"British
youths are 'the most unpleasant and violent in the world”[1]
To what extent does news media create moral
panic and represent teenagers in a negative way that the public should fear?
Stanley Cohen
(1987) defines moral panic as a sudden increase in public perception of the
possible ‘threat to societal values and interests’[2]
because of exposure to media texts and through the over-representation of
stories, the public’s mind can easily be manipulated to have certain thoughts
and stereotypes. Stanley Cohen wrote
a book called Folk Devils and Moral Panics and this book focuses on the events
that happened from 1964 to 1966 in England with the two groups; the mods and
rockers. The first disruptions happened in Clacton in 1964 ‘with a few
scuffles, some stone throwing, some windows being broken and some beach houses
were wrecked’[3].
In reality it was fairly trivial but the news media amplified the story and
became a huge battle, ‘more than 1,000 teenagers were involved’[4]
and ‘fifty-nine teenagers were arrested’[5].
According to Cohen, by the media’s influence it led to an increase of crimes
because by describing the two juvenile subcultures teenagers took on these
traits and therefore led to even more conflict. So what is it that makes the
viewer’s believe in the media? Surely the audience knows that it is mediated
and can be exaggerated or can even reach to the extreme of being a complete
lie, like the recent scandal with the BBC and allegations towards Lord McAlpine
where he stated that people ‘had used the internet to accuse him of something
he had not done’[6].
Teenagers now have an image of being juvenile with no care towards society and
its rules, but this image changes constantly like for instance in the past a
typical deviant would be a white working class male but now would be more
likely to be a black working class male. According to the BBC’s report there is
‘a marked increase in the number of girl gang members and a rise in sexual
violence within gangs’[7]
again, showing that this stereotype is constantly shifting, not just with
ethnicity but with gender as well.
The news media
reports certainly do amplify stories to do with the youth like in recent events
such as the protests and the 2011 riots but where is the success of teenagers?
Their academic success? Achievements?
Therefore proving that they “are often marginalized in our society.”[8] But then that is just a case of what the
audience is interested in, and media institution’s goal is to get the most
power and to get power they need popularity. From the Marxist perspective the
media will try and gain as much power to rule over the lower class and will do
this however they can, so by only showing stories that the audience would be
interested in is a way for them to get that power.
In terms of
regulation and censorship there have been legislations put up to restrict the
view of violence from children but are not blocked from what they should not be
allowed access to through what they see on the TV or on video games as it
influences their behaviour and attitudes from a young age. Children take in
what they observe and pick up the same characteristics from the platforms like
on the TV and they see what the media perceives as how teens should act and
therefore also think that is the correct way to act. Nowadays it is harder to
censor explicit things because of the development of technology, ‘It is been
assumed that the Internet is immune from censorship’[9]
now anyone with access to the internet can get any information they want
because it is been made easier or methods have been created to bypass any
boundaries. Also the lean back media plays a part, as the content they
advertise and how they advertise can be looked at in two ways. Looking at
Stuart Hall’s reception theory[10]
we can take the preferred reading as it is all just purely for advertising
purposes but then the oppositional reading could be that it is actually
corrupting the minds of youths.
The media
technology and digital revolution has vastly improved in the way we gain
information, send out information, how we connect and will no doubt have many
other functions in the future. Development in technology is always evolving to
fill the needs and wants of its users and teenagers have become massive
consumers of e-media and especially social networking sites such as Facebook
and Twitter. Twitter engages a wide audience as anyone can use it but 45% of
its audience base goes to 18-34 year olds[11]
showing that the majority of its users are young adults. ‘Teenaged Twitter
users are not the sharpest, most culturally-aware knives in the drawer-- but we
are also regurgitating news that you've probably already seen’[12]
from this, its suggesting that teenaged twitter users are mindless passive
audience, as suggested by the hypodermic needle[13],
who give into the media and are used to advertise information. Due to even
further development the different media platforms have now converged together
so that now it is possible to gain internet access through portable devices and
now it has been developed even further so there are dedicated apps to social
networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. making it easy and accessible.
On the one hand it is positive to have easy access as consumers would be
pleased but then on the other hand it could be considered reckless as we have
seen in recent events like in the 2011 riots, the use of social networks were
being used to gather up gangs to riot making the situation escalate even more
(BBM and Twitter) moreover the incident got to an extent where authorities had
to actually police these networks in order to prevent any more crimes.
Charlie Brooker
looks at many events on the BBC show ‘Screen Wipe’. The BBC is a public service
broadcaster that is the ‘World’s largest broadcaster Most trusted media brand’
and was also founded in 1922[14]
so the institution is a very well established business with many advocate news
consumers. Charlie Brooker looks at clips from other television shows
delivering his audience with witty critiques, but also at the same time informs
us as to how the television industry operates. Looking at the clip[15]
all the teenagers were wearing the typical iconographic costumes of hoodies,
jackets, trainers, bandannas, baseball caps and most of them were masking their
face to hide their identity. Those hiding their identity show that they know
what they are doing are wrong however they still carry on, but this sort of
irrational behaviour is typical of the connotations of the youth in London
today. The diegetic sounds of the shouting and the bashing of the riots
displays the dangerous atmosphere giving the audience a message of a menacing
environment portraying the character roles of the youths being the villain and
the police being the hero, as suggested by Vladimir Propp, 'as it denotes the
action of the character'[16].
