Teenagers Represented In The Media

Teenagers used to be the forgotten group in society. The ones who are stuck between being foxy kids and responsible adults. But all thats been changing over the last twenty years or so, as the media realizes that teens are slowly getting a voice in society, but are these changes good or bad?The media represents teenagedrs in a very conventional way, stereotyped by their appearance, sex, and personality. Different varieties of media are meant to do different things. Some of the medias numerous an other(prenominal) an(prenominal) roles are to display the truth, make the viewer aware and to entertain. Most of the media presents an wrong and negative portrayal of adolescents today according to their appearance, sex, personality and age, among other things.Most teenagers in the media are correspond as attractive, confident and white, which may make teenagers feel pressurised to break down in with the medias representation of them and so if they dont fit these categories making the m uncomfortable with their own bodies. I think the media should take over a wider variety of races, looks and personalities to figure teenagers they dont have to have fit in with the typical image of them as shown in the media.The media highlights the exciting events in teenagers lives, e.g jump at parties, getting drunk, spending money and generally having a good time, but they dont always show the more depressing parts of teenagers lives such as bullying, exams, insecurities etc, which seems more importantThere are many TV programmes today that focus on wealthy, glamorous actionstyles of teenagers that come form extremely privileged backgrounds, many people enjoy these programmes as it gives them a chance to escape from the reality of their own lives and see it from other peoples. Although some other programmes look at the more realistic lifestyles, where teenagers have to work hard and dont conscionable have everything handed to them on a plate, many people watch these as th ey can meet to them and understand where characters are coming from. Although in all these lifestyles the teenage characters do go through many dramatic, emotional experiences and events.A voltaic pile of the media shows teenagers partying every night, always out and getting up to mischief e.g. pickings drugs, having fights etc. In Skins, a teenage drama, a character called Effy sneaks out her house in the midsection of the night, burns a bus, goes out to a deserted warehouse, where she takes various drugs with boys and finally ends up in a party at a random persons house where she collapse from a drug overdose. Later her chum salmon finds her, she is then rushed to hospital and ends up moving school this all happens in the space of a few days. In reality most teenagers lives are a lot more boring, dull and uneventful, for congresswoman they generally spend most of their time studying, using the Internet at home and watching TV etc.Often their characters are exaggerated as well as events and situations. In a lot of teenage dramas the characters are unrealistic for example in the TV series Eastenders there is a teenage boy, Stephen, who is evil and manipulative, he turns his own sister against their family, while everyone thinks he is kind and good, in real life teenagers are not like this, they arent as controlling or manipulative.Although teenagers are represented positively in many parts of the media, programmes such as the OC show characters like Marissa and Ryan acting kindly and maturely e.g. when Marissa sees a man being mugged, she comes to help him and calls the police this shows she is caring and responsible, which is a positive image of teenagers in the media.In conclusion Teenagers in the media are shown in lots of different ways, often as being a problem to society e.g. controlling, rude and disrespectful, this is shown in soaps, dramas, movies and news, it gives out a very negative image on teenagers, which isnt always fair. Teenagers can be represented positively, helping the community and being polite and social although this is not usually the case. Mainly teenagers are shown in a negative way and their characters and dilemmas are not realistic.