Media and youth deviance

Question 1

What is the role of the media in youth deviance?

Answer 1

• Newspapers/tv coverage exaggerate stories to make them appear more interesting
• Media exaggerates and over-reports youth deviance, leading to deviance amplification

Question 2

What did Pearson say about the media and youth deviance?

Answer 2

• 19th century- social concern about rowdy youths/’hooligans’ led to sensationalist newspaper headlines and campaigns, denouncing the behaviour as ‘alien’ and ‘un-British’
• Blamed the behaviour on the hot weather

Question 3

What did S.Cohen say about the media and youth deviance?

Answer 3

• Mods and rockers (1960s)= an incident of an altercation’s coverage by the media was out of proportion to the actual incidents
• Media created a ‘moral panic’ about youth, and had turned the mods and rockers into ‘folk devils’
• Newspapers used terms such as ‘vermin’ and ‘louts’, raising concrns about the future of the nation- causing a public over-reaction

Question 4

What did Young say about the media and youth deviance?

Answer 4

• Looked at meanings attached to interactions by police and the hippies
• Police say hippies as: dirty, scruffy, idle ‘pot-heads’ and brought these meanings to any interaction with them
• Result was that drug-taking became a central part of the hippies’ identity
• Police actions led to the formation of a more cohesive group/identity and exaggerates the OG deviant traists
• 3 stages to deviance amplification:
  1) Translation of fantasy (police accept stereotypes as they are isolated)
  2) Negotiation of reality (negotiate evidence to match stereotypes)
  3) Amplification (labelling, self fulfilling prophecy)

Question 5

What did Brown say about the media and youth deviance?

Answer 5

• Media reports of rave culture involved stories of drug consumption
• Behaviour was often distorted and exaggerated, and rave culture was connected to wider concerns about youth/cultural decline
• Media attention caused deviance amplification, as it raised awareness of rave culture, and numbers attending escalated

Question 6

What did Fawbert say about the media and youth deviance?

Answer 6

• Looked at the coverage of hoodies in the media
• Bluewater shopping centre banned hoodies in 2005, creating a moral panic, driven by media
• Term ‘hoodie’= stigmatising label