Discuss the view that 'Media Representations of youth reflect societies concerns and fear'

The representations of youth  in media texts tend to  be negative, generally illustrating youths to be mischievous and violent and associated with illegal activities. There has been a clear influx in the accumulation of media texts created which focus on the urban/industrial areas which heavily involve crime committed by the youth. However, these representations are not to be considered truthful to all youth and in fact only relate to the minority. This can therefore support the statement above as the representations created can be considered to be the concerns and fears of society. There are many statistics which confront these negative views which demonstrate the reality and truth behind the 'troubled youth'. It is evident that the negative stereotypes of youth have caused a struggle and strain with relationships between youth and the older generations. And perhaps due to the fact that the majority of people involved in the media industry would be significantly older than the discriminated youth and could therefore provide a sense of truth behind the statement that the media representations of youth reflect societies concerns and fear.

A media text which conveys youth in this particular perspective would be the film 'Bullet Boy' made in 2004. This film is based in London where violence, crime, drugs and vandalism feature heavily. A young black male is released from prison for stabbing and despite his best attempts to rejuvenate his life he gets dragged back into trouble through loyalties with other youths. Also the audience see his younger brother being introduced to the culture and following in the brothers footsteps as he rebels at school and also accidentally shoots his friends whilst playing with a firearm. The film concludes with the main character accompanying his friend with attempted murder, ultimately resulting in him being killed himself due to his association. The activities presented in the film reinforce the negative representations of youth and to a spectatorial audience these stereotypes could be deemed to be correct, and further enhancing their fears. This can be related to Gerbner's 'Cultivation Theory' which believes. "The primary proposition of cultivation theory states that the more time people spend 'living' in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality portrayed on television"

However, in comparison to these forms of negative stereotypes of youth, the film 'The Young Ones' in 1961 portrays youth in a much more positive light. It presents youth as being pro-active communists who fight for what they love and in this case being their youth club. Although the fact that the teens were seen to be rebelling authority, it was for a much more positive motive. The teens are presented to be in a higher class through the vocabulary they use, appearance and activities they enjoy. They are shown to perform multiple musical numbers where they dance and play and run around the street which contrasts the vulgar, rebellious, criminal representations of modern day. Also due to the fact that the negative representations are now so frequent (particularly after specific events such as the london riots) a sense of reasoning could be suggested to replicate societies fears. This is because the youth are now being categorised to being a threat to society. In turn, relating to the process of Deviancy Amplification Spiralling theorised by Stan Cohen in 2011. This is a media hype phenomenon defined by media critics as a cycle of increasing numbers of reports on a category of antisocial behaviour or some other 'undesirable' event, leading to a moral panic.

Ultimately, it can be considered that the media representations of youth do replicate societies fears through the constant creation of media texts which conform to the aforementioned stereotypes, causing moral panic. Conforming to Giroux's statement that 'youth becomes an empty category in representation and reflects adult concerns'. The alternative view is that the consumers can interpret the content how they chose, either distancing themselves or agreeing with the representation.