The fourth phase of a longitudinal research project started with a pilot test of an online focus group approach with Gen-Z young adult participants to understand if exposure to foster care media portrayals influenced their life choices when in foster care. This technography approach for digital natives included slides, prompts, media clips, and polls to motivate engagement. However, participants resisted verbal responses. The failure to collect meaningful data identified the need for an adapted research design. Eight Gen-Z adult participants attended an informal, in-person, 2-hour listening session to discuss research design and media portrayals. Transcript analyses revealed 4 differences: 1) participants were significantly more likely to disengage in the online focus group as compared to the listening session, 2) participants in both research designs disengaged more during the presentations of information and engaged more when given control of the discussion, 3) participants didn’t disagree in the online focus group; however, participants respectfully disagreed with each other in the listening session, and 4) the disagreements were pivotal to changes in perspectives. The noted listening session features included in-person, longer meetings, without prompts, and abbreviated, verbal-only presentations. Meaningful insights about media portrayals were collected. The discussion ranged from few foster youth narratives to superhero origin stories to negative fictional portrayals and news reports of criminals. Positive fictional television series inspired higher education and career goals. This participatory-action approach gives participants control and creates a safe space for disagreement, which may be an important catalyst for deeper processing of life events in real-time.

Authors:
Leslie Ponciano, Fielding Graduate University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Leslie Ponciano is a core faculty member of the Human and Organizational Development Ph.D. program at Fielding Graduate University. She has partnered with a community-based organization, called Peace4Kids, in South Los Angeles for over two decades to conduct participatory action research that examines the systemic questions the youth with a lived experience have about foster care. Although most of the research has always been strengths-based in that they look for factors that contribute to positive outcomes, the current project unexpectedly found a negative factor that may contribute to negative life outcomes. A strong association was found between the general public's perceptions of how the media portrays youth in foster care and their perceptions of the youth themselves. Those who reported that media portrays youth in foster care negatively also reported that youth in foster care are likely to have negative life outcomes. The second phase of the study found this to be true for the professionals who work or volunteer with the youth on a daily basis. The third phase confirmed the results of the first phase on a national level and found opposite results for perceptions about youth in adoptive care. They were both perceived to be portrayed more positively in the media and were perceived to have more positive life outcomes. The fourth phase of the study has begun in which focus groups of adults with a lived experience in foster care will explore the role that negative media portrayals has had on their life choices and on their interactions with important adults in their lives.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-leslie-ponciano-3569ba7/

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