Collective Identity: teenagers - PRINT.

Question: How do the dominant representations of Teenagers reflect their collective identity?

- What we hear most about teens that make society summarise  their identity.

Newspapers such as The Mirror portrayed the riots as very damaging and brutal. In one artical there was an image with a flaming van and a youth in front of it. The van may not have been set alight by the but they still used the image where one was standing by the defaced van. The picture also clearly states 'a hooded youth walked past a burning vehical' but did the tabloid have to use that specific image?

One clip was of a business owner being interviewed on the family business that was demolished by the riots. The link I've shared below shows what the man said. He specifically mentioned 'gangs of youths'. The media publishing that in the first place shows that they agree with what he says. He only points out the youths but he doesn't actually know for sure if only youths participated in the riots therefore the tabloid could also be seen as biased and stereotypical for publishing such strong point.
Video: http://bcove.me/78snnnct
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/london-riots-is-rap-music-to-blame-146671

As well as tabloids, broadsheets also publish articles about the youth. In this article, The Guardian admits that the media 'casts youth in a constant bad light' this means that the media doesn't really show the positive sides to youths unless it was special events like results day or getting involved with a charity run.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/oct/12/pressandpublishing.broadcasting
According to this article:

Newspaper articles about youths, by newspaper type and tone

Tabloid - Broadsheet - Local

Negative 82 - 50 - 71

Neutral 8 - 36 - 9

Positive 11 - 15 - 20

This concludes that the media portrays young people negatively majority of the time. Sometimes, the media almost finds reasons to blame things on youths such as 'rap music' whereas some people  may see music as an art or a freedom of speech. Referring back to The Mirror, the article questioned if rap music influenced the commence of the riots.