Topic > The relationship between young people, ethnicity and the media

IndexIntroductionIntroduction to youth and cultureYoung Americans and media representationYoung Asians and media representationEthnicity and culture in the Asian contextEthnicity and culture in the American contextAmerican case study 1Asian case study 2ConclusionIntroductionThe truth of the relationship between young people, ethnicity and representation in the media is that there is a huge difference in how young people and ethnicity are represented in the media in various types of national contexts. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Currently, the media portrays young people as disrespectful, rebellious, lazy, promiscuous, drunks, drug addicts, and smokers. Most teen movies or typical teen horror movies open on a group of teenagers generally partying in a group that is rowdy. This has led the public to form a negative perception of the behavior of adolescents. The media portrays some ethnic groups under different stereotypes. For example, currently the largest type of media representation comes from Hollywood films. For example, white characters are almost always the heroes and main characters. Black or Asian characters are usually the first to die or are minor characters in a film. The non-white characters are the leaders while the other colored characters are subservient to them. The analysis conducted for this essay comes from observations from 2 contexts. One, from the American context. Two, from the Asian context. For both contexts we will talk first of all about young people in media representation and, subsequently, about ethnicity in media representation. Two case studies will support the content of this research analysis for the essay. Introduction to Youth and Culture In today's context, youth usually refers to those who are usually between the ages of 16 and 24, and in some contexts up to 30 years of age. These young people are often in the stage of life where they are exploring options, forming choices to make that will affect them in the future, adapting to certain norms such as laws, rules, and social and psychological forces that dissuade them from accepting the myriad of responsibilities that accompany adulthood. For example, the legal age to enter the workforce in American society is 18, and those under 18 are considered minors and cannot enter the workforce, cannot participate in electoral politics, or even purchase products at tobacco base. Sex with minors is also considered a criminal offense, although it may be consensual. While social constraints play an active role in hindering young people's entry into adulthood, young Americans themselves are increasingly actively participating in prolonging this phase of their lives. For example, it is now more common for those under 25 to continue school full time after graduating high school. As a result, seeking higher education delays the transition to adulthood and is associated with career, family, home life, and parenting. In today's context, being young means being cool, fun-loving, carefree, and being able to comfort yourself and adapt to the ever-changing trends that keep young people "relevant." We would say that being someone who has lived is inherently ambiguous as it juxtaposes and strives for the perfect balance between being controlled by parents and individual freedom, dependence, responsibilities, and relationships. Culture itself is a completely new and different game, itself the combined definition of multiple factors, forms, variations andmodels that identifies an individual or a group of people who interact with their environment and express their beliefs. Younger generations then experience these ways of life, influence them, define them, and then respond to them, thus creating unique cultural forms and practices that we experience today. They are then shared with the rest of the community. Young Americans and Media Representation White American culture is the cultural construct of white Americans, but most fail to specifically name its characteristics. This reflects how culture operates, which often occurs at a deeper level of consciousness. Culture provides us with norms, values, expectations, communication patterns, and many other things. But in everyday life these become the background and we focus instead on the people, events and concerns of everyday experience. Culture only becomes apparent when it differs from the familiar or no longer works for us White Americans are the majority of young people who make up the majority of young people found in America and are often depicted and associated with well-known terms and subcultures such as hip music -hop, hippies, skinheads, punks, graffiti writers, low riders, ravers, mall rats. They are also mostly portrayed as the "superior" race due to the white supremacy culture that induces false ideals, expectations and negative behaviors, also the media around the world is more white-centric, even movies produced with world-famous studios like Disney studios often pushes the ideology because the culture is so known worldwide and generally produces better results and feedback from the masses. Asian Youth and Representation in the Media How are young people defined by the media? First of all, you need to understand what it means when the word "Asian" is used in the essay. The word Asian does not mean the people of just one country. First, the word Asian has been used loosely in the media and in everyday conversations, making it a gross generalization and may be offensive to some. Approximately more than half of the world's population is made up of Asians, and the term is used almost exclusively for people living in East, Southeast, and East Asia. they do not include people like Arabs or Turks and are more often referred to as Middle Eastern. To keep things simple, we will call the Chinese "Asians" in this essay. How are young Asians defined? Asians are generally depicted as an exotic addition in a film or as a sex symbol. They usually represent martial arts, yoga or Buddhism. Aside from that, positive representation or even any representation of Asian youth is close to non-existence in most popular or mainstream films today. Ethnicity and Culture in the Asian Context We consider a person to be Asian as long as they were born and raised in any of the 49 countries that make up Asia itself. The definition of “Asian” is too difficult to pinpoint due to the massive variation in race, language, and culture that makes a person a true “Asian.” For this reason many different breeds are considered “Asian”. “Asia is the largest and most populous continent in the world with a population of 4.3 billion people. Located primarily in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres, Asia covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and comprises 30% of its landmass. With approximately 4.3 billion people, it constitutes 60% of the current global human population.” (World Population Statistics) Ethnicity and Culture in the American Context The question most people ask is “so, what exactly is white culture?”