Youth and the Media

Youth and the Media A major stepping stone in the path of contemporary youth is that of

the media and it’s all to often fatalistic, unfavourable and adverse

representation of today’s youth. The media primarily are modes of

communication in contemporary culture that are often created by teams

of people to entertain, inform, persuade and provide avenues of

expression for mass audiences. As this is the case the media plays a

pivotal and integral part in our lives, affecting where we go, what we

do and what we think, ultimately dictating a large part of our

existence. Due to this the portrayals put forth by the media of

sectors in the community can have extremely wide and varying effects.

These effects are fundamentally a cause of the techniques employed by

the media to depict a social group in this case youth. A study by the

Daily Mirror the NSW equivalent of The Sunday Mail Has shown

alarmingly, approximately 90% of its articles in relation to youth are

not positive reflections or representations (appendix 3: Youth and the

Media, 1992). With such disturbing trends and statistics it is not

only essential but vital that the public and you as the journalists of

Australia understand the wide spread implications of the articles you

print pertaining to youth. These articles are based on techniques you

all utilise, such things as the creation of community versus

“otherness” and the manipulation of technical and symbolic codes to

pro...

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...yping is also based on limited fact and it

is common knowledge that very few people come close to an actual

stereotype as the broad range of humanity covers such a vast spectrum.

The sensationalism these articles are based on I believe became

ironically unstuck in the article “Why This Sick Music Is Warping Our

Kids” when the expert psychologist said “Studies have been undertaken

but nothing has been proved.” This took the impetus from the whole

article. However, in saying this not all media coverage is pernicious,

although this is at a bare minimum. There a several ways the media

should accommodate the problem of youth in the media, firstly cut down

on negative publicity, secondly try to declassify youth and

concentrate on their achievements and thirdly let youth speak,

especially on issues pertaining to them.