Youth, Crime, and the Media
The media plays a major role in creating the distorted images of our youth that we the public perceive. Most of these images emphasize problems like crime, drug use, and teen pregnancy. The skewed coverage in today's media results in the belief that youth crime is on the rise. Today's portrayal of teens in the media employ the same stereotypes that were once only openly applied to unpopular racial and ethnic groups. Although violent crime by youth was at its lowest point in the 25-year history of the National Crime Victimization Survey, 62% of poll respondents felt that juvenile crime was on the increase. The majority of this percentage stated that they received their information from the media. As for the drug use, over the last 12 years the statistics have fluctuated in fractions and is currently down according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In the area of teen pregnancy, in a 1991 campaign to promote school-based clinics, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the National Associations of State Board of Education publ
The "Off Balance" study makes a few recommendations, which includes putting crime into context by providing relevant data on crime statistics, matching stories about youth and crime with stories about youth accomplishments, and conducting voluntary periodic audits of news subject matter and sharing the outcome with news consumers. Youths seldom appear in the news, but when they do, they are undeservedly connected to crime or violence. Portrayals of teens in today's media images employ the same stereotypes that were only applied to unpopular racial and ethnic groups: violent, reckless, hyper sexed, welfare-draining, obnoxious, ignorant, according to a report ran in the Washington Post. In one review of more than 9,600 network and local TV stories, only nine were about teens being praised for positive works. During the same year homicide coverage on the network news increased significantly while actual homicides were down. The study found that homicide coverage on network news increased 473% from 1990 to 1998, while homicides decreased 32. The media can shape, further than coverage of a lone event, the way the public views a situation, a group of people, or an image. Although 1950 youth crime statistics are to incomplete to compare, national reports show no increase in juvenile crime rates in at least two decades. According to the report, "Off Balance: Youth, Race, and the Crime in the News," the problem is not the inaccuracy of individual stories, but that the cumulative choices of what is included or not included in the news. ished a report that inflated the 280,000 annual births to unmarried teenaged mothers into "half a million". One of the reasons for the overrepresentation is a consequence of people acting on stereotypes. While homicides committed by youth declined by 68% from 1993 to 1999, 62% of the public reported they believed youth crime was on the rise. People rely on the news media for accurate information and when it comes to crime, they only getting part of the story. In an environment in which fear of youth crime and real crime are so out of sync, the media must explore deeper, ask why, and seek a full answer.
Common topics in this essay:
Washington Post,
Race Crime,
Board Education,
CRIME MEDIA,
Victimization Survey,
Justice Statistics,
youth crime,
unpopular racial ethnic,
applied unpopular racial,
homicide coverage network,
coverage network increased,
crime statistics,
youth crime rise,
employ stereotypes,
teen pregnancy,
network increased,
coverage network,
1990 1998,
getting story,
crime rise,
according report,
|
Acceptance Essays
