Youth Culture Theories 2.

One other theorist is Hebdige who puts his theory on the youth culture forward. His theory focuses on  the reality of youth cultures and the idea of subcultures, youths to express themselves and to challenge hegemony. His theory is that the representation of youth is very limited as they are either shown as troubled or fun and there is no inbetween. He also argues that the medias representation of young people is not reality.

Therefore this would effect the representation of youths dramatically. Due to them either being shown in two different ways of being in trouble or having fun. In the media it suggests that we never get to see the good and hard working teens of society who just fade into the background, being seen by the media as boring. By looking at this theory we are able to see that the media in society tends to ignore the good and hardworking and focuses on the fun and the trouble. This therefore makes adults believe that all youths behave in this manner.

One more theorist is Cohen. Cohen's theory studied the medias response to the mods and rocker riots in the 1960's and the idea of moral panic to occur in a society which reflects the anxieties at that time in Britain. The effect of moral panic is to reinforce hegemony by the media making it clear what values society do not accept. This shows that when youths try to express themselves in a way that adult have not seen before, they try and stop it by showing it as a negative aspect. Therefore this would effect the representation of youths as it shows that they are not allowed to express themselves within a different way that society does not see as acceptable.

Therefore this places a more negative effect on the youths as everything they do, out of the norms of society, is seen as bad. By looking at this theory we are able to see that the media places the blame onto the youths seeing them as an easy target. This causes the moral panic cycle to happen in order stamp down hard onto anything that youths try to do that is out of the norm.