • Pressure 37% • Identity established Exploration Adulthood
38 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
• Support for • Societal emerging Pressure 1.74, adulthood 1.60, 1.095 Chandler • Work • Marriage 73,94% 29.03% • Pressure 26.66% 18.247 • Identity established Exploration Adulthood
• Support for • Societal
emerging Pressure 1.968 adulthood • Identity 1.192 Ross 39.350 63.81% • Pressure Exploration 23.835% % established • Marriage
Adulthood
Appendix C: Factor Analysis Figures
Factor loadings per topic and character on Factor 2
39 ADULTHOOD IN FRIENDS AND NEW GIRL
Factor 2 1.20
1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00 Support emerging Pressure Societal pressure Identity Marriage Work -0.20 adulthood established exploration adulthood -0.40
-0.60
-0.80
Jess Cece Nick Schmidt Winston Rachel Monica Pheobe Joey Chandler Ross
Factor loadings per topic and character on Factor 3
Factor 3 1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00 Support emerging Pressure Societal pressure Identity Marriage Work -0.50 adulthood established exploration adulthood -1.00
Jess Cece Nick Schmidt Winston Rachel Monica Pheobe Joey Chandler Ross
40