How Are Young People In Britain Represented In The Selection Of Articles Found?

In the media, young people are often portrayed in many different ways, and seen as unlike adults.

In The Independent, there was one article titled ‘Why are teenagers so moody?’ This title immediately portrays teenagers as the overly, constantly moody stereotype that most adults see teenagers as already. Another thing they mention in the article is ‘the volatile nature of teenagers’ emotions’, which suggests that all teenagers have unstable and unpredictable emotions.

Secondly, The Guardian wrote an article titled ‘MPs – Don’t ignore social media as the next generation of voters are watching it closely’. This title suggests that the young people of this day and age are considered as the generation of social media and it also portrays young people as being obsessed with and always using social media. In the article, they mention that ‘once it might have been deemed an angsty teenage issue to worry about how many followers on Twitter you had’. This sentence suggests that social media is the only thing teenagers are interested in and that any teenage issue is ‘angsty’ and not considered a proper problem. The article also stated that ‘an ICM survey showed that 65% of those aged 18-22 didn’t even know the name of their local MP’, which portrays all young people as oblivious to everything unless it’s on social media and it’s as if they don’t look anywhere past their phones.

The Guardian also wrote an article titled ‘Male, female or other: young people, how do you define your gender?’ This suggests that young people are more comfortable discussing gender and that it is a more frequent thing to ‘define’ your gender differently amongst young people today. The article also stated that ‘young people are increasingly questioning gender norms’, which portrays young people as being more comfortable to go against gender norms and that it is a more common occurrence amongst young people today to be genders other than just male or female.

The Daily Mirror wrote an article titled ‘Facebook granted patent for post-scanning software that identifies slang before it becomes popular’. This title suggests that however much teenagers are portrayed as over obsessed with technology, social media is making an impact on society, as they are trying to appeal to young people and be popular.

Lastly, The Independent wrote another article about young people titled ‘From the mouths of teens’ which suggests that all young people talk in a way that is different to the rest of the world. In this article they state that ‘adolescence is the life stage at which people most willingly take on new visible or audible symbols of group identification. This suggests that young people can easily pick up the fast-paced language of ‘text-speak’, slang and symbols, and that they find it easier to understand.

According to these articles, teenagers are portrayed as moody, angsty and technology-obsessed, but are also more open to new ideas and breaking society’s ‘norms’. The articles also show that mainstream broadsheet newspapers (such as The Guardian and The Independent) are less understanding of today’s’ youth as they are mostly writing about how they are different to everyone else, whereas mainstream tabloid newspapers (such as the Daily Mirror) are more open to today’s youth as their articles often appeal to young people and this generation.