The media talked up the disturbances into a bigger ‘moral panic’[1]
This critical investigation will be on the question- To what extent does news media create moral panic and represent
teenagers in a negative way that the public should fear? The question
that's going to be looked at extensively and will be covering topics such as
the issues and debates raised, how technology affects teenagers’ social life,
how have their minds been corrupted, different events and more. 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’[2]. 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’s ‘a marked increase in the number of girl gang
members and a rise in sexual violence within gangs’[3]
again, showing that this stereotype is constantly shifting, not just with
ethnicity but with gender as well.
Issues and debates could help decipher the problem with the view on
young adults and teens. An issue would be representation and stereotyping, the way the media demonises the youth
has left an imprint on today’s society as being ill-mannered, violent and being
associated with drugs, sex and gangs. Hoodies, joggers, baseball caps,
oversized shirts are a part or the iconography of the stereotyped teens. The
media reports certainly do amplify stories to do with the youth like in recent
events such as the protests and riots; it was all that was shown on news
channels. Where’s the success of teenagers? Their academic success?
Achievements? But then that’s just a case of what the audience is interested
in, and media institution’s goal is to get the most power. From the Marxist
perspective the media will try and gain as much power to rule 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. However showing
these negative coverage’s can often cause moral panic, moral panic is caused
when the media exaggerates stories scaring the public. For example the summer
2011 London riots. People were informed to stay inside and to not go outside
because of the fear of being attacked or robbed and to also keep children
inside so they wouldn't join the riots. The news reached all over so before
long, even places that weren't affected would have heard about it which
resulted in more panic. In terms of regulation and censorship there have been
rules put up to restrict the view of violence from children but aren't blocked
from what they shouldn't be allowed access to through what they see on the TV
or on video games. 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 think that, that is how they should act.
Nowadays it’s harder to censor explicit things because of the development of
technology, ‘It's been assumed that the Internet is immune from censorship’[4] now
anyone with access to the internet can get any information they want because
it’s been made easier or methods have been created to bypass any boundaries.
Also due to even further development we now have access to the internet on
different electronic devices that are portable like; android/smart phones,
tablets, laptops etc. 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 Halls reception theory we can take the preferred reading as it’s all
just purely for advertising purposes but then the oppositional reading could be
that it’s 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. Young adults have become the internet generation and it
can be shown through statistics; twitter engages a wide audience as anyone can
use it but 45% of its audience base goes to 18-34 year olds[5]. So it’s
the younger ages that are updating what they’re doing and connecting with each
other, but is this safe for teens? “Teenaged Twitter users aren't the
sharpest, most culturally-aware knives in the drawer-- but we're also
regurgitating news that you've probably already seen”[6] from
this, its suggesting that teenaged twitter users are mindless passive audience
who give into the media and are used to advertise information. The different
media have now converged together so that now it’s possible to gain internet
access through portable devices and now it’s 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’s a positive thing to
have easy access as consumers would be pleased but then on the other hand it
could be considered as a bad thing as we’ve seen in recent events. The use of
social networks was abused in the 2011 riots and the incident got to an extent
where authorities had to actually police these networks in order to prevent any
more crimes. Recent reports suggest that paedophilia is on the increase[7], as kids
are able to go on social networks it’s also easy for them to meet strangers and
because they’re young they’d be more naïve then adults. Paedophiles can easily
manipulate kids into saying or doing anything that could put them in danger,
such as sending explicit pictures or talking in a certain manor. Because of the
issue raised actions have been taking place like kids and teenagers are being
educated on the subject and are becoming more aware of what they could be at
risk of. Also on social networks there are security settings where it’s
possible to make their account private from anyone but there family or friends,
also there’s a report abuse button
where if the situation were to happen then it could be taken care of. However
since the internet is so large it’s therefore immensely difficult to regulate
everything which is why paedophilia still occurs. “But of course there have
been riots and revolutions long before the electronic media came along”[8] so the
media isn’t hugely to blame on the crimes that have been committed as the world
was not perfect before technologies came into play but still is a major
contributor.
Charlie Brooker looks at many
events on the BBC show ‘Screen Wipe’
and he focuses on the London riots[9]. All the
teenagers in the clip of the riots were wearing stereotypical costumes like
hoodies, jackets, trainers, bandannas, baseball caps and most of them were
masking their face to hide their identity. Those hiding their identity shows
that they know what they’re doing is wrong however they still carry on, but
this sort of irrational behaviour is typical of the connotations of the youth
in London today. Charlie Brooker’s style is in a less serious way, like for
example in a scene where he’s parodying a news style report we can see this
from the backdrop; window out looking the London eye and from what he’s
wearing, a smart suit. His posture and tone of his voice is very formal which
is the style of a new report but at the same time he’s still joking around. The
studio lighting, is kept bright (35:52) to keep the mood optimistic as the
story being told is depressing so in order to keep the viewers watching and not
get depressed the setting is kept bright. But the lighting does change to a low
light coming from one lamp in the background, this gives a more one to one
feeling so it engages more with the audiences as we’ll feel like he’s only
telling us, uses and gratification- Blumler and Katz. Because of this we as an
audience would also share his views because of the way it’s been sent across. 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'[10]. 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’s still isn’t 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[11] worth
of property damage. 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[12] and
Prime Minister David Cameron[13] were
appalled and the police are working on catching the criminals and are slowly
making progress. Changing technologies in the 21st 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 causing a
great deal of moral panic. Furthermore due to globalisation the news of the
London riots travelled fast as it was shown on American news.
