Notes & Quotes

Social order completely collapsed as the riots broke out and instead another sub culture was formed, from the use of social media like twitter, facebook and BBM deviants were able to meet up and cause havoc.
Historically this sort of thing has happened before, for example ‘The Mods and Rockers’ but it still isn’t normal which is why it was reported and focused on so much.
Economically the damage the riots caused cost over £200 million worth of property damage.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots)
Looking at this from a political perspective they say that the hooliganism and ‘gang culture’ didn’t represent the culture as a whole. Political members such as the London mayor Borris Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron were appalled and the police are working on catching the criminals and are slowly making progress. 

Changing technologies in the 21^st century made it easy for people to connect and find out what was happening. Because of the progression of technology like being able to access social media on your phone made it even more convenient for rioters to organise and assemble to target different areas which are the effect of globalisation in the media.
Because of the over representation and the amplification of the story it caused masses of moral panic. The riots were such a hot topic everyone knew about it and were constantly urged to stay indoors and to also keep their kids at home and since they were constantly being reminded they were scared for their own safety which shouldn’t be an issue in the comfort of their own home. This really demonstrated what an impact the riots had on the local community.
Furthermore due to globalisation the news of the London riots travelled fast as it was shown on American news.

Text 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeYnWL3D9A 
This is an extract from CNN news, an American news station. This shows a different representation of youths, in the previous text it showed a negative representation but in this one it shows a more positive image for teenagers/young adults
The costume the young black man was wearing showed a completely different image to what you would expect. He wore a smart shirt and tie putting the message that he was serious and wanted to make a difference, instead of the previous costume of hoodies and tracksuits.

The lighting is kept high key, there isn’t much editing of lighting changed to how it would look in real life, so that it looks realistic and that it’s something you can trust.

 The sound is edited so we can hear the young man talking louder than all the background noises like the shouting and cameras so that we can concentrate and hear what he’s saying rather than get distracted with things that aren’t relevant. Also his body language shows that he knows how to carry himself to get the message across, again not the typical stereotype.

"Teenage victims are not often afforded the same resources as adult victims of physical abuse and sexual violence, and even when they are, the resources are designed to assist adult victims and are not tailored to the unique psychology of teens, who are often marginalized in our society.” The Psychology of Teen Violence and Victimization-Volume 1- Michele A. Paludi 2011.

The mind of a teen is very different to the mind of an adult, for example adults can be more mature about decisions made and also can resolve things better, so to have resources for abuse only tailored to adult victims is just strengthening that gap between teenagers and adults. Furthermore the abuse to teenagers isn’t emphasized as much as teenagers abusing others to reinforce that negative stereotype, the media stories go through a gatekeeper who determines what’s shown and what’s kept from the public eye. So the image the media institutions are trying to portray can be an example of the ‘Hypodermic needle theory’ which is the idea of the media injecting messages straight into the ‘passive audience’ who then instantly gets influenced and cannot break away. Youth Cultures: Texts, Images, and Identities-Kerry Mallan, Sharyn Pearce – 2003. “Theoretical stories are situated within the writers’ own personal predilections and disciplinary traditions”perspectives provide us in ways to think about issues that may be contradicting, like for example teenagers and these principles or ideas on teenagers cannot be 100% accurate because emotions, morals and beliefs get in the way and because each person holds different views, theories cant scientifically be proven true. Positivists believe that none of these values should ever get in the way when obtaining data to create a scientific theory; but this way of thinking is often criticised by interpretivist because no matter what, humans feelings will get in the way.

Youth Media By Bill Osgerby- “they are shopping for themselves, spending for all they are worth… Some of us may wonder how they get the energy, other how do they get the money.” Because of the media stereotyping the readers would already know the answer to which the author, Bill Osgerby is implying because of the stereotypes given to the youth. “Spending for all they’re worth” so teens don’t think ahead about their future, only interested in immediate gratification. For that reason this suggests they spend without thinking and act irrational. Also indicating how immature and irresponsible they can be by living and spending for today, living fatalistically. Since the media has an impact on the public minds and influences our view, the institution can manipulate and gate-keep the information given to us “Positive media representation of youth did not disappear, but there was a palpable resurgence of more negative coverage” (Youth Media By Bill Osgerby). The media over- represents the negative stories so that it over shadows any positive coverage, creating a corrupt, damaged generation.

