Effects and Impact // Implications & Mediation Theorists
‘Hoodies or Altar Boys’ • Positive phrases: ‘angel’, ‘high-achiever’, ‘model student’, ‘talented sportsman’… – Only used where the young person had died
• Fewer than 1 in 10 articles about young people actually quoted young people or included their perspectives in the debate
‘Hoodies or Altar Boys’ • 2009 study • Analysed 8629 stories in national and regional • “Hoodies or Altar papers Boys?” What is media – 50% were about youth stereotyping doing to and crime our British boys? – "yobs" (591 times) • Analysed newspaper – "thugs" (254 times) articles about youth – "sick" (119 times) • Interviewed 1000 young – "feral" (96 times) men/ boys aged 13-19
‘Hoodies or Altar Boys’ • “When a photo of a group of perfectly ordinary lads standing around wearing hooded tops has become visual shorthand for urban menace, or even the breakdown of society, its clear that teenage boys have a serious image problem. The teen boys "brand" has become toxic. Media coverage of boys is unrelentingly negative, focusing almost entirely on them as victims or perpetrators of crime - and our research shows that the media is helping make teenage boys fearful of each other.”
‘Hoodies or Altar Boys’ • What are the effects of these representations? – 85% of boys surveyed said negative images in media had made them afraid of other teenage boys. • In comparison, 40 per cent said their wariness was based on their own or friends' bad experiences of other teens
– Are young men/ teenage boys internalising the negative stereotypes?
Stanley Cohen • “Folk Devils and Moral Panics” (1972) • Studied Mods and Rockers clashes in early 1960s (especially 1964 Clacton) – "Day of Terror by Scooter Groups" (The Daily Telegraph) – "Wild Ones Invade Seaside 97 Arrests" (Daily Mirror). – Articles used phrases such as 'orgy', 'riot', 'siege', and 'screaming mob'
Stanley Cohen • Interested in youth culture and its perceived potential threat to social order • Youth culture is examined in terms of its difference and challenge to established adult culture
Stanley Cohen Deviancy Amplification Spiral The police made more arrests, the media reported more deviance, more young people readily identified with the Mods and Rockers‌the initial disproportionate response of various state and media control agencies generated more, not less ‘deviance.’
Henry Giroux • Representations of youth in the media are constructed by adults, and so youth have no voice of their own. • “Prohibited from speaking as moral or political agents, youth become an empty category inhabited by the desires, fantasies, and interests of the adult world.”
Charles Acland • •
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The representation of deviant youths reinforces hegemony Media creates the image of "normal" youth and adults, and contrasts this with ‘deviant youth’. This reinforces the normalcy of hegemonic behaviours and alienates other behaviour/ makes it socially unacceptable Representations of young people out of control allows the state to exercise more control – e.g. introduction of ASBOs
The "ideology of protection" Youths need constant surveillance and protection (and to protect society)