An extract from CNN news, an
American news station shows a different representation of youths[14]. 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 doesn’t conform to his stereotype. He wore a smart shirt and tie presenting
himself in a formal serious manor so that people knew he meant business and
wanted to make a difference, an entirely different portrayal of the distinctive
costume of hoodies and tracksuits. The setting is out on the street with a
massive crowd including journalists and the paparazzi, meaning that the story
is a hot topic and should be acknowledged to be important that something out of
the ordinary has happened. Because of the increase of interconnectedness and
the effect of globalisation it’s 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 are not closed to only their country, they report news
globally and let other countries know what’s 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’s well educated
with what’s 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%)”[15].
An amazing bit of statistics that
shows 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[16].
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 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”[17] 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 hasn’t always been the same, there are similarities
and differences so by studying a text from the 70’s it’s easy to see what’s
changed. Quadrophenia (1979)[18] is
about a British, working-class youth, Jimmy who is a part of the ‘Mods’
subculture cruises around at night with his friends on their scooters, but in
the day works in the mailing rooms. Jimmy and his friends go away for the bank
holiday to Brighton to enjoy their little holiday but then run into their rival
group the Rockers resulting in Jimmy getting arrested. From there Jimmy’s life
goes downhill. This movie relates to the critical investigation as it is both
based on delinquent youths in Britain but just set in different periods. The
youth culture has definitely changed over the years but still contain some
similarities, like for example dealing drugs but it’s a little different to the
ones in Quadrophenia, instead of drugs that we know today like crack, cocaine
and heroin they’re overdosing on pills that are meant to be for medicinal
purposes (e.g. anti-depressants). So the movie has a scene where the
protagonist and his friends break into a chemist to steal a great deal of pills
committing the crimes; theft, trespassing and drug handling. Another similarity
is a typical teenage party with drinking, smoking, loud music, sexual behaviour
and being disruptive. The music however has changes over a period of time, the
music used in this example is from The
Who, an English rock band from the 1960’s[19],
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. In the media it’s not only the
teens that are negatively represented but it’s also the parents in both the
past and present the parents are seen as a mirror of their teenage kids and not
having much interaction with them, affecting the way they turn out and what
they grow up to be, delinquents. Gang/territory conflict is also what we see in
the movie and also in the media now, Quadrophenia’s conflict are between the
‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ and is often physical fights that occurs. We also see that
today in the mass media or even with our own eyes, gangs or ‘subcultures’
conflicting with each other so that’s another point that hasn’t changed much. One
major difference that can be seen is the ethnicity difference and their
dialect. Today’s 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 with very different use of words and the only black
characters that were shown for a couple seconds had a very strong Jamaican
accent, showing how much times have changed that instead of the white being
deviant it’s now black youths. Also the clothing has changed completely, in the
1960’s the costume used in the movie were mostly casual clothes like a normal t
shirt tucked into some jeans also wearing leather biker jackets that we
wouldn’t see gangs wearing today. They also sometimes wore suits but this could
just because they had jobs which were low-skilled but also showed that they weren’t
always badly behaved and that they’re trying to look after themselves. The
youth’s today typical attire would be a hoodie, baggy shirt, saggy jeans and a
baseball cap; it’s a lot lazier. 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.’[20]
“In the public’s mind, a few
juveniles hanging out together on a street corner elicits the image of
delinquent gang. While these juveniles may not belong to any formal gang.”[21] This
quote points out that even though the group of young teens are hanging out on
the street corner doesn’t mean they’re a part of a juvenile group looking for
trouble, they could just be there for social reasons. But because of the
stereotypes that they have been labelled and it is the appearance that decides
a person’s view, the group is automatically feared which is unfair on their
part, everyone knows the saying; don’t judge a book by its cover so why does
today’s society still carry on doing it? The media plays a huge role on
reinforcing these qualities in the youth creating what Stanley Cohen (1987)
calls moral panic; a sudden increase in public perception of the possible ‘threat
to societal values and interests’[22] because
of exposure to media texts. So that the general public fear young adults who
probably have no violent motives due to the media amplifying the misconception
of folk devils (deviant outsiders). Nevertheless there is a corrupt subculture
that rejects society’s norms and value that overshadows the success of adolescents;
their counter-stereotype of being hard working and well-mannered and that they
focus on differed gratification.
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’d be in a soap, comedy, films, the news
etc. “Radicalized difference is a key feature of British race relations and has
been aptly borne”[23].
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’[24]. Any media
program would use stereotypes for different reason like for example, so it’s
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’re looking at. As the media ‘feeds’ us our views we’re 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”[25]. 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.
Through the constant
coverage of the story, the media made it look like that these sorts of events
were going to reoccur again. “what had happened was inevitably going to happen
again”[26]
but this was only just an assumption however because the media kept on putting
emphasis on the reports and raising the question of what should be done next
time? ‘What still needs to
change if we are avoid a repeat of last year’[27]
this assured the audience that this disaster would happen again. So by
combining that message along with the attention of the violence shown to the
public would have resulted in the audience panicking where delinquents would
strike next. Moral panic causes people to think events will reoccur
because of the constant coverage and attention.
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) 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. 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’s 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”[29]
Word count: 4,031
[6]
http://www.examiner.com/article/turns-out-a-bunch-of-teenage-twitter-users-didn-t-even-know-who-osama-was
[10] Propp, V. I., & Liberman, A. (1984).Theory and history of folklore. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. xxx
[21] Regoli, R. M., & Hewitt, J. D. (1997).Delinquency in society (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. P. 22
[23] Malik, S. (2001). Representing black Britain: black and Asian images on television. London: SAGE. Print. P. 10
[27]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2184359/London-riots-year-What-needs-change--.html#axzz2Js3hktj9
[28] Shaw, S. M. (2010). Parents, children, young people and the state. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press. P. 90
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