“Young people could be judged on ‘what they might do’ rather than what they actually do”-Parents, Children, Young people and the state by Sandra Shaw. This approach to young people is unfair to the ones being accused and to others. For innocent teenagers who behave and have no immoral motivations are automatically being feared on the basis of what their stereotype might do or say. Because of these people being feared and are anticipated to do bad might just fulfil this prophecy and commit crime anyway because its expected from them. Other people who are older than them or fear them would be influenced because of the label of youths and would change their everyday lives; for instance not going down a certain road because there are a group of teens or not going inside a shop because a group of youths went in. These groups of teenagers may not have the intention to cause any disruptions and yet people will still go out their way just not to encounter them. But on the other hand if we judged everyone on what they ‘might do’ rather than what they actually do then where would we all stand? In fear of everyone.

Amazon Book Notes & Quotes

1) young people are assumed to hold the key to the nations future, and the treatment and management of 'youth' is expected to provide the solution to a nations 'problems', from 'drug abuse' 'hooliganism' and 'teenager pregnancy' in inner city 'riots' page 50

2) young people are represented as recialized, gendered and sexualized beings set in specific class position within the media. Page 5

     3) 40% of newspaper articles featuring young people focused on violence, crime or anti-social behaviour – Brunel university during 2006 FEARS

     4) There were more negative than positive stories about teenagers (42% versus 13%) à described as yobs, thugs, sick farer, hoodies, heartless, evil scums.

     5)  ‘ A condition, episode, person or group of people emerges to become defined as a threat to social values’ moral panic.

     6)  The typical representation of contemporary young people in Britain is the iconic image of the ‘chav’

Media Magazine Notes & Quotes

1. There’s a riot going on

In the first of a series of regular discussion features, David Buckingham from Loughborough University looks at the role of the media in this summer’s riots. To help focus on his detailed analysis, we've included some bullet-point questions to think about and discuss during reading.

In August of this year, a wave of civil disturbances spread across Britain’s inner cities. Following a peaceful demonstration against the death of a black man, Mark Duggan, at the hands of the police in Tottenham in North London, police officers beat a teenage protester on the street. The disorder that ensued subsequently spread to other areas of the capital and thence to several of England’s major cities. Newspapers, TV screens and the internet were flooded with reports and images of crowds rampaging through the streets, setting buildings and vehicles alight, fighting with police and smashing and looting from shops. 

2. Representing young people: language, race, class and selection

This was reinforced by the selection of images – and perhaps especially by the iconic image of one black, hooded young man which appeared on at least five front pages following the first day of the disturbances, and in many reports since then (see www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/2011/08/09/archive.cfm). The newspapers consistently featured large, dramatic images of what the Daily Mirror called ‘young thugs with fire in their eyes and nothing but destruction on their mind’, or the Daily Express called simply ‘flaming morons’.
The spectre of the mob, of marauding gangs, of the violent underclass, has a long history; although in the Conservatives’ account of the social collapse of ‘Broken Britain’, these fears have taken on a new urgency. These young people, we were told, had not been sufficiently socialised: they were led simply by a kind of ‘childish destructiveness’. 

3. A tradition of fear

These kinds of images of young people are unfortunately typical of much news media coverage. A 2005 IPSOS/MORI survey found that 40% of newspaper articles featuring young people focused on violence, crime or anti-social behaviour; and that 71% could be described as having a negative tone. Research from Brunel University during 2006 found that television news reports of young people focused overwhelmingly either on celebrities such as footballers or (most frequently) on violent crime; while young people accounted for only 1% of the sources for interviews and opinions across the whole sample. 

4. Another genre, another teen movie

I was challenged recently to name the film I thought was the ultimate Teen movie. That is the one movie that sums up a genre that I’ve been studying with groups of A Level students (you know who you are!) over the past year. Naturally, being a teacher, it wasn’t possible simply to name one film. That would be far too straightforward. No, I would have to spend at least a week making up my mind and then write at least 2000 words explaining why I couldn’t decide on just one and maybe after that perhaps I would identify one anyway just to be awkward.

