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Scapegoating
of Youth Throughout history dominant majorities have redirected public attention away from the majorities’ problems and onto an artificially created scapegoat. Many countries have used a variety of scapegoats throughout time; this practice leads to persecution and anger towards the selected minority. Today in North American society a new scapegoat is being fabricated; this scapegoat is our youth. Due to powerful advocacy and protection organizations, scapegoating of other minorities is on the decline and the one remaining minority with no voice or say in society is our nation’s youth. A highly visible manifestation of this scapegoating is evident in society’s treatment of youth violence. By exaggerating the extent of youth violence, the media and politicians seek to promote their own personal agendas at the expense of the generation under the age of majority. Currently the public is being fed the idea of a plague of youth violence in society that will only get worse. The often proclaimed “epidemic of youth violence” is used by media, doctors and politicians to increase their ratings and profile in the nation. In
today’s society, forms of mass media such as newspapers, television, and radio
exert tremendous influence over the nation.
Mass media streams into the homes of millions of people everyday.
This broad audience gives the media the tremendous ability to shape the
discussion around certain issues. Within
a political framework, the media is referred to as “the great mentioner” due
to its ability to feature or ignore politicians’ campaigns and political
issues. Through the years,
journalism integrity codes of impartiality have helped to ensure that this power
would not be misused, but these safeguards are crumbling.
In a competitive market news media must compete for an audience just like
any other form of entertainment. The
search for ratings leads the media to sensationalize news and put slants on news
that will sell advertisements and increase circulation.
“The media pump fear in two ways. Because it’s a business and needs
to attract attention, it goes for what’s shocking,” says Naneen Karraker, a
Bay Area criminologist. “And by trying to get something zingy in a small
space, the media simplify something that’s complex and often distort the
facts” (Farr, “Fear Reigns”). According
to Newskit: A Consumers Guide to News
Media, there are eight journalistic techniques that bias news reporting;
these include: bias through selection and omission; bias through placement; bias
by headline; bias by photos, captions and camera angles; bias through use of
names and titles; bias through statistics and crowd counts; bias by source
control; and through word choice and tone (Media-Awareness Network).
Selection
and omission is a dangerous tactic that is used very effectively in the negative
portrayal of youth as violent predators. “A 1996 report by the Berkeley Media Studies Group found
that more than half of local news stories on youth involved violence, and more
than two-thirds of the violence stories concerned young people under age 25 (American
Journal of Public Health, 8/97) … Eighty percent is committed by adults
over 18” (Templeton). Clearly,
the press is taking full advantage of its power to omit and is harming youth in
the process. The
second technique involves the placement of stories in a newspaper or on a
television broadcast. Stories on
the front page or early in the show receive the most attention and the most
emphasis. In the Thursday March 2,
2000 edition of the Washington Post,
it was decided to place a shooting by a six-year-old gunman in which one person
died on the front page, while placing a much more deadly shooting involving a
39-year-old man later in the paper. Although
the shooting in a Pennsylvania McDonald’s resulted in the deaths of two
people, critically injuring three others, it was deemed less important than the
crime committed by a youth (Slevin and Sanderson A2; Claiborne A1). The
wording of headlineschosen is another common way to create bias in media;
headlines are the most frequently read element of a newspaper (Media Awareness
Network), so by slanting them newspapers can affect the impressions of even more
people. The headline on the front
page of the March 1 Washington Post
was “1st-Grader Shoots Classmate to Death” (Slevin and Claiborne A1).
The next day’s headline regarding the Pennsylvania shooting simply read
“Pa. Hostage-Taker Surrenders After Fatal Shootings.” The headline
describing the adult shooting is much less dramatic and not as inflammatory as
the youth shooting headline (Slevin and Sanderson A2).
