George Young, Jordan Bunning

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Media representations are complex, not simple and

straight forward. How far do you agree with this
statement?

Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular
groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular
ideological or value perspective. These representations can be simple or
complex. There is generally a negative stigma in the media towards the
working class and youth culture. There are examples both historical and
contemporary seen in Film and T.V portraying this representation:
Quadraphenia, Attack the block, Grange Hill and Youngers.
The representation of youths in the 1979 movie Quadraphenia, in theory is
very straight forward in that the teenagers are either Mods or Rockers
there is no one sat on the fence. They have very contrasting
characteristics to one another making them very easily identifiable, Mods
having their fitted suits and modern music, whereas the Rockers wore
leather and listened to rock and roll. The teenagers of the 70s saw
themselves are opposing and did not want to be placed under the same
category as one another but if you look at the theorist Acland (1995), he
says how the adults see all the youths as being reckless and they have to
keep enforcing that their actions are bad. In theory this is correct as both
of the youth subgroups are affiliated with violence, drug use and antisocial behaviour. Overall, the representation of the younger generation is
straightforward and is clear to see that the older generations do not
agree/understand with the current youth situation as it is very different to
their upbringing. This is shown by Cohen (1972) who studied media
response to Mods and Rockers riots in the 1960s, he found that the effect
of moral panic is to reinforce hegemony by the media making it clear what
values society do not accept. This shows that when youths try to express
themselves in a way that adults have not seen before they try to stop it by
showing it as a negative aspect.
The film Attack the Block (2011), has a more contemporary take on the
media representations especially of youths. Even though throughout the
movie the views of elder generations changes towards the youths, they
still do not fully understand the reality of growing up in a modern era. The
theorist Greg Philo states that anyone under middle class is inserted into
this hoodie cinema which is basically summing up that in all films that if
you are not middle class then you are a thug in a hoodie. This is visibly
untrue as even though the five youths who are seen to start with are
thugs and fit this category, the lady who gets mugged, Sam, is not middle

George Young, Jordan Bunning

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class which we later find out as she lives in the same council block as the
thugs and is not wearing a hoodie so defeats this theory. This proves that
the media representation of the social class below middle class is complex
and not simple and straightforward. As we progress through the film, we
start revealing the situation the 5 boys are in and how they are really just
young teenage boys living in tough conditions with a lot of family issues.
Gramsci and his theory say how low social classes will always be shown as
negative as they are unable to have the same lifestyle as middle class
people, and this is true for the boys, especially Moses who is unable to
have the same lifestyle due to no permanent adult figure in his life to help
keep him on path for the future. This therefore has made him veer offtrack into crime and violence which is seen as typical for low social class
people. Overall, Attack the Block confirms that the media representation is
actually more complex than it appears to be as it is hard to place a large
amount of people under one social bracket of characteristics.
Grange Hill has a very simple perspective on youth culture. Its a negative
viewpoint as it shows the kids misbehaving in ways which are tame by
today standards but back then were considered quite deviant. All the main
characters are part of the working class and according to Gramsci this is
why they are portrayed with a negative representation. In the first scene
we see one of the main boys chucking stuff at one of the girls; this is in
order to cause mischief as he is likely very bored. This could be seen as
the Medias view that working class youths are a waste of space and like
to cause trouble for no reason, where in actually fact they are either really
bored or negatively labelled as deviant which leads to them taking up a
self-fulfilling prophecy and becoming deviant. There is no contrast
between individuals in this T.V series making it a simple representation of
youth.
In Youngers there is a complex representation of youth. Both the main
characters are from the working class but one Yemi is represented as not
wanting to be a music producer for the pure fact that he enjoys that idea
of a career whereas Jay wants the Fame, Money and Girls. Showing a level
headed youth in TV is quite rare as they are mostly portrayed as wannabe
gangsters or wanting money and fame. Yemi is shown to be very
successful academically as he gets straight As in his GCSE results. A
common convention shown in Yemis life is the fact his parents are trying
to coerce him into becoming a lawyer or a Doctor. This idea that parents
are too strict is commonly shown in youth culture films and T.V such as
this. This links in with Aclands (1995) theory of youths always need to be
watched as they cannot be trusted. Jay is your more typical representation
of youth where there just out to live in the moment, going out to parties
and getting off with some girls, talking slang, etc. A notable fact is that

George Young, Jordan Bunning

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Jay is part also part of the working class and is living up to the stereotype
of working class youths. These contrasting characters reinforce Hebdiges
(1979) trouble or fun theory. Yemi represents fun as he is enjoying his life
and keeping to himself, whereas Jay doesnt mind causing trouble which is
seen when he is cheating on to girls and not afraid to confront and
potentially start a fight with a man who is troubling one of the characters
wife. The contrasting perspective on Yemi and Jay makes this a complex
representation as it has shown two sides to youth culture.
In future T.V representations of youth culture are going to become more
complex as the media has started to realise that not all youths have the
same behaviour and ideas as each other which leads to diversity in youth
culture. The media has also started to give recognition to youth
subcultures such as Chavs, Emos, LGBT, etc. The increase in this
recognition will lead to more complex representations in future film and
T.V. Contemporary examples of this is seen in the show cuffs where the
two of the main characters prefer the same sex and have to deal with it in
the police force and in society. This could show that the media is starting
to let go of its negative stigma towards youths and the working class, as it
has started to try and show the reasons why people commit deviant acts
or become part of subculture rather than just showing them commit
certain acts.
Overall representations are becoming more complex as time goes on. This
is mainly due to the increase in the media understanding of why people
commit acts and the realisation of subcultures in youth.

George Young, Jordan Bunning

Banks