In Framing Youth: Ten Myths About the Next Generation Mike Males
describes and analyses various representations of youth in the media and
reveals the logical fallacies in the reasoning that justifies these
representations and the outright falsities asserted in them. Youth are portrayed
in media as a direly perplexed group that culminate the issues of drugs,
violence, deviance, manipulation (being the subjects of), and mindlessness. The
way anything is portrayed in media has a significant effect on how the public
views the given issue, thus making the issue of youth portrayal in media a
serious one.
Males examines various myths about
youth and shows how statistics completely disagree with such myths. One example is the concern about youth and
the danger the Internet poses to them. He notes the preoccupation with children
becoming victims of pedophiles through communication on the internet, and how
in reality there are very few cases per year. Cases of teenage driving and
teenage violence are also used as examples of statistical disagreements with
the media’s representation of youth. Although statistics don’t provide
indisputable evidence in many cases due to various variables, small sample
sizes as compared to the whole (potential anomalies and variations may skew the
statistics), they appear to work in the cases in which Males uses them. And
after all, they are meant to provide support for his overall argument, not
meant to be his overall argument.
Males furthermore describes how
many of the media portrayals of youth also blames them for various problems and
how certain flaws in youth, such as gullibility or vulnerability are the routes
of such issues. He gives an example in which Rolling Stone article “Death
in a Schoolyard” asserts youth are obsessed with violent entertainment and
cites that and youth culture as indirect causes of school shootings. The article
uses skewed and careless statistics to argue the point, while failing to be diligent
and properly consider equally pressing problems of adults.
Each example given by Males in
someway represents the view of youth at the time “as not-quite-adults.” In each
example youth are represented as something less than adults, with diminished
capacity but not beyond saving (concerns about vulnerability to media
manipulation, concerns about vulnerability to the internet, concerns about
vulnerability to violent entertainment etc). Other examples also show the
overlap between past and modern views. For example, in the teenage driving example
youth are thought of as dangerous drivers i.e. “youth as a dangerous class.” In
general this shows how each temporal view see youth as something separate from
adults.
The way the media represents youth,
however, in such examples is problematic because of how detrimental they are to
the perception of youth and how misguided they are in general. Youth are
not-so-much in need of fixing as the way the media represents youth is in need
of fixing.
The essay is very clear and structured.The presentation of your impressions and analysis of Male's article raise many questions that need to be considered and questioned. For example, is the perception of youth as dangerous and reckless the result of the media? Or does the media mirror the views of society. I guess the key word here is causation. On the other hand, it seemed to me that Riis's article was not really youth-centered. It was written as a protest to the common adult-centered views, but I would not call it youth-centered representation, as Riis himself is not a member of the youth.
ReplyDeleteThis essays sums up the Males reading pretty accurately. His description of youth is largely skewed by the statistics within the readings. The image of youth in the media is highly complicated and difficult to deal with. The youth on one hand use the media as an outlet to voice their thoughts and opinions on things, while on the other hand internet dangers such as pedophiles raise a concern to adults. Though the statistic is small, it is something that adults find very alarming because they imagine it happening to their trial. Along with saying that this article views children as "not-quite-adults," I would add that it also shows the youth as dependents/objects of saving. The media representation of youth is really biased, and at this point is still heavily adult centered, in which adults feel that youth are vulnerable, which shows to be true in various situations, however are also false in many parts.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading Sam Thomas’s blog, because Sam did not only summarize the reading to the point but also provided the relation to the legal representations of youth to the examples in the reading. That would help the reader to understand the reading better. Also, the flow of the blog is easy to follow, too. One thing I would comment on the blog, though, that Sam could have strengthened his conclusion better by analyzing why the media in that particular era tried to convey the youth “as-dangerous-class” or “not-quite-adults” even though it was not true. For example, he commented that it was problematic and the youth did not really need fixing, but behind the reason why the media or adult-centered perspective portrayed youth as such category, was the reflection of their own childhood or even adults themselves at the time, as written in the reading, that adults were also influenced greatly by the media as well.
ReplyDeleteYour essay flowed well and was easy to follow. It also offered a different perspective than the essay I had written on the article. I liked how you brought up a child’s vulnerability and online predators. Sometimes we forget that youth can be victims unknowingly of online predators. Their vulnerability is also very true. Growing up in a small town or community where you have known everyone for a longtime we often forget about who is lurking outside that bubble. It really brings into perspective the youth representation of youth-as-not-quite-adults. In my opinion vulnerability is one of the reasons why. Many youth I think do not have the experiences to understand sometimes how dangerous the world can be with all of the predators.
ReplyDelete-Bridget
I enjoyed reading this detailed response to “Myth: The Media Tell the Truth about Youth” by Mike Males. The summary of this reading’s arguments and evidence is both accurate and concise. Following the summary, this response links Male’s article to two ideologies or modes of understanding youth; “youth-as-not-quite-adults” and “youth-as-a-dangerous-class.” I agree that both of these ideas apply to the myths Males discusses. Beyond these two understandings, however, I would argue that the myths surrounding youth portrayed in the media perpetuate understandings of youth-as-objects-of-saving-and-study. When youth are portrayed as a danger to themselves and those around them, this implies that youth are in need of protection and saving from adults. For example, the myths about youth and traffic accidents and drunk driving fatalities illustrate a world in which youth need to be protected from themselves by being exposed to adult training and supervision. The inclusion of the youth-as-objects-of-saving-and-study narrative interestingly points to the intersectionality of different understandings of youth. How we define youth culture today may not be very different from how we defined it one hundred years ago.
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