Chief Keef - I Dont Like (Negative Representation)

Chief Keef is a good example of most modern day rap artists in terms of the image they represent about what young people like teenagers and young adults are like. In his song "I Dont Like", he is initially presented in one of the first shots as holding and counting a large sum of money. This attempts to suggest to the audience that he has become well off from what he has been doing and is attemtping to "show off" his wealth to the young more easily manipulated audiences. Chief keef is known for his lyrics about violence, his hard life and taking drugs, all symbols suggesting antisocial behaviour.

The fact that chief keef is only 17 years old, who raps and brags about these antisocial behaviours as achievements to audiences similar to his age, suggest he is attempting to highlight the idea that young people such as himself conduct these behaviours on a regular basis, whether or not they are obviously shown or not. This presentes a negative image about young people in general, as although there is no evidence to suggest that all young people act like this, a large majority of them may conduct the same antisocial behaviours shown throughout chief keefs videos and mentioned in his lyrics. This is due to the fact chief keef represents these actions as something positive which can achieve success in young people similar to himself.

 Furthermore, due to the postive representation of antisocial behaviour in which chief keef attempts to present in this video, it almost suggests that rap videos by artists such as chief keef may act as a factor influencing the rise of antisocial behaviour in young people. This is because it relates to Maslows hierachy of needs theory in which younger audiences who are more easily manipulated by the media such as teenagers may see chief keef as some form of idol, also relating to Dyers star theory. Due to the fact young people see chief keef as an idol, and they see the successes he has achieved by antisocial behaviour, it causes them to feel as if they have to achieve the same form of self actualisation that chief keef has reached in his career.

This then causes the immitation of the antisocial behaviour that is shown in this video such as smoking cannabis, swearing etc, as young people may see this as "cool" and the right behaviour needed to achieve the same success as chief keef. Overall however, this video as a source for determining whether antisocial behaviour is influenced by the media is not that reliable. This is due to the fact that chief keef is one out of thousands of rap artists, and his lyrics are known for being exaggerated and extreme, it doesnt give a relaible represenattion of all rap artists let alone the thousands of other non rap artists who have also made songs representing young people positively.

This one song by chief keef overall is not a good representation of the entire medias representation of young people as it is very bias and one sided, primarily suggesting teenagers are as extreme as chief keef, which judging from previous news articles and sources that this is not true, and only a small majority of young people are like this. However it could be suggested antisocial behaviour may be initially influenced by videos such as this, as it is common known knowledge that young people see pop stars, rap artists etc as some form of idol at some point in their lives.

This has been linked to young people striving towards achieving the same self actualisation as these idols in order to achieve a higher sense of self security, by immitating the same actions as them, whether that be antisocial behaviour or not as they think "if my idol does it, then it must be cool".

This overall suggests chief keefs video "I Dont Like" is bias and very unrelaible in terms of the represenation of young people in the media altogether, but may act as a good example of a factor which may initially influence antisocial behaviour in the first place.


Source? (Youtube Video: Chief Keef - I Dont Like): 3/10

Relaible Information?: 4/10

How Bias?: 9/10

Thoughts So Far... (The Internet In Media)

• Best information about the topic found in well known tabloids and not random internet websites such as participation works.

 

• Tabloids such as the BBC and The Independent are the best in terms of reliability of information.

 

• The Mail Online have a history of over exaggeration, therefore are not a typically reliable source.

• Participation works is very unknown therefore the information is not falsifiable.

• From the websites discussed, overall they offer different balanced opinions on the matter.

• From these websites alone, there is no information to suggest that the media influences antisocial behaviour primarily, as they all suggest different views, some present young people positively and some negatively. There is no difinitive way of knowing if antisocial behaviour is influenced by the media by the internet alone.

• Difficult to see whether negative representations of young people by the media do cause antisocial behavior, as only four websites is not a good representation of the entire Internets views.

• The internet alone in media consists of hundreds of thousands of websites, many discussing the same topic holding their own views. Due to this a conclusion to the question cannot be made as of yet.

Participation Works Article (Positive Representation)

The article above comes from a website called "Participation works", a much less known website regarding news stories. From the article headline we can already tell that this article will attempt to justify young people and give a more positive representation. This is suggested in the headline where it states "how negative media portrayal affects their lives". The article argues that although there are many antisocial young people in society, they seem to be the ones which are mostly focused on by the media. 

This is suggested where the article states that a group of teenagers conducted a study into why young people are represented negatively by the media. The findings concluded that 76% of the journalists which they interviewed by phone wrote mostly negative stories about young people. This clearly suggests that the problem here is that the negative portrayal by the media is affecting young people’s lives due to stereotyping by adults and the rest of the public due to what they are used to reading online and in news papers. It also suggests that perhaps the reason for antisocial behavior in the first place is due to this constant negative portrayal of young people in the media which causes anger. 

This would make sense due to the fact the teenagers which conducted the survey felt affected by this to the extent they felt it would be right to investigate this topic further. However due to the fact that this is not a well known website, the information could be over exaggerated or perhaps even false altogether, the study may not have even been conducted in the first place. Also the fact that this survey was carried out by a group of young people could possibly mean that it holds a very bias view as they were the ones who were being affected in the topic of investigation. Perhaps the teenagers themselves lied or even changed the results to exaggerate the supposed outcome of their investigation. 

This affects the reliability of the information in this article almost entirely. However the article does attempt to give a balanced argument and doesn't simply suggest the media are entirely against young people. This suggests perhaps it isn't as bias as initially suggested.

Source? (Participation Works): 3/10

Reliable Information?: 3/10

How Bias?: 5/10



The Independent News Article (Positive Representation)

The article above is from The Independent, which focusses on how young people are always criticised and how the media "demonises" them. This already offers an entirely different viewpoint overall on the fact that young people are represented negatively by the media. The fact it is written by The Independent suggests that the information provided will be reliable as it is one of the most renowned tabloids in the UK, known for its accurate representations of political stories.

The issue presented primarily here is that the media mainly criticises young people showing little consideration for their successes instead. In fact it clearly states "We found some news coverage where teen boys were described in glowing terms - 'model student', 'angel', 'altar boy' or 'every mothers perfect son', the research concluded 'but sadly these were reserved for teenage boys who met a violent and untimely death". This suggests an entirely different outlook on young people.

 It attempts to suggest that young people are criticised by the media which causes stereotypes about young people by adults with the use of words such as "yobs", "thugs", "sick", "feral", and are only credited for successes by the media through the news when they die. This entirely new suggestion given within this news article suggests that the story is in fact attempting to present young people more positively by defending them in a sense. It is also attempting to justify reasons for the initial antisocial behaviour which may have been seen before.

Also due to the fact this information has been presented by The Independent means that this information is very reliable due to the source in which it has come from, and offers a balanced more forgiving view on young people.

Source? (The Independent): 10/10

Reliable Information?: 9/10

How Bias?: 2/10