Representations of Youth

My first example for the representation of youth is the Channel 4 TV Show 'Educating Yorkshire'. I will be using the constructionist approach to deconstruct this representation. The show documents the lives of several students at Thornhill Community Academy. The encoders of the show choose a specific group of students to document throughout the episodes. Most frequently, this is students with behavioral or academic issues. These students provide the only representation that viewers will receive of their educational institute therefore provide a generalisation of all students at the school. Therefore, the encoders are restricting the viewers from gaining information on any positive aspects of the academy or students. This would lead the audience to believe that not only the students at that school, but all students within that age group have the same attributes and attitude to education. The audience are lead to believe that all children act like this in school, and that similarly to these selected students, all children are restricting themselves from success due to poor behavior. In the context of today's society, this representation would be easily digested as teens are repeatedly being represented as problematic within the context of education. Therefore, this representation would just act as further validation for the existing ideology.

The second representation of youth I am going to discuss is 'The Inbetweeners Movie'. Hitting cinemas in 2011, the movie shows the infamous teens jetting off on their first 'lads' holiday. As you can imagine, the film includes more mature themes including many stereotypes of immaturity, irresponsibility and shallowness. 
Both the film and the tv show promote ideas that teenage boys idealise sex. In both texts, women are presented as objects for the 4 male protagonists. More specifically, the character of Jay is the main source of promotion for this representation. However, in the movie, the male gaze theory can be applied. As we see the male protagonists walk down the strip of bars and clubs, the audience is also forced to identify with their gaze which repeatedly falls upon half-dressed women. 
The element of irresponsibility is shown in the movie is shown through the excessive drinking and waking up in ants nests is the behaviour in this movie that presents teens as irresponsible. Shallowness is then presented through the use of insensitive comments such as Jay saying 'I better not be stuck with the fat one'. 

The final representation of youth that I will be using is an article published by the Mirror on the 2nd of October 2011, headlined with 'Dad at 13' boy Alfie Patten is still a virgin, says his mum'. The Mirror's headline and strapline is anchorage to the image used.  By using the phrase 'Dad at 13', followed by the term 'virgin', it brings confusion to the audience as they know that both those terms cannot be true in this context, therefore forces a deeper meaning to the text. Furthermore, the emphasis of the number ‘13’ attaches meaning to the text. Through this emphasis on his young age, it forces the reader to feel shock from the emphasis on his age.
However, there are news articles that present this specific story differently. The daily mail reported the event, headlining the article with 'It could have been worse - she could have been doing drugs': Father of new mother, 12, says he is proud after she and boyfriend, 13, become Britain's youngest parents'. I believe that this headline shows the teens taking an element of responsibility for their actions, shown through their pride to now be parents. This causes the audience to identify with the teens as the mainstream audience this newspaper serves are more likely to be parents themselves therefore will be able to identify with the emotions of the new parents.