5. The media in the riots

As I’ve implied, the role of the media here isn’t straightforward. However, when we look at how media commentators themselves talked about this, we find a much simpler story. In the tabloid press, much of the initial blame for the violence was put on popular culture: it was rap music, violent computer games or reality TV that was somehow provoking young people to go out and start rioting.

The Daily Mirror, for example, blamed

the pernicious culture of hatred around rap music, which glorifies violence and loathing of authority (especially the police but including parents), exalts trashy materialism and raves about drugs.

6. The role of technology: social networking

In this case, however, there was a new dimension in the form of social networking. Despite being depicted by tabloids as mindless thugs and morons, the rioters were also seen as somehow skilful enough to co-ordinate their actions by using Facebook, Blackberry and Twitter. The Sun, for example, reported that ‘THUGS used social network Twitter to orchestrate the Tottenham violence and incite others to join in as they sent messages urging: ‘Roll up and loot’.

According to The Telegraph:

technology fuelled Britain’s first 21st century riot. The Tottenham riots were orchestrated by teenage gang members, who used the latest mobile phone technology to incite and film the looting and violence. Gang members used Blackberry smartphones designed as a communications tool for high-flying executives to organise the mayhem.

7. The rise of the ‘commentariat’: framing the issues

Of course, there are many possible interpretations and explanations of these events; but there are some further questions to be asked about the media’s role in promoting debate and circulating opinion.

Many media researchers have looked at how social issues are ‘framed’. By putting a frame around a particular issue, the media draw it to our attention; but while the frame includes some things, it always excludes others. In framing issues, the media define them in particular ways; and in the process, they may or may not help us to understand what is going on. 

8. The loss of discipline – parents, schools and law and order

For some right-wing commentators, it is parents who are principally to blame for this situation; while others, such as Katharine Birbalsingh, blame schools for failing to instil discipline and respect for authority – especially, according to her, in black children. For some, this failure even extends to the police – as for one Daily Telegraph letter writer, who argued that the riots were ‘a result of the police caring more for community relations than for the rule of law’.

Framing the issue in this way, as a failure of discipline, thus inevitably leads to a call for disciplinary responses. During the disturbances themselves, such commentators were calling for the use of water cannon and plastic bullets (or in some cases, real ones). Subsequently, there have been many calls for punitive sentences, some of which are still being fought through in the courts. These include the case of the person jailed for six months for stealing a bottle of water, or the two jailed for four years for inciting a riot via Facebook – a riot which never actually took place.

9. Making sense of ‘riots’

The death of Mark Duggan and the subsequent treatment of his family by the police clearly did spark the disturbances in Tottenham – especially coming on top of hundreds of earlier deaths in police custody (330 since 1998, disproportionately of black people). But it doesn’t explain what happened over the ensuing days in places much further afield – or indeed why rioting did not happen in places where it might have been predicted.

We need to explain why people suddenly seem to want to step beyond the boundaries of the law – why they choose to act in this way. Accusing them simply of ‘brutality’, or of being ‘animals’ or ‘morons’, does not help with this.

Social scientists who have looked at this area know that ‘riots’ – or civil disturbances – are unusual events, with complex causes. What some call a riot, others call an uprising – and often those who are involved have a wide range of different motivations. Riots are sometimes sparked by specific events, but in other cases they appear to be almost arbitrary and spontaneous

Self Evaluation

how does representation of teenagers in social media such as Facebook and twitter reinforce the negative stereotypes and create moral panic for the public?#

WWW; I have completed research up to 3000 words; i have conducted all the research needed for 'moral panic' in order to get a better understanding of it and conducted research on the negative stereotypes of teenagers. I have also conducted research on how teenagers are represented using Google scholar and Google Advanced search to get better academic research on my critical investigation topic

EBI; TARGETS

1. Get more information and articles using Google scholar
2. Go on the media magazine website and find quotes min of 10
3. Find positive and negative representations of teenagers on social media
4. Research facebook and twitter sites and what the teenagers are doing on them
5. Research how the media is creating moral panic for the public