These character types will assist the viewers to label who are the good ones
and who are the bad ones. Social order completely collapsed as the riots broke
out also forming another sub culture from the use of social media like twitter,
Facebook and BBM, deviants were able to meet up and cause havoc. Historically
this sort of event has happened before, for example ‘The Mods and Rockers’,
even though events like this as occurred before, it still is not an ordinary
scene which is why it was over represented and was focused on so much.
Economically the damage of the riots caused cost over £200 million[17]
worth of property damage.
An extract from
CNN news, an American news station shows a different representation of youths[18].
The previous text it shows a more negative representation but in this clip it
shows a positive appearance for teenagers/young adults. The costume the young
black man was wearing showed a completely different image to what you would
expect; it does not conform to his stereotype. He wore a smart shirt and tie presenting
himself in a formal manner, an entirely different portrayal of the stereotype.
Because of the increase of interconnectedness and the effect of globalisation
it has been shown on American news thus showing the full effect of the digital
revolution. More developed countries like the US and the UK are more open and
not closed to only their country, they report news globally and let other
countries know what is going on around the world making them more conscious,
but is this the start of a loss of culture? Stuart Hall’s reception theory
would explain the preferred reading to be the young black male not conforming
to stereotypes but in fact is the opposite. He is well educated with what is
happening with the world around us, for example EMA, universities, Libya. But
on the other hand the oppositional reading would be that the young male is
being disrespectful towards the Mayor, arguing with someone older than him,
being loud and obnoxious.
Both examples
give an opposite outlook of a teenager, so it is up to the audience of which
view they want to take. “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%)”[19].
These statistics shows just how much the news media influences the public’s
views, this puts forward the idea of hegemony by Gramsci[20].
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 Dorfman’s study. But then it is not 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”[21]
so the view on crime that some people take from the media could be positive for
young teens.
Looking back to
the past the representation of youths has not always been the same, there are
similarities and differences so by studying a text from the 70’s it is easy to
see what has changed. Quadrophenia (1979)[22]
is about a British, working-class youth, Jimmy who is a part of the ‘Mods’
subculture.
Similarities can
be seen in the movie and also in contemporary media like for example; drinking,
smoking, being sexually active, disruptive, drugs etc. The music however has
changed over a period of time, the music used in this example is from The Who,
an English rock band from the 1960’s[23],
nowadays young teens would be listening to rap or RnB mostly from originating
from America, also showing how globalisation has been taken into effect where
that barrier of music has been broken down. One major difference that can be
seen is the ethnicity difference and their dialect. Currently the stereotype of
a deviant is a working-class, young, black male according to the movie,
delinquents in the 1960’s were all, if not mostly white with a cockney accent,
showing how much times have changed that instead of the white being deviant it
is now black youths. Overall examples of teenagers in contemporary media are
significantly different to those in the past, but still share some similarities
this is due to the media changing our views and shaping our beliefs to one
dominant view, resulting in people sharing a hegemonic view ‘the predominance of one social class over others.’[24]
The British media are
able to show racial differences now because of how often the typical
stereotypes have been shown over a long period of time, whether it would be in
a soap, comedy, films, the news etc. “Radicalized difference is a key feature
of British race relations and has been aptly borne”[25]. The
audience is so used to it and takes it in that it seems normal to them and when
they go out into reality they take on those beliefs as their own. This is an
example of cultivation theory where the effects of TV over a long period of
time ‘shape our perceptions of reality and the
world around us by affecting our attitudes and certain ways of thinking’[26]. Any media
programme would use stereotypes for different reason like for example, so it is
easy for the audience to identify and feel comfortable (uses and
gratification). Or to convey a certain message e.g. all black people are
inferior to white people or maybe just for comedy, it depends on what genre we
are looking at. As the media ‘feeds’ us our views we are able to get
subtle hints they may give ‘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’[27].
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 are worth” so teens do not 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.
Overall
teenagers are represented in a negative way and have been labelled as deviant
but ‘the notion of ‘youth’ is seen as a fairly recent invention’[28].
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)[29]
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
is easy for those in power to manipulate accounts and show the distorted
version to the public for them to accept. ‘The mass media provide an organizational
framework within which individuals interact in the context of set roles and
established power hierarchies’[30]. Because of the media’s racial ideologies its
created ‘power hierarchies’ to establish which race is more admirable.
‘Individuals interact’ with the roles, so they have acknowledged the set roles
and take them on without any difficulty. This proves how powerful the mass
media are where it is able to enforce their idea of who is at the top of the
hierarchy and who is placed at the bottom reinforcing the established roles of
different types of people. Anything the mass media states should be accepted by
the public, reflecting the Marxist perspective where the ruling class stay on
top and exploit those lower (the working class). Most of what is seen
that is related to young adults on the news media are denoted as juvenile
actions but then when looking from a different perspective not all the media
reports for teens are necessary deviant. For example the news coverage from CNN
news where the young black man spoke up, therefore there are positive
representations of youths but it is just been over shadowed by all the negative
depictions. “Positive media representation of youth did not disappear, but
there was a palpable resurgence of more negative coverage”[31]
[1]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024486/UK-RIOTS-2011-British-youths-unpleasant-violent-world.html
[5] The
Guardian, Brian Lapping, Young and
foolish - with old-fashioned ideas, Tuesday 19th may 1964
[8]
Paludi, M. A. (2011). P. ix
[10]
Fourie, P. J. (2001). P. 224
[13]
Starker, S. (1989). P. 12
[14]
http://www.medianewsline.com/bbc-worlds-largest-broadcaster-most-trusted-media-brand/
[29]
Starker, S. (1989). P. 12
[31] Osgerby, B. (2004).67
