Young people tend to be represented very negatively in the media. Most people tend to view teenagers as either violent and aggressive or as party animals. Young people are represented through lots of different media forms, and tend to be portrayed in the most negative way through television programmes. For example, Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents portray young people in a very stereotypical way. Young people are shown to be lazy and wild, and are shown to be rule breakers that don't live up to their parents expectations. This show in particular is constructed so that we tend to only see the worst of the protagonist's behaviour. We are shown their bad behaviour with them drinking and sleeping around, and we are never shown and real calm bits in which the young people are behaving on their holiday. This show is also constructed in such a way that there is a definite contrast between how they act around their parents in their everyday life, and how they behave once they are on their holiday and the way in which this is done makes their behaviour even more shocking to the viewer, because they have already thought them out to be well behaved. The parents in this show also live up to their stereotype of being all worried and forever wanting to know where their children are and what they are doing. The cultivation theory also applies to this show, as heavy viewers in which are influenced quite a lot by the television, would see this as the right way to behave, and as the show portrays the drinking in partying in such a way that it is considered normal to be drinking to that extent and treating people in this way.
Old People:
Old people tend to be represented in quite a negative way also. With more people living into a greater age, more strain is being placed on taxes and health care. We tend to view older people are venerable and as people who cannot take care of themselves. Most articles about older people tend to present them in such a way that they live up to this weak and fragile stereotype. This article reinforces this stereotype as it explains about how due to the fact that we have an ever ageing population, pension costs are placing a lot of strain of the government and that a retirement crisis is brewing. This article starts to blame the recession and even goes as far as to say that World War 2 had an impact. This shows the reader how this problem has been ongoing for a while now, and is not a newly emerging thing. This article also goes onto explain how this is a problem in several countries, and this shocks the reader with the fact that this problem is not becoming a global thing. This article presents old people in a very stereotypical vulnerable way, as we stereotypically believe that older people rely on others to get by, and how they are too fragile to look after themselves, and this articles reinforces that by making older people look like they cannot get by alone, and we are then made to feel sorry for these older people because they are being blamed for all this strain on the government. However, this article is constructed in such a way that it does not take into account any other problems that may be causing strain on the government. Older people are very often presented in this way throughout different media forms such as newspapers and news on the television, and this makes people think that all old people live up to this stereotype and that all old people are to blame for the problems with the government.
No comments:
Post a Comment