Stan Cohen - folk devils - group of people who are a threat to society
moral panic - leads from deviant behaviour
Deviance amplification - one deviant act initiates a spiral, more is reported
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Demonisation of youths
Gramsci - Society is run by the ruling elite to make sure they keep their position.
Media is run by a small group who wish to maintain their position and status
hegemony - dominant ideology
Gauntlett
Time Magazine British youth are violent, drunken and out of control
Collective identity is an individuals sense of belonging to a group who share a set of traditions and values , part of personal identity. It has to be taken into account the role that representation plays in forming these collective identities. Identity is deemed 'complex and complicated' by David Buckingham who also believes that 'the media do not offer us a transparent window of the word, but a mediated version of the world'., which can be furthered to mediation. Mediation is the ways in which the media reconstruct reality and present a certain perspective to the viewers, often rejecting the truth. It contains three factors and ways in which content can be presented; these are selection objection, focussing and organisation. Therefore many social groups suffer from misrepresentation and therefore result in spectatorial audiences believing the views presented, even when they're negative and an image is formed around a specific social group. This relates to the Hypodemic Needle Model which focusses on people taking in content passively.
The youth is continuously gaining negative coverage by the media which have seemed to worsen after the London Riots in 2011. When considering Stan Cohen 's Deviance amplification theory which suggests that one deviant act initiates a spiral or attention, the London Riots can be regarded as the initiation of the downward spiral of negative media coverage on youth.The theory is also relevant as youth is seen as a group of people who are a threat to society and therefore cause moral panic. Along with many other media texts, a stereotype is beginning to be formed on youth which is very negative and untrue and only is relevant to minorities of youth. The representations used by the media can be considered to be untrue, and in fact reflect adult concern (Giroux). 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"
In opposition to this, The Young ones (1961) illustrates a very positive representation of youth. Youth are mainly presented as happy, respectable, friendly, community activists and standing up for what they want in a responsible manner. Activism is generally associated with some public action designed to raise awareness around an issue usually related to matters of social, political or economic importance. This is particularly shown through their attempts to save their youth club from closure. The characters are also shown to be dressed in much more formal and smart clothing than modern day which provides a sense of higher class. Their etiquette and the dialects is also considerably better than today's youth, once again presenting them in a very positive perspective. Their passion seems to be singing and dancing which enhances the difference in normalities between 1961 and 2011 as the youth are seen to be running around the streets performing. Between then and now it is evident that structuration has taken place, a theory suggested by Anthony Giddens where social systems change and transform and an overall shift occurs in the normality.Ill Manors
Young ones
structuration - Giddens
Attack the Block
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