Also, different imagery included in the
articles is a source of bias. Certain
photo angles and pictures can capture different messages about the subject in
them. Another source of media bias
can be found in the way that mass media uses names and titles to describe the
persons involved in crime. A paper
could describe someone as an “ex-con” or as someone who “served time for a
minor offense”; while these statements could describe the same person, they
clearly give a different slant to the reporting. (Media Awareness Network) The
inflation of statistics and other numerical data is common practice among the
press. Many people put more faith
in statistics because they believe that they are harder to twist. For that reason they are more easily tricked when those
statistics turn out to be biased. Source
control is a method used to misrepresent quotes and other facts in a news story.
Using quotes from less reputable sources alongside professionals is an
example of this. A hasty
reader would fail to realize the bias in presenting conflicting views by two
unequal speakers. Word choice and
tone is one very effective method of creating a bias; minute differences in the
meanings of words can convey subtle biases in the text of articles.
The
biases listed here are all applied to the anti-youth hysteria that dominates
mass media sources. While
fundamentally no different than adult crime, youth crime results in disastrous
stereotyping and scapegoating of our younger generation.
The stereotyping of youth as violent predatory criminals is felt in the
everyday lives of youth in this country and others. “Media spokespersons have uncorked their own fury at
adolescents, revealing that anti-youth media distortions may not stem from poor
journalism alone, but a large dose of personal hostility” (Males, Scapegoat Generation 27). Most indicative of this youth scape-goating and labeling is the theory of the oncoming “super-predator” described by John DiIulio, a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University, in a 1995 article in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine. Based on demographic information that predicts a surge in the youth population around the year 2010, DiIulio concludes that a new breed of “high-rate juvenile offenders [will be] coming at us in waves over the next several decades” (Farr, “Getting Tough”). Based on the conclusion that the number of criminals within a demographic group is a constant percentage, DiIulio argues that a projected increase in youth population will create a dramatic increase in the number of juvenile offenders. However, Franklin E. Zimring, a professor of law at the University of California at Berkley, states that “the only proper inference to be drawn from knowing that an extra million teenagers will be present at some future time is that there will be a larger group of teenagers” (Zimring 63). This
over-hyped concept of “super-predators” has been used extensively by the
media to induce fear in the populace. “TV
news has been guilty of fanning the flames of fear” says Larry Perret, news
director for KCBS-TV (channel 2) in Los Angeles (qtd. in Farr, “Fear
Reigns”). The media has been
highly successful in “fanning the flames of fear” and have created a massive
public misconception about youth crime. In
a recent Gallup poll adults were asked about youth crime rates, “The adults
polled estimated that youth were responsible for 43 percent of violent crimes.
The truth? FBI statistics show that juveniles are responsible for 13 percent of
violent crime, less than a third of what the adults polled thought” (Bervera,
Cyril and Yarborough). A direct
result of this national misconception of youth is the recent trend in
“cracking down” upon youth crime. Currently
youth sentences are “60 percent longer than adult sentences for the same
crime” (Bervera, Cyril and Yarborough). Certainly this media-induced fear is
guilty of propagating the image of youth as violent predatory criminals, and is
eliciting heavy-handed and harmful responses against youth across the nation. One
victim of this “anti-youth hysteria” is current American University freshman
Carrie Rainen. In high
school, Carrie and her friends were labeled as different by the rest of the
school. After the Columbine tragedy, Carrie and her friends came into
conflict with the authorities. “Ryan
was probably the sweetest kid on earth, who would lay down his life for any of
his friends. He was a shy, quiet
boy, who often retreated into his artwork, music, or video games.
He and his best friend Matt were also black clad, free thinkers.
As the year went by, Ryan and Matt adopted a very gothic style.
They wore long black trench coats and spike bracelets.
Ryan also had an incredibly big spike necklace and he let his long hair
grow out, shaved underneath and dyed it bright red.
Though on the outside, Ryan looked weird, he was still a sweetheart.
His style was just his way of expressing his artistic talent and
interests. After Columbine,
however, the school cracked on us ‘weirdos’—I had to stop wearing my biker
jacket and my bike chain bracelet; Eric had to leave his spikes at home.
