Age Flashcards
Children…
Children are often represented as vulnerable and as being in need of adult protection, which ties in with the way in which childhood is socially constructed in contemporary society.
The advertising industry represents children as consumers, possibly deliberately to socialise them into becoming consumers in later life, and to increase peer-pressure demand for their products.
Content analysis of children…
> As victims of horrendous crimes
> As cute
> As little devils
> As brilliant
> As brave, little angels
> As accessories
> As modern
> As active consumers
Children as victims…
As victims of horrendous crimes – some critics of the media have suggested that White children who are victims of crime get more media attention than adults or children from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Children as cute…
As cute – this is a common stereotype found in television commercials for baby products or toilet rolls.
Children as little devils…
As little devils – another common stereotype especially found in drama and comedy, e.g. Bart Simpson.
Children as brilliant…
As brilliant – perhaps as child prodigies or as heroes for saving the life of an adult.
Children as brave…
As brave little angels – suffering from a long-term terminal disease or disability.
Children as accessories…
As accessories – stories about celebrities such as Madonna, Angelina Jolie or the Beckhams may focus on how their children humanise them.
Children as modern…
As modern – the media may focus on how children ‘these days’ know so much more ‘at their age’ than previous generations of children.
Children as active consumers…
As active consumers – television commercials portray children as having a consumer appetite for toys and games.
Some family sociologists note that this has led to the emergence of a new family pressure, ‘pester power’, the power of children to train or manipulate their parents to spend money on consumer goods that will increase the children’s status in the eyes of their peers.
Youth…
> As a social construction
> As a social problem
Youth as a social construction…
There is a whole media industry aimed at socially constructing youth in terms of lifestyle and identity. Magazines are produced specifically for young people.
Record companies, Internet music download sites, mobile telephone companies and radio stations all specifically target and attempt to shape the musical tastes of young people.
Networking sites on the Internet, such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, allow youth to project their identities around the world.
Youth as a social problem…
Youth are often portrayed by news media as a social problem, as immoral or anti-authority and consequently constructed as folk devils as part of a moral panic.
The majority of moral panics since the 1950s have been manufactured around concerns about young people’s behaviour, such as their membership of specific ‘deviant’ sub-cultures (e.g., teddy boys, hoodies) or because their behaviour (e.g., drug taking or binge drinking) has attracted the disapproval of those in authority.
Supporting research of youth as a social problem…
Wayne et al. (2008) conducted a content analysis of 2130 news items across all the main television channels during May 2006. They found that young people were mainly represented as a violent threat to society.
They found that it was very rare for news items to feature a young person’s perspective or opinion. They note that the media only delivers a one-dimensional picture of youth, one that encourages fear and condemnation rather than understanding.
More interestingly…
They argue that it distracts from the real problems that young people face in the modern world such as homelessness, not being able to get onto the housing ladder, unemployment or mental health and that these might be caused by society’s, or the government’s, failure to take the problems of youth seriously.
