THE ROLE OF MASSMEDIA IN INFORMING TEENAGERS ABOUT SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH EDUCATION

In a society with a low level of emancipation, we notice that mass media is often perceived as the best communication channel concerning the sexual health amongst teenagers in relation to information they receive from parents or other counseling institutions. In Albania, sexual and reproductive health is considered a major problem for public health. Sexual health and reproduction have not been part of educational programmes, and only after 1992 such issues began to be publicly discussed. Various studies of national and international institutions provide specific data confirming that different social institutions, such as family, school, etc, do not play their appropriate role in terms of children' education. In many cases information technology is taking this role. A survey conducted with a representative sample of 2172 high school students from around the country shows that 49.7% of teenagers report that television is their source of obtaining information about sexual health, followed by internet (36%), youth newspapers (5,1), newspapers in general (2.8%), books (2.4%), brochures/leaflets (2.4%) and radio 1.9%. Meanwhile, parents are evaluated as an information source at 29.9%, teachers (27%), health personnel (20%), psychologist /social worker (13.1%) and 10% of them claim they do not talk at all about these issues.