How are young people represented in contemporary media?

In contemporary media today, young people are represented negatively as they are mainly portrayed as violent thugs who have no morals or values, such as those in Harry Brown, Eden Lake and to an extent the music video Ill Mannors by Plan B, where the majority of characters are drug dealers (or addicts) who terrorise innocent people through threats and acts of violence. However, other texts such as Attack the Bloc portray a different image that opposes this view as the youths are using violence in a similar way to the police and other authority figures: to protect, suggesting that young people today do have morals and values.

In the text Harry Brown young people are represented extremely negatively; they are extremely violent (especially in comparison with the other media texts), which is stressed in the opening scene where a handheld camera is used to represent the use of the gangs mobile phone to create verisimilitute within the diagesis and thus feel like they are a part of the gang itself. In this video the audience sees the gang threaten a woman with a pram with gun shots, and then the audience sees that the gang has actually killed her. The fact that this scene was used in the opening sequence stresses how dangerous these young people are as they have no reason to kill someone - it's just fun to them, suggesting that they don't have any morals and do not follow cultural hegemony (Gramsci) so they need to be controlled. This is stressed further when Harry Brown, the protagonist says 'for them out there it's just entertainment'. In the film Harry Brown represents the dominant ideology in society where Harry Brown and thus the dominant ideology needs to be enforced to control these wild youths and hence reestablish the equlibrium in the film (Todrov's Narrative Theory). Also, the contrast between the ages of the older and more traditional protagonist and younger, violent antagonists really accentuates the youth’s behavior as wrong and unacceptable.

A similar stereotypical view is portrayed in the Eden Lake trailer where once again the antagonists are the young people as they are rude and don't speak as eloquently as the middle class couple. Like in Harry Brown they are portrayed in a stereotypical way and are seen as an 'empty category' (Giroux 1997) as they are seen as rude - even the lady in the cafe calls them 'little terrors' although this is ironic as she means it in a jokey way, but it's the truth. However, this label becomes the 'empty category' and thus they are portrayed in a stereotypical view throughout the trailer -  a view that reflects adults concerns, anxieties and needs as they are rude, for example, they play their music really loudly at the lake when the audience are first introduced to them and their behaviour continues to worsen as the trailer goes on as they become increasingly violent - boy uses a knife when the man confronts him again, then they tie the couple up and then chase the woman through the woods. The fact that you see their behaviour worsen throughout the trailer does reflect adults views and worries in society as it suggests that youths can not be stopped and they are monsters, like the lady in the cafe said. 

Also, like in Harry Brown where the contrast in age was used to reinforce hegemony (Acland 1995) and thus show youth behaviour as deviant, contrast between mise-en-scene of costume is used in Eden Lake as it opens with sunny and bright lighting, the eloquent couple laughing and having fun. This is seems as normal and dominant behaviour as the couple are well dressed and presented and they have a middle class accent which reflects cultural hegemony. The youths however, wear darker and stained clothes which could suggest that they don't have as good lifestyle as the couple, thus being seen by the audience as inferior. Also, after the youths are introduced the lighting used in the trailer darkens, connoting danger and darkness and even evil, therefore suggesting that the youths are the complete opposite of normal as they don't conform to societies dominant values, meaning that they should be controlled because of this, reinforcing hegemony.

Also, in Ill Mannors this stereotypical view is stressed to reinforce hegemony as they are out of control - they steal, set fire to cars, fight among each other. However the 'normal adult and youth behaviour', contrasted with deviant youth behaviour is actually similar to the deviant youths behaviour - there's a politician who hits a member of a crowd when an egg is thrown at him and David Cameron looks stupid when he hands out 'free money', suggesting that the state are just as bad as the deviant youths.

Media representations of delinquent youths in Attack the Bloc initially reinforce hegemony as in the opening scene we see the youths attempting to mug a vulnerable lady which is unacceptable behaviour and thus needs to be controlled by the police, which they try and do when they bring the lady along with them in the hope of finding her attackers creating the image that the police have more control and reinforcing the ideology of protection. However, when the aliens attack the police officers this view changes as now it's the aliens that need to controlled and monitored - not the youths. Also, it's the youths, not the police who do this which goes against hegemony as it shows that they don't need to be constantly monitored and that the British police force are actually useless.

The fact that young people are represented this negatively in the media has resulted in a moral panic (Cohen 1972) which has been enhanced through news coverage such as that of the London Riots which furthermore reasserts cultural hegemony. There are elements of the riots being dramatised into these texts despite the fact that the riots happened after they were made, such as in Harry Brown when the police storm the estate and the thugs retaliate  suggesting that riots were soon to come if the police didn't do anything about it. Additionally, one reason as to why young people are portrayed negatively in contemporary media, such as tv dramas, films and music videos could be done to stress this moral panic as the media can clearly tell it creates fear which would also create interest, thus making films in this genre sell more, thus only representing a small minority.

However, young people aren't always represented so negatively in contemporary media. For example, even in Attack the Bloc, even though we are introduced to the young people when they attempt to mug a lady, our perceptions change throughout the film as they are only being violent in retaliation to the attack of the aliens and they are doing it to protect themselves. Also, young people were portrayed positively in the news coverage of the Olympics as athletes such as Tom Daley, who is 17, won a bronze medal while completing his A-Levels (which he got straight As for) which represents young people in contemporary media positively as it proves that they can work hard and achieve greatness if they put their minds to it, unlike the way in which young people are represented in texts like Harry Brown and Eden Lake.

In conclusion, young people are primarily portrayed negatively and stereotypically as thugs who are violent and wild and need to be controlled. This stereotypical view is portrayed to reinforce cultural hegemony to clearly show audiences how to behave, however, although a rise in youth subcultures and crime has contributed to a moral panic, it is likely that the media has exaggerated elements of young people in order to sell their media text as they know that it would grab audience’s attention, thus not representing young people as a whole. Despite this, young people have been portrayed positively – especially in the Olympics and even in Attack the Bloc our opinions of the young people change at the end, making the audience see young people in a different way.