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“CATFISHING” : EXPOSING TEEN RECEPTION ON MTV CATFISH ONLINE DATING

Senja, Garini Tiara ; Delliana, Santi (2022) — Profetik: Jurnal Komunikasi

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DOI: 10.14421/pjk.v15i2.2380 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   Indonesia
Tags:   AI-Enabled Fraud, Audience Reception, Catfishing, Identity Deception, Mtv Catfish, Offender Tactics, Online Dating, Red Flags
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Synopsis

            
This article investigates how Indonesian adolescents aged 19–24, active in online dating and living in Jakarta, interpret and react to catfishing as depicted in MTV’s Catfish: The TV Show, episode “Jake & Taylor.” Grounded in Stuart Hall’s reception theory, the study asks how teen online daters receive and interpret the program’s catfishing narratives. The authors describe three reading positions—Dominant-Hegemonic, Negotiated, and Oppositional—and apply them to documentary-like scenes from the episode to map viewers’ meaning-making processes. Methodologically, the authors conduct in-depth interviews with 18 informants who watched the episode and analyze 18 pieces of information across six scene categories. The research design emphasizes qualitative understanding of audience interpretation rather than generalizable statistics. It situates the audience within a Jakarta-based, tech-enabled context and ties reception to broader media effects theories such as encoding/decoding and uses-and-gratifications. The study also documents how information from the Catfish team’s investigations—reaching out to the catfish, tracking photos, and attempting face-to-face meetings—serves as prompts for viewers’ readings about authenticity, trust, and online risk. Principal findings indicate a spectrum of readings among informants, with many responses aligning to Dominant-Hegemonic or Negotiated positions in various scenes, and a substantial portion oriented toward Oppositional interpretations overall. The authors conclude that catfishing prompts consideration of identity, vulnerability, and safety online, and they discuss implications for media literacy and future research, while noting the qualitative, context-specific nature of the results.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
The study examines audience reception of a single televised catfishing case rather than actual victimization or perpetrator behavior. It leaves limited evidence on how media portrayals affect online-dating behavior, how trust develops in real catfishing relationships, and how findings apply beyond young online daters in Jakarta.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
Descriptive qualitative audience-reception study using Stuart Hall's encoding-decoding framework. The researchers conducted in-depth interviews with six Jakarta-based online daters aged 19–24 who had watched the "Jake & Taylor" episode of MTV's Catfish: The TV Show. Interview responses to 18 episode information items were classified as dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, or oppositional; the study reports data collection, theory comparison, triangulation, and conclusion drawing.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The evidence is based on six purposively defined viewers from DKI Jakarta and one television episode. It captures interpretations of a mediated case, not verified experiences of romance-scam victims or offenders. Findings are therefore context-specific and cannot establish prevalence, causal media effects, or generalizable risk patterns.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Test media effects quantitatively using Uses and Gratifications. Conduct qualitative case studies. Apply Social Penetration and Self-Disclosure theories to online interpersonal relationships. Explore the catfishing phenomenon through Human and Posthuman perspectives.

          

              

    
    

        
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