. The cultureWhite is usually associated with oppression or supremacy. From my personal perspective, there is a way to identify and quantify what white culture really is. This is where ethnicity is practical and is used as a reference point for the boundaries and scales by which we classify people which are highly subjective and determined by society itself, it is definitely not a defined way due to how cultures, behaviors , laws and trends are interchangeable. formed by the Americans. Culture is often seen as a common identity, furthermore people feel more comfortable and at ease with others of similar ethnicity due to the "similarities" that individual and strangers may possibly have and compared to someone who does not It's similar. While this may be true for many whites, historically all whites in America have not needed unity in the way that minority groups have. If you are part of a minority, you may have an innate sense of camaraderie with people of your ethnicity. For white people, others of their ethnicity are just people. However, this rule may change when considering culture more closely than the terms of white, black, etc. that we use so often. Just as it is unacceptable to say that all Asian heritage is the same, it is uninformed to say that all white heritage is. the same. Some cultures associated with European countries made their way to white Americans. This should seem evident as even the cultures of minority groups appear not to correspond exactly to their origins, but adapted versions of them. American Case Study 1 For the first case study, we will be basing it on a movie called "The Blind Side". This case study will analyze and discuss young people, their ethnicity and how the media chooses to represent them. Providing an introduction to "The Blind Side", it is a story centered on a true life story set in America, North Memphis, Tennessee. Michael (Big Mike) Oher is a 17-year-old black youth and has been in foster care with many different families due to his drug-addicted mother. Every time he is placed in new foster care, he runs away. A friend of his father's who was impressed by Mike's athleticism and size, Cotton, got him admitted to Wingate Christian School even though he had poor academic results. Mike later befriended Sean Jr., a younger white student at the school. School staff later inform Michael that his father has died due to an accident. Later, after a volleyball game, Michael's friend Sean noticed him picking up food scraps in the stands. A few nights later, Leigh Anne, Sean's mother, noticed Michael walking in the rain and cold on the street, alone. Knowing that Michael planned to sit outside the school gym which was closed, she offered him to sleep on a couch in their house. He disappears the next morning and Leigh Anne chases him and invites him to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with the Tuohys. Eventually Michael grows closer to the family and becomes a member. In this film there is a fundamental part at the beginning. It is here that Michael approaches some young students playing on a swing and they all run away. It is important to note once again that Michael is a young black man while the students running were all white. The media always loves to portray the black race as tall, fierce and imposing, while the white race should always have a reason to fear them. This is the media's fault and something needs to be done to correct this problem. The general idea that people have of black Americans is that they are tall, fierce, reckless and scary. What can be done is to stop portraying blacks and young people as the above. Young black people should berepresented in a more positive light and should be given more positive roles to play. It's also important not to portray films that allow white people to have a "white savior" complex where it's always the white person who saves the day, even if the cast has black people. In one scene, some of Leigh Anne's rich, white friends wonder what Leigh Anne is doing and suggest that Collins, her daughter, was not safe with Michael. He scolds them severely. After that incident, Leigh Anne asks Collins how she feels about Michael and she replies that he is fine and that their family can't just throw him out. Despite the stereotypes about youth and ethnicity in the film, there are some positive things about the youth in the film. For example, in the part mentioned above where a group of white kids were running away from Michael, Sean Jr. actually walked up to him and told him he had to say hello instead of just smiling or waving while looking imposing with his stature. Sean wasn't afraid of Michael and introduced himself first. Second unmentioned scene, Michael enters a library to study and sees Collins studying with his group of friends. He sees an empty table, walks towards it and sits down. Collins' friends stare at him and give him a judgmental look before turning back to their books. This shows that even though they don't know Michael, they have already judged him. This right here is a negative portrayal of young white people who are judgmental. However, in the next scene, Collins leaves his friends and heads to the other table to accompany Michael without saying a word. This is a good example of young white people and should be done more often in the media. Case Study 2 Asian As stated in the section “Asian Youth and Representation in the Media”, positive representation or indeed any representation of Asian youth is almost non-existent in most cases. of today's popular or mainstream films. Even after hours of research into the type of Asian films that portray Chinese youth, there are almost none. Chinese films are mostly about myth, fantasy, and ancient Chinese history. Chinese people are usually depicted in sexual and erotic films from a Chinese-Asian perspective as well. Chinese people are portrayed as goddesses or fairies in typically revealing clothing to cater to both the Chinese and American markets. Chinese films also mainly include fantasy, mythical films and when there is demand, there will always be supply. We must first stop the supply, especially from screenwriters and directors. Asians are stereotyped in many ways, such as kung fu fighters, geeks, foreigners, and prostitutes. For kung fu fighters, when Bruce Lee started to become famous in the United States, Asians took great pride in the fame. Ultimately they were not depicted as nerdy and effeminate compared to most films of the time. However, before long, the American media began to portray Asian Chinese as kung fu experts. Now the downside is that Asians applying for acting roles are often asked if they know any form of martial arts. Per the geek stereotype, Asians are often portrayed as intelligent or very good at technology. Whenever they appear in advertising media, they are presented as mathematically gifted technology experts or intellectuals. These play on stereotypes that Asians are superior to Americans in terms of technology and intellect. This Could Be Harmful Although people of Asian descent have lived in the United States since the 1800s, Asian Americans are often portrayed as perpetual foreigners. Like Latinos, Asians on television and in the movies often speak English with an English accent, suggesting that they are recent immigrants to the."