Analyse the ways in which the media represent one group of people that you have studied

Planning

1) I want to see a plan/mind map using this structure that incorporates the four guided questions:

a) (Historic) How does contemporary representation compare with that of the past? Changed it parts but some still same (fear of some kids) pickpockets. Different crime and media to show it. Women have better roles in films and activities.

b) (Contemporary; main focus) How do contemporary media represent different collective groups in different ways? In stories making the elders sound vulnerable and young people sound yobbish. More stories about youth crime to create moral panic between communities.

c) What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people? Can create fear in societies with incriminating stories about youths and hoodies.

d) To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’ ? It is mediated but some is false for example youth identity isn’t all about hoodies and crime.

e) Conclusion; summary, the future and your own opinion

I think the media represent youths unfairly because you don’t hear about youths doing good stuff for the community in newspapers or on the news you only hear bad stuff. 

Essay

Contemporary representation has changed over the years but in some parts the representation is still the same. For example the representation of youths being pick pockets back in history could be linked to the representation that today’s youth always steal from shops and rob other people who are vulnerable. Also the views on youths in this modern time are worse than back then because there is more media to mediate what is going on and can do in depth stories which everyone can see. The one positive representation that has changed is that women are becoming a bigger role in society for example playing bigger and starring roles in films instead of being extras. Contemporary media represents different collective groups in a number of different ways such as in news stories making the elderly sound vulnerable and all youths sound violent and yobbish. This isn’t helped by the fact that there are more stories about youths doing crime on the news than anything else which can create moral panic (Cohen) between communities and cause a divide. The social implications of different media representations of groups of people are that it can create fear in societies with incriminating stories about youths and hoodies. This will make others fear them and divide the community up causing some people not to leave their homes because they are too scared. As most programmes on the TV show, some adults think that all youths are criminals and violent people so the youths have to go and change that stereotype by going to meet them and talk it through. This is all started by the media and I think that current media is splitting people up. Human identity is increasingly mediated but some is false for example youth identity isn’t all about hoodies and crime. Some youths are actually very intelligent and against all this crime being committed but nobody hears about them because the media are trying to portray their own ideas of what youth identity looks like which is wrong. In conclusion to this I think the media represent youths unfairly because you don’t hear about youths doing good stuff for the community in newspapers or on the news you only hear bad stuff. This can create false panic in communities and make the youth of today feared. It may also lead youths to commit more crimes if they think that everyone thinks they are committing crime a lot anyways they might live up to that stereotype. For example in the film Harry Brown the youths are represented as violent and always commiting crime. In the film Quadrophenia ,which is along the same story line but set 50 years before, the youths are still represented as violent and commiting crimes but they do it in different watys which shows how things have modernised in terms of representation of youths. Newspapers also portray that youths only do bad. This was shown in a video we watched where some people thought that over 60% of crime was committed by teens. This is caused by the newspapers only printing bad stories about youths because they believe that it would get them more readers. This doesnt show that some teens actually do things to help the community which can cause a false sense of fear in communities between the young and the old.