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Does the media portray youths in a negative way?

Young people often feel that they are negatively portrayed by the media. The media gets lots of news stories out of the threat from hoodies, youth knife crime, binge drinking in city centres and ASBOs being slapped on young people. Even some ‘good news’ stories are portrayed negatively such as the rising marks at GCSEs and A levels are taken as ‘are exams getting easier?’. Overall there is stereotyping as troublemakers who don’t get involved in the community and do practically nothing of use. On the other hand parts of the media try to reach out to younger people, they are a target audience for radio and TV shows and many areas of the internet that show youths in a more positive light; campaigners for change globally, creating new internet companies and increasingly choosing to go further in education.

All the Yes points:

  1. News is always negative
  2. The media has too much power in terms of creating fear and panic on many issues including Britain’s youth

All the No points:

  1. Issues involving youths are seen as more important in general.
  2. Its not just the media

News is always negative

Yes because…

Whenever issues to do with the youth appear in the news it is negative. There are various areas where youths are constantly being shown in a negative light. This is particularly prevelent with crime, especially the low level crime that has been a focus recently with the prominence of antisocial behavious orders (ASBOs). These are often put on young people and are given a lot of media attention – as they are meant to with naming and shaming – which is always negative.

No because…

Most news about anybody or anything is negative. Bad news sells more than good news and so is reported more. Bad news stories such as crises, starvation, youth crime etc are reported more because they are considered more interesting and more newsworthy. People want to know about how much crime their is in their area and who causes it, if crime goes up there is a media frenzy. If on the other hand crime goes down it is just given a much smaller mention, often counterbalanced by a story about people’s perception of crime going up rather than down.

The media has too much power in terms of creating fear and panic on many issues including Britain’s youth

Yes because…

The media uses its priveleged position to scare the public and create a negative image of Britain’s youth. It is wasy too selective of its coverage of youth related news stories and selects mainly negative ones in order to discuss ‘broken Britain’ and the youth with no respect these days. The media scaremongers, creates problems and worsens already existing problems.

No because…

Issues involving youths are seen as more important in general.

No because…

Yes, youth crime is highlighted, but this is because crime involving young people is seen as an urgent issue. Young people are not being targeted or victimised, they are being seen as a priority. Young people themselves do not want youth crime to happen, it affects them just as badly, most campaigns against youth crime highlight this. Crimes against young people are also seen as more serious than against adults because young people are a vulnerable group. The achievements of young people are seen as more greater than comparative achievements of adults because they have achieved the same with a lot less experience and resources.

Yes because…

Reporting youth crime does not necessarily stop or stall crime of that sort. In fact a lot of juvenile delinquents commit atrocities precisely because they are ‘inspired’ and/or attracted to notoriety.

Impressionable minds should not be provided with the “S/he did it and it was awesome/cool and s/he’ll get off easy being a kid/adolescent/teenager”-stimulus to get them to act up.

A lot of kids attracted to crime are not concerned with their but being immortalised on television and since pulling off some crazy s*&t is the easiest way to accomplish that; that’s the path they will/do take.

It’s ridiculous how much youth’s are portrayed negatively in the media. Newspapers report about how bad knife crime is getting, but when young people see these reports, they’ll get scared and take a knife out to ‘protect themselves’ from other people with knives. They exacerbate the problem!

Its not just the media

No because…

It could be seen that the media influence the thought paterrns of the genral public, but we are all responcible for what we beleave is right or wrong. The establishments that work with young people can be the worst for sterotyping them in a negative light. A young person that has been introuble with the police is demanised as bad, and a disfuctional part of our society. In schools young people are trown out for being to out spoken even though every child matters ecourages adults to give young people a voice, the staff room in schools is the worlds worst for stereotyping and enforcing negative images of a young person.

Yes because…

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