But no one was more affected than Matt, and especially Ryan.
At one point, one of the assistant principals yanked his necklace off. Guidance all of a sudden took an interest in them.
Their parents were called. And
they were not allowed to wear their trench coats to school anymore.
This upset me a lot, because no one ever took the time to talk to us. They
saw that we were different, and by sad coincidence, shared some interests with
the Columbine killers. That was no
reason to all of a sudden take away our rights of self-expression ... had my
school even had a hint of a dress code, maybe then I would understand, but
nothing was forbidden to wear at my high school ... after Columbine, the killers
were held up as models for the insane outcast killer.” Clearly,
measures taken in response to the media’s creation of anti-youth fear have had
a disastrous effect on innocent youth across the nation.
The fear that is being created towards youth can be compared to the red
scare of the nineteen-fifties. Yet
the stories of the innocent youth who lose their freedoms from restrictive new
rules never make the headlines. Media bias is the first step; once they have
made the agenda, the politicians respond to their constituents’ misinformed
beliefs. Constituents get their
fear from the “6 o’clock news—it’s all crime reporting,” says Robert
Presley, former California state senator and now chairman of the
Sacramento-based Youthful Offender Parole Board. “The public fears violent
crime. And the Legislature and
Congress respond to the public fears” (Farr, “Fear Reigns”).
From local school boards to state governments to the President himself,
all officials feel the need to appear to be solving the “youth problem,”
though often their programs have little effect in solving the real problems. In pursuit of re-election, politicians create programs that
affect youth. Therefore, they are
tackling a problem that concerns all of society, but only negatively affecting
non-voters. Recently
President Clinton wrote a report titled, “The President’s Anti-Gang and
Youth Violence Strategy,” which contains much anti-youth bias and stereotypes.
The first paragraph of the overview to this report states, “While
overall crime rates are dropping, young people are increasingly the perpetrators
and victims of some of society’s most violent crimes. Indeed, until recently,
the rate of youth violence has climbed dramatically. For example, between 1984
and 1993, the rate of homicides committed by juveniles skyrocketed 169%”
(Clinton). This report was written in 1997, after four years of
declining youth crime. Yet Clinton uses older statistics to fabricate a need for
his new programs. Clinton’s
methods are indicative of what politicians in all areas and from both parties do
to use the public’s focus on youth crime to make themselves appear to be
helping the problem. Clinton
highlights policy initiatives such as curfews, school uniforms, and drug testing
as positive actions that should be implemented to solve the youth violence
problem. These programs take away
constitutionally protected liberties from youth. However, since youth do not vote, they cannot object.
These false solutions appear beneficial to an adult voting age population
who are unaffected by these policies, but in fact do little to solve the problem
of youth violence. Mike A. Males, a
sociologist and author, wrote a paper discussing the effectiveness of youth
curfews. In this report he says,
“A major underlying assumption of curfews is that they reduce risk by removing
juveniles from public space. However, there is no systematic study of the
effects of curfew” (Males and Macallair, Analysis
of Curfew). Males argues that
media images of the effectiveness of youth curfews are based on scattered
anecdotal evidence. “Claims to
date that curfews affect crime and youth behavior represent little more than
unsupported assertions” (Males and Macallair, Analysis
of Curfew). Curfew
laws are unproven solutions to complex problems, yet they are seen as good
public policy. Politicians are
eager to support vote-getting initiatives like curfews and other laws purported
to solve youth violence. A
knowledgeable Senate source said in 1984 that another anti-youth issue was
“now seen as good public policy, one you can’t lose on, and this is an
election year” (Feaver). This
type of thinking permeates our body of elected officials. Politicians
and the media frequently make use of scientific studies and doctors’ research
regarding the physical and emotional state of adolescents.
Labeling youth as a class of people full of “storm and stress”
contributes to the notion that they cannot become full members of our society
and deserve special behavioral restrictions unheard of in the adult world.
