Collective Identity

Youth
(Demonisation)

 Kids are out of control theyre roaming the

streets. Theyre out late at night
Gordon Brown 2008
The children now love luxury; they have bad
manners, contempt for authority; they show
disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the
servants of their households. They no longer
rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before
company, gobble up dainties at the table,
cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
Plato 350BC

Barnardos Ad, 2008

(Adults perception of young people)

Questions to think about:

1. how media today represent youth in
different ways?
2. how these representations differ from
those in the past?
3. what effect these representations have?
4. how young people use the media to form a
collective identity?
5. how far identity is increasingly constructed
by, through or in response to the media?

Jan 2011 Exam Qns

Analyse the ways in which the media
represent groups of people
What is collective identity and how is
it mediated?

The simple hood

The simple hood

The simple hood

The simple hood

The simple hood

A Sign/Symbol of what?

Comfort
Protection
Religious
Academic status

Disguise
Transformation
Concealment
Violence
Synonymous
with criminal
behaviour

 A survey of the content of national and regional

newspapers found that out of 6500 stories
about teenage boys, over half were about
crime and only in one in ten allowed the voice
of a young person to be heard in a quote.
The language used to describe teenage boys
was quite harsh: nearly 600 references to
'yobs', 250 to 'thug' and over 100 to 'sick', with
'feral' and 'hoodie' close behind.
There were some positive terms used, such as
'angel', 'altar boy'. 'model student' and 'every
mother's perfect son' but these only appeared
in relation to boys who had died, either
murdered or in accidents.

Stanley Cohen 1960s

Easter Bank Holiday, 1964 Clacton

 If the media, by their reaction, kept the

panic going, therefore, in a sense,
amplified it. And the police, by going
along with it, added to the drama and the
drama was what attracted the kids there,
there wouldve been no point in going
there if it was just like any other Friday
afternoon..
WITHOUT THE DRAMA THE PHENOMENA
DIDNT EXIST

 Although Cohen points to the ways in

which the media amplify anxieties
and events and create a moral panic,
the demonisation of youth in this way
can only come about if there is some
kind of collective identity to which to
point.

Dick Hebdige

 Dick Hebdige's study 'Subculture, the

meaning of style' examines how
young people construct their identity
through fashion and musical
influence. His arguments still apply
today even if subcultures do not
neatly divide in quite the way they
did in the 70s, given the way music
has tended to hybridise.

Nick Barham
'Disconnected' was
based on research
Barham did talking to
teenagers about their
lives today. Given the
absence of young
voices in news
coverage, it makes for
an interesting contrast,
one that is taken up by
Nathan in Misfits.