Google Scholar Research

Abstract

The explosion in social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster is widely regarded as an exciting opportunity, especially for youth.Yet the public response tends to be one of puzzled dismay regarding a generation that, supposedly, has many friends but little sense of privacy and a narcissistic fascination with self-display. This article explores teenagers' practices of social networking in order to uncover the subtle connections between online opportunity and risk. While younger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously a highly-decorated, stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favour a plain aesthetic that foregrounds their links to others, thus expressing a notion of identity lived through authentic relationships. The article further contrasts teenagers' graded conception of `friends' with the binary classification of social networking sites, this being one of several means by which online privacy is shaped and undermined by the affordances of these sites.

http://nms.sagepub.com/content/10/3/393.short

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate age differences and similarities in the use of the social networking website MySpace, to explore potential differences in social capital among older people (users over 60 years of age) compared to teenagers (users between 13 and 19 years of age). We used locally developed web crawlers to collect data from MySpace’s user profile pages, and to quantify any differences that exist in the networks of friends of older people and teenagers. Content analysis was applied to investigate differences in social activities between the two age groups on MySpace, and the way they represent themselves on their profile pages. Our findings show a social capital divide: teenagers have larger networks of friends compared to older users of MySpace. On the other hand, we found that the majority of teenage users’ friends are in their own age range (age ± 2 years), whilst older people’s networks of friends tend to have a more diverse age distribution. In addition, our results show that teenagers tend to make more use of different media (e.g. video, music) within MySpace and use more self-references and negative emotions when describing themselves on their profile compared to older people.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563208001714

Abstract:      

Social network sites like MySpace and Facebook serve as "networked publics." As with unmediated publics like parks and malls, youth use networked publics to gather, socialize with their peers, and make sense of and help build the culture around them. This article examines American youth engagement in networked publics and considers how properties unique to such mediated environments (e.g., persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences) affect the ways in which youth interact with one another. Ethnographic data is used to analyze how youth recognize these structural properties and find innovative ways of making these systems serve their purposes. Issues like privacy and impression management are explored through the practices of teens and youth participation in social network sites is situated in a historical discussion of youth's freedom and mobility in the United States.

 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1518924

This study is a discourse analysis of media representations of young people’s participation in the summer riots that spread across the UK in August 2011. Drawing on articles published in three UK newspapers The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Sun this paper critically assesses the ways in which the media identified the behaviour of young people as symptomatic of a general moral decline in British society. Along with the media portrayal of children and young people during these events, the study also highlights the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a further way of questioning the reporting practices of mainstream media. Articles 2, 12 and 13 will have specific focus in the study, in order to evaluate the media’s recurrent misrepresentation of young people’s participation in decision making on matters concerning their own wellbeing.

http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:488101

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=Mo8GXGfqX78C&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=how+does+representation+of+teenagers+in+social+media+such+as+Facebook+and+twitter+reinforce+the+negative+stereotypes+and+create+moral+panic+for+the+public%3F&ots=J8qycrTeSx&sig=N2Z_2ndOos00N6P3pVTkvkxR2jo#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gaAqAAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA157&dq=how+does+representation+of+teenagers+in+social+media+such+as+Facebook+and+twitter+reinforce+the+negative+stereotypes+and+create+moral+panic+for+the+public%3F&ots=nGlou4Iga2&sig=wHnKepJzS4-dugV6PicWzOpk5yE#v=onepage&q&f=false

Abstract

In 1989, while reporting the well-publicized attack on a female jogger in New York City, the media discovered wilding, a newly stylized word used to describe sexual violence committed by a group of urban teens. Sociologically, the term wilding became particularly significant due to its racial connotation, perpetuating a stereotype of young Black (and Latino) males belonging to a dangerous class. This work explores the contours of moral panic over wilding by attending to elements of race, class, and fear of crime, especially as they manifest in the media. The findings contribute to a critical understanding of youth in society by offering an interpretation of wilding, a distinctive form of moral panic that symbolizes not only a threat to society at large but also to a political economy that reproduces racial and social disparities.

