Consider the view that the current press treatment of teenagers is simply another ‘moral panic’

On one hand the recent negative portrayal of youths within the media has moulded many stereotypes and in turn branded all youth’s thugs, this causes a false sense of moral panic. The media has fixated their efforts on making youths seem negative despite the majority of youths acting as legal, law abiding citizens. For example, the
2010 tuition fees protest held across the UK, it was only a small minority of youths who acted illegally and chose to become criminals by breaking not buildings. And by doing so the media has moulded negative stereotypes of all youths.

Similarly, these stereotypes are false and as a result they encourage prejudice towards groups within the youths and so form incorrect stereotypes. In reality the fact is that all people whether young or old have the ability to be criminals and so it is unjust that only the youth are classed within society and are given negative stereotypes. With relation to the hypodermic needle theory the audience is passive and are drip fed ideologies regarding the targeted minority. Also, it can be debated that this occurs as the media industry is Marxist and therefore is money motivated. The industry selects those that already have negative representations and simply add to those increasing the false moral panic of the public, created by the media industry, and ultimately this degrades those targeted.

On the other hand, with proof that the youth in modern society have weapons such as guns, as shown in the Metro paper, moral panics are right to occur. In reality, all citizens within society have committed a crime, whether speeding in a vehicle or dropping litter. The question that is posed by the people is whether the youths have taken this a step too far and in turn directly increased crime. Although statistics prove this, crime has increased by 3% in London from 2007-2011, it is the youths with gang culture, knife crime, drug related crime etc. Therefore, it can be concluded that youths in modern day society follow gang culture and commit crime, adding to the moral panic of society.

Whilst it is suggested that the treatment of youths is simply a moral panic as the representation of youths is built on some stereotypes these have been pursued by the media and are now used to reflect society, causing a moral panic. Despite youths being young and having time to change their ways the constant pressure set upon them by the media and the education system provides a reason to either succeed or pursue the ‘gangster lifestyle’. It is this ‘lifestyle’ that youths are somehow stereotyped to want and so all are negatively portrayed within the media. It is this that causes moral panic, where other speculate and make fictitious beliefs that youths are forced into by being branded.

To conclude, moral panics are effectively produced by the media as they shape the beliefs of the citizens. By producing negative representations and enforcing them onto young adults it reduces their morale and hinders their chances of becoming successful as nobody is willing to give them an opportunity, as they are labelled thugs.