Modern perceptions of unstable youth hark back to the age of “genetic
determinism,” a pseudo-science prominent at the turn of the 20th
century. These scientists conducted
highly bigoted and biased studies meant to prove that non-white races and women
were genetically inferior to white males and therefore required fewer rights and
privileges. “The respected American
Medicine of 1907 editorialized against expanding rights for blacks who,
being ‘without brains,’ could not comprehend the implications of their
actions” (Males, Scapegoat Generation 32). This
form of racist science formed the basis of southern arguments in favor of white
supremacy. Today
these racist theories have been wholly discarded, and their error and bigotry
have been realized. Unfortunately,
new bigotry has arisen towards the new scapegoat in society—adolescents.
The New Physician reported the
following on teen suicide: “Adolescence is a time of turbulence marked by
rapid, physical, sexual, social and emotional development.
It is a time of confusion and rebellion” (qtd. in Males Scapegoat
Generation 33). If women or
non-whites were referred to as “confused or rebellious,” the author of the
article would be shunned from the medical community.
Yet, society is inundated with studies and comments such as these, and
use them to form public policy. While
youth violence is a terrible problem in our nation, current efforts to combat it
are based on stereotyping and scapegoating of youth as “predatory animals”
and have proven to cause more harm than good.
Powerful national forces such as the media, politicians and the medical
community perpetuate the idea of youth as an inferior class of people
responsible for society’s ills and deserving of harsh penalties. This negative view has had a disastrous effect on youth, and
the situation is only getting worse. Every
day, more restrictive laws are passed, and more biased stories hit the airwaves.
Adult crime and violence is proportionally ignored compared to youth
violence. Yet adult violence is a much greater problem than violence
com-mitted by youth. In spite of
dangerous levels of adult violence, youth are the scapegoat which society has
chosen to bear the burden of blame. Works Cited Bervera,
Sarah, Malkia Cyril and Ortega Yarborough. “When Perceptions Are Not Reality:
Youth Role in Crime Exaggerated.” San Francisco Chronicle,
9 October 1998 <http://www.junkscience.com/oct98/juvcrime.htm>. Claiborne,
William. “A ‘Life in Chaos’
Shaped Young Shooter.” Washington Post,
2 March 2000. Clinton,
William J. “The President’s Anti-Gang and Youth Violence Strategy—An
Overview” 18 February 2000 <http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/gangs/ag/overview.htm>. Farr, Jory.
“Fear Reigns”. A State Behind Bars:
California’s Prison Boom. 27
March 2000 <http://www.press-enterprise.com/focus/prison/html/fear_reigns.html>. —. “Getting Tough on Youthful Offenders”. A State Behind Bars:
California’s Prison Boom. 27
March 2000 <http://www.press-enterprise.com/focus/prison/html/getting_tough.html>. Feaver,
Douglas B. “House Bill Ties Highway Aid, Drinking Age.” Washington
Post, 8 June 1984. Males, Mike
and Dan Macallair. “An Analysis of Curfew Enforcement and Juvenile Crime in
California.” Western Criminology Review
1 <http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v1n2/males.html>. Males, Mike
A. The Scapegoat Generation: America’s
War on Adolescents. Monroe, Maine : Common Courage Press, 1996. Media
Awareness Network. “Detecting
Bias in the News”. 6 March 2000 <http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/class/teamedia/nwsbias.htm>. Rainen,
Carrie. Personal online interview,
30 March 2000. Slevin,
Peter and Jaclyn Sanderson. “Pa.
Hostage-Taker Surrenders after Fatal Shootings.”
Washington Post,
2 March 2000. Slevin,
Peter and William Claiborne. “1st-Grader Shoots Classmate
to Death.” Washington Post.
1 March 2000. Templeton,
Robin. “Superscapegoating.”
Media Awareness Network.
29 March 2000 <http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/comm/youth/toolkit/scape.htm>. Zimring,
Franklin E. American Youth Violence.
New York : Oxford University Press, 1998.
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