http://yas.sagepub.com/content/34/1/3.short

Although child abuse is a favourite topic for media stories, there has been little research on how the media portrays such issues. The present research examined the media construction of child abuse in a comprehensive sample of all 1302 reports on the subject during 1995 in a representative quality and tabloid newspaper in NSW. It was found that: the focus was on ‘hard news’ reports of individual cases and the most atypical and sensational ‘child abuse horror stories’; irony or incongruity between the offence and the offender was emphasised; child abuse was popular as a topic for ‘soft news’ (human interest) media stories; criminal justice agencies were the predominant sources used for the stories; child abusers were individualised and demonised by the press and used to promote ‘law and order’ agendas; and there was little coverage of the social causes of abuse and prevention issues. Although both the quality and tabloid press demonstrated these features, there were some marked differences between the coverage in the two sources, such as a much greater emphasis on individual cases in the tabloid press.

http://anj.sagepub.com/content/32/3/262.short

This paper provides an analysis of media discourse surrounding the arrest, trial, and conviction of Norfolk farmer Tony Martin for the murder of 16-year old Fred Barras, a Traveller from Newark, Nottinghamshire. The paper argues that discourses about Travellers (re)constructed in the media during the Martin affair showed evidence of both older, stereotypical representations of Travellers and newer ways of locating them in relation to contemporary societal anxieties about “dangerous youth”, the “underclass”, and “social exclusion”. The coverage was often emblematic of political discourses in Britain, which too often emphasise the moral failings of the “excluded” without any significant discussion of the sources of inequalities.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8330.00327/abstract

This was reinforced by the selection of images – and perhaps especially by the iconic image of one black, hooded young man which appeared on at least five front pages following the first day of the disturbances, and in many reports since then (see www.frontpagestoday.co.uk/2011/08/09/archive.cfm). The newspapers consistently featured large, dramatic images of what the Daily Mirror called ‘young thugs with fire in their eyes and nothing but destruction on their mind’, or the Daily Express called simply ‘flaming morons’. 

The spectre of the mob, of marauding gangs, of the violent underclass, has a long history; although in the Conservatives’ account of the social collapse of ‘Broken Britain’, these fears have taken on a new urgency. These young people, we were told, had not been sufficiently socialised: they were led simply by a kind of ‘childish destructiveness’. 

Google Advanced Search

Abstract representation of teenage pregnancy

This article explores the influence of class tensions in relation to news media representations of teenage pregnancy. It makes specific reference to contemporary notions of the 'chav' figure as a derogatory, yet constructed term. The article begins by considering feminist media theories of motherhood proposed by Imogen Tyler and Steph Lawler in particular relation to class and the 'chav' phenomenon; these theories are subsequently discussed with reference to news media production and questions of the ideological effects of British newspapers (namely The Daily Mail and The Guardian). The central discussion compares a small number of pertinent newspaper articles in conjunction with the aforementioned feminist theories of motherhood through discourse analysis. In particular, it examines the disparate representations of both working- and middle-class teenage pregnancies by conducting a comparative analysis of the experiences of two teenagers, Melissa and Lucy, which act to construct and reinforce dominant social ideologies through news production. Finally, concerns of diverse audience receptions, class identities and contested meanings are considered in relation to concepts of 'class pride' and important theories of an active audience response.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/issues/volume3issue1/frampton/

The 'Chav' Phenomenon

During the last century, developments in the terminology used to refer to the working class have become increasingly negative and unconstructive, meaning that social class has become distinguished by taste, and more importantly, a perceived lack of taste (Adams and Raisborough, 2008: 1173). While social anxieties regarding working-class mothers and teenage pregnancy 'have always been a target of social stigma', a more focused class hatred can be seen with 'the fetishisation of the chav mum within popular culture [which] marks a new outpouring of sexist class disgust' (Tyler, 2008: 26). 

http://www.slideshare.net/jphibbert/contemporary-media-representations-of-young-people

Representing Class in Media and News Discourse

Tensions between the middle and working classes within different media forms have already been investigated and debated extensively. Tyler's examination of the 'chav' figure explores how social class is often represented in contemporary British media through highly caricatured portrayals, and can be seen as 'part of a larger process of "class making" which attempts to distinguish the [...] upper and middle classes from the white poor' (Tyler, 2008: 18). Furthermore, according to media theory,

http://www.slideshare.net/ksomel/stereotyping-teens2

Questions of Ideology: Constructing the News

News does not simply reflect everyday events: it creates, shapes and purposefully constructs intricate ways of seeing the world and understanding society. For instance, social scientists often 'speak of "constructing the news," of "making news," [and] of the "social construction of reality"' (Schudson, 1997: 7). One can see this ideological effect of newspapers through the sheer scale of their everyday function, as mass circulation of the national press arguably retains an extensive and irrefutable influence over predominant ideas.

