How Are Teenagers and Young People in the Media Portrayed?

With some exception, young people in the media are traditionally portrayed in a negative light through TV programmes, films and news articles. Some of these portrayals tend to be inaccurate which changes the way older and younger generations view the youth as a whole.

The posed image with  the Daily Mail article

For example,  the Daily Mail in 2008 published an article entitled " Decade-long £650m push to cut youth crime has had 'no measurable impact' " which gives the reader information on just how ineffective the government have been at cutting the number of young offenders in the UK. The picture with the article, although posed by models, depicts 3 boys of around 12 years old standing next to a derelict wall and drinking alcohol dressed in a stereotypical 'chavvy' way. This negative image is what most of the audience will see before even reading the article and it is a very negative view of British youth, a portrayal that the Daily Mail have deliberately constructed.  The article goes on to use facts, figures and other statistics from highly academic sources such as Kings College to further support their points which makes the research appear to be more trusted to the target audience. With this negative portrayal, it categorises all youth into a collective identity of offenders and with the vast amount of articles written in this light, the general representation of youth is distorted so much that it almost becomes a reality for those in other generations who know no different and in some ways glamourises the criminal lifestyle because of the attention it receives. This may urge other youngsters to get involved with the 'in group' because they can see that the rate of young offenders is rising and the government haven't yet found an effective way of dealing with them. Theorist Stuart Hall once said 'the media appear to reflect reality whilst in fact they construct it' and this is true regarding this article.

Chris Miles (right)

On the other hand, youth can be portrayed in a different light which is more accurate than the constant one as a group of delinquents. For example, in the popular TV drama 'Skins' there is a character called Chris Miles. He is initially shown in a negative light to just 'smoke/screw/rob/snort anything' and not succeed in life but as the series continues different aspects of his personality are revealed which in a sense counteracts his initial stereotype as a 'hedonistic skater'.  The creators of the show make the audience feel that his reckless behaviour is justified because of the way his character developed as being kind, gentle, welcoming with a positive attitude towards friends and relationships. This is a juxtaposition and it shows the audience that the less favourable actions don't ultimately make people who they are.

'Henri Tajfel's greatest contribution to psychology was social identity theory.
Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s).
Tajfel proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem.  Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.

In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and being prejudice against the out group.

Therefore we divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorisation (i.e. we put people into social groups).

This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them).  Social identity theory states that the in-group will discriminate against the out-group to enhance their self-image.

The central hypothesis of social identity theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of an out-group, thus enhancing their self-image.'

Staurt Hall is a cultural theorist who devised Hall's theory of dominant (how the creator wants the audience to view the text), opposition (when the audience rejects the preferred reading and creates their own meaning of the text) and negotiated (a compromise between the dominant and opposition readings by the audience accepts parts ofthe directors views, but has their own views on parts as well) reactions to a media text.

He has written many books on cultural studies (such as Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices) and also stated that 'the media appear to reflect reality, whilst in fact they construct it'

Dr Caroline Howarth is Caroline Howarth is a British lecturer in social psychology at the Institute of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics. She is noted for her social studies on the Brixton Riots and the struggle for recognition and esteem in  a stigmatised community. The article examines how the struggle for recognition and esteem permeates everyday experiences in the context of young people growing up in Brixton. The first section illustrates how identity is constructed through and against the representations held by others within particular social contexts. Focusing on the varying strategies that different young people adopt in constructing a positive identity reveals the salience of racist representations in the social construction of Brixton. The second section examines the effects this can have on the self-image and self-esteem of many in the study, looking in particular at strategies used to contest negative versions of blackness. This points to the racializing and gendering within the production of local youth identities. The concluding section illustrates how some young people collaboratively develop the social and psychological resources to protect themselves against the prejudices of others. Together, this material reveals how social relationships and institutional cultures empower/disempower Brixton's youth in their collaborative struggle for recognition and esteem. This allows us to consider how new multicultures address, incorporate and resist new racisms and prejudices towards a locality.