“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
You can probably tell by the language that the second one is much older, but it surprised everyone to find out just how old. The first was from Gordon Brown in 2008 and the second from Plato in the 4th century BC. So as we can see, complaining about the behaviour of young people is nothing new!
We looked at this shocking video, from a Barnardo's campaign, all dialogue coming from what adults had written on national newspaper websites in response to stories about teens
HOODIES:
the meaning of 'the hood': we were able to identify the use of the hood as a sign of comfort, protection, religious and academic status but also of disguise, transformation, concealment and violence. Most recently in relation to youth it has often become almost synonymous with criminal behaviour. News coverage of the student protests culminated in these front covers the next day, a moment captured which once again involves a hooded youth in an act of criminality, standing in for the whole story.
A survey of the content of national and regional newspapers found that out of 6500 stories about teenage boys, over half were about crime and only in one in ten allowed the voice of a young person to be heard in a quote. The language used to describe teenage boys was quite harsh: nearly 600 references to 'yobs', 250 to 'thug' and over 100 to 'sick', with 'feral' and 'hoodie' close behind. There were some positive terms used, such as 'angel', 'altar boy'. 'model student' and 'every mother's perfect son' but these only appeared in relation to boys who had died, either murdered or in accidents. There is more detail on this and some other surveys on Dave Harrison's blog here.
Although Cohen points to the ways in which the media amplify anxieties and events and create a moral panic, the demonisation of youth in this way can only come about if there is some kind of collective identity to which to point. Dick Hebdige's study 'Subculture, the meaning of style' examines how young people construct their identity through fashion and musical influence. His arguments still apply today even if subcultures do not neatly divide in quite the way they did in the 70s, given the way music has tended to hybridise. Two current subcultures are shown below- Emo and Goth.
(pete's media blog notes)
What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?
To answer this question you could pull in some of your audience theory used for question 1b).
1) If we apply a basic effect model to the representations of youth, particularly the negative ones there could be detrimental implications.
If representations of youth seen in Eden Lake and Harry Brown are not decoded as being a selective representations then it could result in creating or perpetuating stereotypes (commonly held public belief about specific social groups, or types of individuals).
This could then lead to creating distance between social groups. So adults (particularly vulnerable ones) will become afraid of today’s youth, will be reluctant to engage them and demonise them instead. It can also create tension within social groups with young people becoming afraid of other young people.
Have a look at the articles on demonisation here to make notes on the consequences of demonisation. The bits in bold might help.
2) If we take David Gauntlett’s view that we use the media as ‘navigation points’ for developing identity, what are the consequences if the representations of youth are negative or unrealistic?
Stewart Lee believes that watching Skins as a teenager would have left him feeling lonely as it portrays a lifestyle that he couldn’t associate with. Do you associate with the representations of youth in TV and Film?
3) However, if we stick with David Gauntlett’s view and apply it to positive or constructive representations there can be benefits. Telling stories and showing lifestyles that youths can associate with is a positive – possibly so they can share the trials and tribulation of growing up, and allow them to put life in perspective.
How could Inbetweeners be seen as useful representation for UK youth?
4) Constructive or positive representation could do the opposite of demonisation, potentially breaking stereotypes and telling the stories behind the negative headlines.
So how does Misfits try to break the classic teenager stereotypes?
Where is the blame placed for the behaviour of the youths in Eden Lake?
5) If the representations offered did not sit well with today’s youth they reject mainstream culture. This use to lead to creating subcultures, scenes etc. but now youths can partially control their own identity and representation in media with the use of the net – youtube rants, memes, Facebook pages.
6) A possible negative implication of forming an identity using MySpace or Facebook is that it is a templated format so you are limited in how you express yourself. Also there are many other consequences of Facebook defining your identity.
1) If we apply a basic effect model to the representations of youth, particularly the negative ones there could be detrimental implications.
If representations of youth seen in Eden Lake and Harry Brown are not decoded as being a selective representations then it could result in creating or perpetuating stereotypes (commonly held public belief about specific social groups, or types of individuals).
This could then lead to creating distance between social groups. So adults (particularly vulnerable ones) will become afraid of today’s youth, will be reluctant to engage them and demonise them instead. It can also create tension within social groups with young people becoming afraid of other young people.
Have a look at the articles on demonisation here to make notes on the consequences of demonisation. The bits in bold might help.
2) If we take David Gauntlett’s view that we use the media as ‘navigation points’ for developing identity, what are the consequences if the representations of youth are negative or unrealistic?
Stewart Lee believes that watching Skins as a teenager would have left him feeling lonely as it portrays a lifestyle that he couldn’t associate with. Do you associate with the representations of youth in TV and Film?
3) However, if we stick with David Gauntlett’s view and apply it to positive or constructive representations there can be benefits. Telling stories and showing lifestyles that youths can associate with is a positive – possibly so they can share the trials and tribulation of growing up, and allow them to put life in perspective.
How could Inbetweeners be seen as useful representation for UK youth?
4) Constructive or positive representation could do the opposite of demonisation, potentially breaking stereotypes and telling the stories behind the negative headlines.
So how does Misfits try to break the classic teenager stereotypes?
Where is the blame placed for the behaviour of the youths in Eden Lake?
5) If the representations offered did not sit well with today’s youth they reject mainstream culture. This use to lead to creating subcultures, scenes etc. but now youths can partially control their own identity and representation in media with the use of the net – youtube rants, memes, Facebook pages.
6) A possible negative implication of forming an identity using MySpace or Facebook is that it is a templated format so you are limited in how you express yourself. Also there are many other consequences of Facebook defining your identity.
Misfits - Nathan Tells it like it is
Here's a clip from the last episode of Misfits where Nathan explains just what the role of youth has in society and just what representation of youth Misfits is trying to portray.
And here's it written down just in case:
"She's got you thinking this is how you’re supposed to be. It's not. We're young. We’re supposed to drink too much. We're supposed to have bad attitudes and shag each other's brains out. We were designed to party. We owe it to ourselves to party hard. We owe it to each other. This is it. This is our time. So a few of us will overdose, or go mental. Charles Darwin said you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. That's what it's about - breaking eggs - by eggs, I mean, getting twatted on a cocktail of class As.
If you could see yourselves... We had it all. We have fucked up bigger and better than any generation that came before us. We were so beautiful... We're screw-ups. I plan on staying a screw-up until my late twenties, or maybe even my early thirties. And I will shag my own mum before I let her.... or anyone else take that away from me!"
collective identity posterous blog notes
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Taken from scribd - not my work
