The way in which youth are represented in society depends entirely on how what is being shown has been mediated. Mediation is the process in which any piece of information or events go through before being presented in the media. What is being shown in the media is not real life it is just somebody's representation of real life. An example of this is the way that youth are often represented in a very negative light shown in the historic film 'Quadrophenia' and the contemporary documentary 'Unsafe sex in the city'. Giroux's theory however argues that this is an 'empty category' as this representation has been created by adults and therefore is not reflecting the reality. In other contemporary documentaries such as 'The young apprentice' youth are represented as hard working and respectful, showing how each representation is merely based on the opinion of the producer and is not reality.
Pluralism however, suggests that the media has a wide range of choices with regards to representation which are entirely mirrored on society and therefore if a certain representation is dominant it is purely due to that representation being popular with the audiences. This idea suggests that the audiences must be entertained by this negative representation of youth and this is why this has become dominant.
Acland
Gerbner
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