Representations of Youth in TV Drama

Representations of Youth in TV drama from SafinaMedia

Representation of Age - exemplar answer for mock exam.

Representation of Age - Revision task for Blog

Find 3 SPECIFIC examples of the representation of age in the media from a variety of contemporary texts (these must be from the last 2years):

1.Advert (include year of advert)

2.newspaper article (date and specific article should be named)
3.music videos (pick a particular scene, exact times should be noted)
4.Films/film trailers (pick a particular scene, exact times should be noted)
5.computer games
6.Magazine cover (date of advert)
7.TV programmes (when it was broadcast, what time specifically)

• For example use a film, magazine cover and advert. 

Your analysis must be detailed. Upload onto your blog and answer the following:

•How is the representation created? How has it been mediated (selection/organisation/focus)?
•Textually analyse: Lighting/Mise-en-Scene/Camera/Sound/main image.
•Does it create a positive/negative/stereotypical representation? How any why (link to points aboves)

Representation:Japanese Pop (J-Pop)

As pop star misdemeanours go, Minami Minegishi's was tame in the extreme – breaking her group's strict dating ban to spend a night with her boyfriend.

Yet hours after a magazine published photographs of her leaving his home last month, Minegishi, a member of the wildly popular girl band AKB48, went on to YouTube to issue a tearful apology.

"As a senior member of the group, it is my responsibility to be a role model for younger members," she said, before ending the four-minute mea culpa with a deep, lingering bow.

The most striking thing about her apology, however, was her appearance. She had shaved her head, a traditional act of contrition in Japan, but perhaps a step too far for a 20-year-old woman whose "crime" was to have found herself a boyfriend – 19-year-old Alan Shirahama, a dancer in a boyband.

Minegishi explained she had decided to cut off her long hair immediately after seeing her photograph, her face hidden behind a surgical mask and a baseball cap, in the weekly tabloid Shukan Bunshun on Thursday.

Her dramatic gesture underlined the strict rules to which Japan's young pop stars must adhere to project an image of unimpeachable morals.

In the YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 3m times, Minegishi said the assignation has been "thoughtless and immature".

"If it is possible, I wish from the bottom of my heart to stay in the band," she said. "Everything I did is entirely my fault. I am so sorry.

"I don't believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don't want to quit AKB48."

AKB48's management agency demoted her to "trainee level" starting on Friday, according to the band's official blog.

Full story here

February 7th 2014 Homework

Age Representation

You need to collect examples of Representation of Age in the media.

1) Young people

2) Old people

3) Stereotypes of age in media

Points to remember

• The representation has to come from a specific media text. ie (Old age is represented negatively in a recent article in the Daily Mail, the article is about ............)

• The representation should be contemporary (within the last 2/3 years)

• How is the representation created ? Visual Image, Language, Mode of Address etc

Try to get Rich texts that you can use for Representation of Age/Gender etc.

This is a good example as you can use it for both Age and Gender.

Representation of Age

Representation from Kim Fyson

A great link on representation here: http://www.revisionworld.co.uk/a2-level-level-revision/sociology/mass-media-0/media-representations-age-social-class-ethnicity-gender-sexuality-and-disability

Below is there section on Age....

Representations of age

Media representations of different groups of people based on age (i.e. children, adolescents and the elderly), also generalise and categorise people on the basis of stereotypes.

Childhood
British children are often depicted in the British media in positive ways. Content
analyses of media products suggest that eight stereotypes of children are
frequently used by the media.

• 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.
• As cute – this is a common stereotype found in television commercials for baby products or toilet rolls.
• As little devils – another common stereotype especially found in drama and comedy, e.g. Bart Simpson.
• As brilliant – perhaps as child prodigies or as heroes for saving the life of an adult.
• As brave little angels – suffering from a long-term terminal disease or disability.
• As accessories – stories about celebrities such as Madonna, Angelina Jolie or the Beckhams may focus on how their children humanise them.
• As modern – the media may focus on how children ‘these days’ know so much more ‘at their age’ than previous generations of children.
• 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
There are generally two very broad ways in which young people have been
targeted and portrayed by the media in Britain.

• 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 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.

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. Moreover, 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.

The elderly
Research focusing on media representations of the elderly suggests that age is not the only factor that impacts on the way the media portrays people aged 65 and over. Newman (2006) notes that upper class and middle class elderly people are often portrayed in television and film dramas as occupying high-status roles as world leaders, judges, politicians, experts and business executives. Moreover, news programmes seem to work on the assumption that an older male with grey in his hair and lines on his face somehow exudes the necessary authority to impart the news.

However, female newscasters, such as Anna Ford, have long complained that these older men are often paired with attractive young females, while older women newsreaders are often exiled to radio. Leading female film and television stars are also often relegated to character parts once their looks and bodies are perceived to be on the wane, which seems to be after the age of 40.

Sociological studies show that when the elderly do appear in the media, they tend to be portrayed in the following one-dimensional ways.

• As grumpy – conservative, stubborn and resistant to social change.
• As mentally challenged – suffering from declining mental functions.
• As dependent – helpless and dependent on other younger members of the family or society.
• As a burden – as an economic burden on society (in terms of the costs of pensions and health care to the younger generation) and/or as a physical and social burden on younger members of their families (who have to worry about or care for them).
• As enjoying a second childhood – as reliving their adolescence and engaging in activities that they have always longed to do before they die.

However, recent research suggests that media producers may be gradually reinventing how they deal with the elderly, especially as they realise that this group may have disposable incomes, i.e. extra money to spend on consumer goods.

- See more at: http://www.revisionworld.co.uk/a2-level-level-revision/sociology/mass-media-0/media-representations-age-social-class-ethnicity-gender-sexuality-and-disability#sthash.ImltEmge.dpuf

Cultivation Theory

Very good link on the cultivation theory: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/cultiv.html

Another very good link here: http://masscommtheory.com/theory-overviews/cultivation-theory/

Cultivation theory from Hoang Minh

Effects and audiences lessons 2 and 3 from hgaldinoshea

Representation of Age

Age presentation from david-rowland