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/mtw9403.html

Caricaturing Class: Representations of 'Chavs' and Teen Pregnancy

Tyler's claim that 'social class is often represented through caricatured figures [...] figures that are often communicated in highly emotive ways,' (2008: 19) can be seen in The Daily Mail newspaper article 'I didn't want this baby' (Johnston, 2005), which depicts the experiences of working-class teenage mother Melissa, just days after the birth of her son. Within the article, not only is Melissa caricatured throughout, but Johnston's discourse conveys the entire family in highly emotive, loaded ways: generating an impersonal, clinical representation of the working-class subjects, who are distanced through unnamed references to their position in generation rather than by Christian name. The class of Melissa and her family becomes evident through these caricatured images of behaviour, as Johnston introduces the family:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/reinvention/issues/volume3issue1/frampton/

Notes and Quotes

Moral Panic 

It was Stanley Cohen’s Moral Panics and Folk Devils: The Creation of the Mods and 

Rockers (2002), which, like Young’s work, investigates divergent social reactions to 

deviance and their roles in constructing both deviant and condoned behaviours, that 

provided the definition of moral panic that subsequent researchers would most 

regularly cite. In this book, originally published in 1972, Cohen (2002: 1) describes 

at length the social response to deviance outlined by Young: 

Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral 

panic. A condition, episode, a person or group of persons emerges to.

To understand why virtually the entire British media and significant chunks of the political class have become weirdly obsessed with small numbers of trolls who fire vile insults at women, you could do worse than dip back into the late, great Stanley Cohen’s 1972 book, Folk Devils and Moral Panics. An indispensable guide to the modern era’s malarial-like social scares, which come and go like waves of a fever, Cohen’s book popularised the term ‘moral panic’. A moral panic occurs, he said, when ‘a condition, episode, person or group of persons become defined as a threat to societal values and interests’. A moral crusade, fuelled by ‘media sensationalism’, is then launched against these allegedly threatening ‘deviants’, he said, until they loom large in the public mind as ‘folk devils’ whose behaviour poses a threat to public safety or moral norms. In the past, Teddy Boys, football hooligans and drug-taking you were elevated to the status of folk devils; today, it’s internet trolls.

'The 'amplification' which takes place through the media's work serves to appeal to the public so that they concur with ready-made opinions about the course of action to be taken'

A teenager who killed herself after her parents banned her from Facebook left a note for a devastated family saying she couldn't live without the site.

a second year college student from Parbhani, in the Maharashtra state of India, had asked her parents for permission to log on to the site on Wednesday, but they said no.

The teenager then got into an argument with the couple who told her that she should pay more attention to school work, and spend less time on Facebook.

This is an example of a moral panic as the media has exaggerated saying that the girl cannot live without Facebook. This makes the public and other views be worried about there own child as they would also think that there son/daughter will take this step if they prevent them from going onto a social networking site. 

http://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/5573/2/Fulltext.pdf/ 

Social Network - Impact On teenagers

All this on-line friend-forming is affecting teenagers’ development, according to experts. Researchers say social-networking sites are shortening attention spans, encouraging instant gratification, and making young people more self-focused. A British neurologist warns that extended use of the sites actually rewires the brain, causing teenagers to require constant reassurance that they exist. Other dangers are more subtle. Kids may no longer spend time completely alone, enjoying the benefits of reflection and solitude. Yet they may feel isolated because they’re less likely to be communicating with the real humans in their homes, schools, and churches. Finally, teenagers may focus even more on all the worries that accompany adolescence. So instead of escaping from their problems, kids dwell on them even more.

