Age

• Representation of childhood

  • British children are described fairly positively. There are 6 stereotypes of children which are frequently used by the media:
  • Cute - advertisement of baby product or toilet roll
  • Little devils- stereotype often found in drama or comedy
  • Brilliant - child saving an adults life
  • Brave little angels - disability or suffering illness
  • Accessories - children may humanise parents
  • Modern - media focuses on how children these days know so much more than previous generations at their age.
• Heintz- Knowles

  • Found that children are often portrayed as motivate primarily by peer relationships, sports and romance, and les often by school, religion and community.
  • They are rarely shown as coping with societal issues ie. racism, child abuse or family issues.
• Evans and Chandler

  • Note that children being represented in commercials and advertising has socialised children to become active consumers.
  • This has led to the emergence of pester power, where the children train or manipulate parents to spend money on consumer goods that will increase the children's status in the eyes of their peers.
• Representations of youths

  1.   There is a whole media industry aimed at constructing youths in terms of lifestyle and identity through magazines, snapchat etc.
  2.  Portrayed as a social problem. Consequently, they are constructed as folk devils and part of moral panic.
• Wayne

  • Confirms the negative portrayal of youths in the UK.
  • Young people were mainly represented as a threat to society.
  • It is also very rare for the news to feature a young person’s perspective or opinion.
  • The media only delivers a one-dimensional picture of youth, one that encourages fear and condemnation rather than understanding.
  • This distracts from the real problems which young people face in the modern world such as mental health. 
• Pluralist

  • Media representations reflect social reality.
  • Young people commit more crime and deviance than any social group and criminal behaviour is newsworthy.
• Interactionists

  • Argue that young people are frequently labelled by older generations as a threat to social stability because they challenge authority.
• Postmodernists

  • Argue that in media saturated post-modern societies, negative portrayals are only a small aspect of media representations.
  • Postmodernists highlight that young people use the new media to become creators and users of social media. 
• Age concern charity

  • Elderly are underrepresented in general across the mass media, they are often portrayed in negative ways:
  • Grumpy – elderly who spend their time moaning about the behaviour of young people and complaining about the modern world. They are portrayed as suborn.
  • Mentally challenged – suggests that growing old involves the decline of people’s mental functions. The elderly are portrayed as being confused and feeble-minded.
  • A burden – portrayed as an economic burden on society and as a physical burden on younger members of their family who have to look after them. 
• The grey pound

  • This refers to the economic power the elderly have. 
  • In recent years, media producers may be gradually reinventing how they deal with the elderly, especially as this group may have more disposable income to spend on consumer goods.
  • Adverts now aim to portray the elderly as being in the ‘golden age’, who are active, alert, healthy, successful and content. 
• Robinson

  • Compared how older adults and college students perceived stereotypes of the elderly found in magazine adverts. 
  • Found that the elderly like adverts which showed them as clever, vibrant and having a sense of humour. 
  • The students also didn’t like the adverts which pocketed the fun out of the elderly. 
• Children are often represented as being vulnerable and in need of adult protection.
• The advertising industry represents children as consumers to increase peer pressure demand for their products.
• Teenagers are disproportionality likely to be represented as a problem, with a considerable amount of news coverage being devoted to youth gangs, crimes and antisocial behaviour.
• Kelly

  • Conducted research on the language used by journalists to describe young people who come into contact with the law and found 3 major representations.

  1. Young people are dangerous.
  2. Young people are in need of protection.
  3. Young people are immature.
• Some documentaries do portray the complex issues young people face today ie. Educating Yorkshire/Manchester
• Lee

  • Found that the elderly were only appearing in 15% of ads.
  • But in that 15%, 90% of the representations were positive.