Mail Online News Article (Negative Representation)

This next source is a news article extract taken from The Mail Online. The Mail Online are already known for over exaggerating news stories and information they have deducted from surveys they have carried out. They have also come across as very bias in their information before when discussing certain topics, not giving a fair balanced view on possible causes to it in the first place. From the outset of this news article however, contrastingly to the typical expectations of what The Mail Online are usually like, it offers an alternative and a viewpoint on why young people are antisocial in the first place.

It clearly suggests with use of statistics that "fatherless young people are 80.3% more likely to be involved in antisocial behaviour. This already states a different viewpoint to consider when thinking about why antisocial behaviour in young people is caused. It states that perhaps the initial causes are much closer to home than due to the negative representation by the media in the first place, in this case due to the absence of fathers. The claim suggested here is further backed up with statistics such as "76.4% more likely to take part in crime" as well as "69.1% more likely to take drugs", all relating back to the idea that this antisocial behaviour is caused due to the absence of fathers in young people’s lives. However, the news article does not clearly the state the origins of this survey, so perhaps once again this information has been exaggerated by the mail online, meaning this information is not as reliable as it would initially appear to be.

Overall, the issue suggested here by The Mail Online is that antisocial behaviour in young people is in fact caused by the absence of fathers and not due to influences by the media. It does however still mostly give a negative representation of young people. It makes no effort to suggest positives and successes of young people, but the difference between this and the BBC news article is that this attempts to justify these actions with another initial causes other than simply suggesting there is no reason for antisocial behaviour happening.

Source? (The Mail Online): 6/10

Reliable Information?: 5/10

How Bias?: 4/10

BBC News Article (Negative Representation)

 

 

The news article above is an extract taken from a BBC news UK story about antisocial behaviour in young people. Even from the title of the story clearly stating "Anti-social behaviour" we can tell that the entire article is going to be a negative representation of young people. From the outset of the article itself it starts with opening statistics to suggest the idea straight away to the reader that young people are completely antisocial. It states that "6% of the 1784 people in England, Wales and Scotland surveyed by the YouGov said they would definitely intervene" a very small percentage of even just a small proportion of the population surveyed. Using these statistics however it is safe to assume that the results would have been similar if the entire population was surveyed. Further down the article it states "Policy Exchange said citizen police academies could offer lessons in making citizens' arrests".

The issue clearly being addressed to the readers here is that antisocial behaviour in young people across the entire country is a problem, even to the extent that the majority of adults would not want to get involved in dealing with these issues if they ever witnessed it themselves. This article in particular from the information and statistics given such as offering classes for people to do citizen arrests clearly represents young people negatively due to the fact the main focus of the article is due to their antisocial behaviour. The article makes no attempt to argue another point of view such as representing young people’s successes in society therefore making the article itself mostly bias.

The fact that this is written from the BBC as well who are a reliable source does prove that the information they have given throughout the article is correct, however the information is still bias as there is no evidence to suggest the successes of young people otherwise. This article also does not highlight the possible causes of the antisocial behaviour in the first place. It makes no attempt to justify the initial causes of it, such as possible influences from the media industry in the first place. Perhaps due to so much negative representation by the media causes young people to act antisocially in the first place out of anger the need to be considered more.

Overall this article is very bias although the information given is reliable due to its source being the BBC, and more viewpoints need to be considered as well as highlighting the possible initial causes.

 

Source? (BBC): 9/10

Reliable Information?: 8/10

How Bias?: 8/10

 



Introduction To My Extended Project

To what extent does the media industry play on antisocial behaviour and presentation of young people?

I have chosen to answer the question above due to the fact I believe it is an important issue that must be addressed amongst youthful societies. For years young people have been depicted by the media primarily as antisocial, and less due to successes. Throughout my investigation I will be investigating to what extent this is the case, and why this is the case anyway? I will also be investigating how the media represents these views and to what extent these could be seen as bias. I will be presenting my ideas through this blog, analysing news stories and articles of relevance off of the internet.

 

This will give a wide range view of the topic at hand including multiple viewpoints to avoid a bias investigation. In collaboration with this I will also be creating videos which I will edit and upload of myself talking about some of these articles and news stories I have seen online. I will talk about the ways the media could be seen to be bias whether that be in terms of how they represent antisocial behaviour in young people, or over representation of their successes from certain sources. I will also be giving my personal view of the information I find, and how the information from my investigation relates to the question at hand. The second big key factor I will be investigating throughout this investigation is the correlation between antisocial behaviour and the media itself, such as how the media may in fact influence antisocial behaviour in the first place, therefore leading to the negative representation of young people.

 

I will be investigating how this links with how the media then represents this to portray youthful societies as trouble makers and antisocial. Once again this information will be presented on the same blog via news articles from different tabloids and news companies as well as a variety of internet articles to avoid being bias, and to obtain a fair overview of the investigation. Furthermore I will also present the information from this side of the investigation through my videos which I will once again edit and upload onto this blog to discuss them in further detail as well as to share my personal opinion in relation to the question as a whole. My overall decision for taking up this investigation and presenting it in the way I have chosen in the first place primarily is due to my overall love for media and film making. I have always been passionate about media and wish to study a film related subject at university making this investigation highly relevant and a good form of experience to further aid me to achieve this.

 

I have always loved portrayals of media and the ways in which it can influence the audience, which is relatable here due to the fact the question at hand focusses on how the media represents the young people, and how that representation crafts the views of millions of users of media. Overall I plan to present a great investigation, hopefully proving my prediction that my findings will suggest that the media represents young people primarily as antisocial rather than successful. And I also predict that my findings will suggest that antisocial behaviour in the first place is influenced a lot by the media, therefore relating to the negative representations in which the media portray.