Negatives

Seventy percent of teens use social networking sites, according to an article on the U.S. Department of Labor website. One of the most serious problems related to these sites concerned safety issues and reports of sexual interactions between adults and minors on MySpace, according to the “Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication.” Other issues related to privacy concerns include false information posted by online users and unwanted sexual solicitations. Regular use of social media sites also increases the risk of teen alcohol use, according to information from the National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Grades, Socialization and Behaviour

Social media can be distracting, according to an article on the Psych Central website. Teens who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period had lower grades. In addition, those teens who used Facebook more often are more likely to display narcissistic behaviour, antisocial behaviour, mania, aggressive tendencies, anxiety and depression. 

Positive

On a positive note, however, teens on Facebook were better at showing empathy to on-line friends, and social networking can help provide tools to help teens engage with others. The Dept. of Labor also noted that teens with disabilities can socialize anonymously, which may be beneficial in some cases.

Stereotypes

• The vast majority of parents and children described their family relationships in positive terms. Most parents and teenagers reported that relationships had improved as children moved through their teenage years, coming closer to a companionship between equals.
• Few parents identified with a view of the teenage years as particularly difficult. Young people also rejected the stereotype of teenagers becoming increasingly disconnected from their families.
• Teenagers valued their parents ‘being there’ as a crucial form of background support. Even when teenagers were in serious trouble and parents voiced distress and anger, they also described feelings of love and pride towards their children.
• Many of the young people placed a strong emphasis on personal responsibility and accountability for their actions, as well as their increasing independence.
• Although teenagers recognised their parents’ concern and care as an expression of love, there were tensions between trust and their desire for privacy. While parents were often confident that their children had not experimented with sex or drugs, some teenagers had deliberately kept their activities secret.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeYnWL3D9A
This is an extract from CNN news, an American news station. This shows a different representation of youths, in the previous text it showed a negative representation but in this one it shows a more positive image for teenagers/young adults
The costume the young black man was wearing showed a completely different image to what you would expect. He wore a smart shirt and tie putting the message that he was serious and wanted to make a difference, instead of the previous costume of hoodies and tracksuits.

The lighting is kept high key, there isn’t much editing of lighting changed to how it would look in real life, so that it looks realistic and that it’s something you can trust.

The sound is edited so we can hear the young man talking louder than all the background noises like the shouting and cameras so that we can concentrate and hear what he’s saying rather than get distracted with things that aren’t relevant. Also his body language shows that he knows how to carry himself to get the message across, again not the typical stereotype.

Crime, Justice and the Media- By Ian Marsh, Gaynor Melville, Gaynor Melville. 2009.-“Dorfman (2001) found that over three-quarters (76%) of the public said they formed their opinions about crime from what they see or read in the news, more than three times the number of those who said they got their primary information on crime from personal experience (22%).”An amazing bit of statistics that show just how much the media influences the public’s views. Dorfman (2001) carried out research finding that over three quarters of people get their opinions from the news this puts forward the idea of hegemony suggested by Karl Marx but then furthered by Gramsci. Gramsci understood that the media teaches people to do things voluntarily to upkeep supremacy in authority and in this context the media ‘teaches’ the dominant view on crime, which people then cooperate with by also taking on this view hence proving Dorman’s study. But then it isn’t clear if the view on crime is specifically targeted at young people or at others and the youth today are represented positively. As mentioned in Bill Osgerby’s ‘Youth Media’ “Positive media representation of youth did not disappear, but there was a palpable resurgence of more negative coverage” so the view on crime that some people take from the media could be positive for young teens.

Parents, Children, Young people and the state by Sandra Shaw: Page: 90 “The notion of ‘youth’ is seen as a fairly recent invention”. The word ‘youth’ is labelled with negative connotations therefore ‘the notion of youth’ may have been created to victimise a different target. One of the media’s main purposes is to provide their audience with a good story or a new story. The media puts forward its hegemonic views that the public passively accepts (hypodermic syringe) making stereotypes easy to believe. As all stories have to go through a gatekeeper and the media is able to pick and choose and how stories are shown, it’s easy for those in power to manipulate accounts and show the distorted version to the public for them to accept.

2048

Tutorial Targets 4/11/13

• Research moral panics- detailed information
• Summarise key points from Wikipedia page
• Consider article- New technology & its impact
• Amazon copy of moral panic book and find something relevant to back up topic
• Daily mail examples of moral panic