1. The group, place or issue on which a media text is focusing.
2. The technical devices/codes the media text uses in order to present these groups or issues.
3. The message about the group or issue being created within the text.
4. The impact of this message on the target audience.
You are going to be using exactly the same structure when analysing the representation of young people.
Your research and notes for this project will be submitted on your first lesson back after the Easter holiday. There is no word limit, upper or lower, for this project. However, it is expected that you will complete 4 1/2 hours of work on this project.
The work shall primarily be assessed through verbal presentation, either one-to-one with your teacher, or in small groups. However, the more notes you write, the more accomplished your case studies will be.
One week project - the representation of age
Research
1 - Run a Google image search for 'British youth' or similar
- What results come up?
- What stereotypes exist of young people in the United Kingdom?
- What media texts (for example TV shows, music videos, films etc) have you seen characters like this in?
2 - Buy, or find a national tabloid newspaper (eg The Mirror, The Sun, The Express, The Star...)
- What stories are related to young people?
- Exactly how many stories are related to young people? (go through the entire newspaper and count!)
- How are young people represented? Are the representations positive or negative?
- What language is used to refer to young people?
Theory
Read through the following theories, making notes for both in your book.
Extension - use online resources to research Dick Hebdige and his writing on youth subculture
Hebdige (1979) - Young people are either 'fun' or 'trouble'
- Dick Hebdige has written extensively on youth subcultures, and how young people challenge hegemony through expression. This has led to many youth subcultures, from punks, goths, emos, teddy boys, mods, rockers... This idea that young people are fundamentally 'different' from adults has led to significant use of stereotypes by producers
- When young people are featured in media texts, they are limited to either 'trouble' or 'fun', with no in-between.
- Representation is clearly not reality. Every representation is constructed to reflect the ideologies of the producer.
- Producers believe it would be boring to show young people working hard, taking on adult responsibilities or other roles.
- While this might not directly influence into believing that these are the only two representations, it does lead to an under-representation/misrepresentation of young people in media texts.
Gerbner - Cultivation theory
- You'll be familiar with cultivation theory from our study of audience. However, we can also use this idea to question how and why representations are formed
- One suggestion would be that young people in media texts are often associated with crime, with the young characters whether being involved in committing crime, or being the victim of crime.
- Consistent negative representation indoctrinates the public to place blame on teens.
- Television ‘sows the seeds’ of negative representation… and after a while, audiences begin to accept this as fact.
- Like all passive audience theories, we need to treat this one with caution.
Case study
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| Waterloo Road ran for over 200 episodes, and featured a wide range of representations of young people. |
Select a film or single episode of a TV series that features young people in a significant role. For the purpose of this exercise, 'young' means 19 or younger.
You can select anything you like, as long as it meets these requirements. If you're stuck for inspiration, check out this list.
- Kidulthood (2006) (18)
- Frozen (2013)
- Harry Brown (2009)
- Skins (TV) (18)
- Eden Lake (2008) (18)
- NEDS (2010) (18)
- American Pie (1999)
- The Inbetweeners (2008) (18)
- Dennis The Menace and Gnasher (TV)
- Stranger Things (TV)
Be careful: some of these films are pretty challenging in their content. An easy opt out, though just as useful, is to switch on the TV and to look for a youth oriented show and watch it, even if you have never heard of it!
Your task is to analyse how the representation of youth is constructed in this text, and what message is constructed about the group in question. Finally, as ever, discuss the impact on the target audience of the text!
Watching TV
For this final task, all you need to do is watch television for an entire evening. At the very least, you need to watch three shows back to back.
You are going to be looking at representations of age, but also representations of men, and representations of women. How are these groups represented? Make notes as you watch the shows. You may like to use this grid to help you structure your response.
