1000 Words. Draft.

To What Extent Are Male Teenagers Negatively Stereotyped In The U.K News Media ?

Crime, alcohol, and general bad behaviour, almost every time you hear the news today, there seems to be endless supply of stories about teenagers in the UK doing negative things. Although, is this all a true reflection of teenagers life’s today, and how do they feel they are represented? A percentage of male teenagers causing crime in the UK is of course an important issue which affects various people, but does the media over exaggerate, or possibly make things worse for these teenagers by negatively stereotyping them? As part of my obligation, this is what I am trying to investigate and show good understanding about the extent of male teenagers being negatively stereotyped in the UK news media. I am going to be looking at representations of male teenagers, contrasting and comparing teenagers in the UK with teenagers out of the UK and clarifying why young males living in different countries behave the way they do. I will be looking in different contemporary and historical texts and examine the purposes as to why teenager today may act more differently to teenager 30 to 40 years ago. Whether today’s teenagers are a lot more mature than they are expected to be, but they are simply attacked and are negatively stereotyped by the UK news media. "Watch out! - I am from the evil and hated generation. Believe it or not, not every single teenager around my age goes around beating up people and smashing up cars. Can you seriously claim that today's youth are that much worse than the mods and rockers of the former generation? My generation never gets a positive thing said about them - GCSEs for example - we do better than the past generation and the courses must be getting easier - obviously. Is it really any wonder then certain youths rebel?" This quote gives an insight from a teenager themselves, telling us that not all youths are alike. Could this be true? Here I will be investigation whether the media do purposely aim to stereotype male teenagers in a negative way in the UK news media.

Crimes committed by teenagers today include things such as theft and robbery, knife crime, gun crime and vandalism. These are of course one of the worst forms of crimes, and it is a huge offence to the society for male teenagers to be getting involved with so much chaos. But it could also be argued that male teenagers may be committing these crimes as they may be in hatred from the news media, as to why they deeply negatively stereotype them.
"There has been a great deal of public discussions of the link between media violence and children's aggressive behaviour." This is one of the quotes, quoted from a book which clearly states that the link between violent teenagers and the media is really strong. Some people may argue that the media may not be broadcasting negative news about teenagers in order to teach male teenagers a lesson or make them feel dreadful, but most likely because negative and shocking news is what mainly gets people attracted to the news (bigger audience) and teenagers are the ones to fill that spot.

When contrasting teenagers in the UK, with teenagers outside the UK, there are of course a lot of general similarities, as therefore being a teenager naturally includes being a little hyper and curious about the world, which is therefore a motivation of ending up doing things that may be illegal. However, there are countries in the East of Europe, such as Ukraine and Russia, where we have had evidence of teenagers committing crimes that are 10 times as serious as crimes being committed by teenagers in the UK. “Three Guys, 1 Hammer” This an incident that started back in the summer of 2007, in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, when Igor Suprunyuck, Viktor Sayenko and Alexander Hanzha otherwise known as the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs decided that the best way to commemorate their departing childhood was to kill 40 people with hammers, pipes and screwdrivers, and record the whole thing on their phones. Around the halfway point to their lofty goal, the kids were arrested, and somehow, one of the videos managed to make its way onto the Internet. Not only did these 3 teenage boys kill people, generally the elderly, but they also killed animals, such as dogs and cats, and take pictures of the animals and their dead bodies. This does clearly show that as innocent as some teenagers may seem, they are of course capable of committing the worse crimes there is to commit. This could also indicate that because of incidents like this, typical incidents like this that happen in the Eastern European countries, may have strongly affected the minds of adults and the news media, always portraying each teenager as a dangerous thing. It could be that after finding out so much harmful material caused by teenagers, that adults may now have a huge fear, and the best way to tackle those fears is to negatively stereotyped teenagers on the news, for every single bad thing they do.

Generally, I think that the media has created a moral panic to the society about young people, where they only see teenagers as criminals, young boys wearing hoodies, who just love to spend their time robbing, attacking people, and spend most of their days on the street. Although, I certainly do not think that this is the case for all young people, and I also think that the media does not effectively show enough achievements in young people. While it is very understandable as to why the media commonly loves to emphasise and sometimes over exaggerate the horror stories that are going on out in our society as these types of stories obviously sell, so I do agree that to e certain extent, these negative stereotypes of teenagers link with business in the media.

Link 1:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/behind-the-stereotypes-the-shocking-truth-about-teenagers-421295.html

Link 2:
Kings, Chris Ed. (2000): Media Violence Alert.USA:Dream Catcher Press.

Link 3:
Gifford, Clive - Gang (2006), London - Evans Brothers Limited.