The representation of Youth in the Media

The Representation of Youth in the Media

The idea of a generation gap is an old one, but the discrepancies between young people’s lived experience and other people’s perceptions present a very contemporary challenge. Today The Conversation begins a series, Another Country: Youth in Australia, which considers key aspects of being a young Australian and the consequences of public misrepresentations, ignorance or indifference for the nation’s future.

If you have been listening to certain politicians you may be gripped by the rising tide of panic about a younger generation who – apparently – threaten the very fabric of our society.

Young Australians are lazy, narcissistic and dishonest. They do not do what they are told. They are slackers, sponges and bludgers who are – apparently – unable and unwilling to get or hold down a job.

They cannot spell. They cannot read or write. They cannot name the capital of this country. They wear their pants hanging down around their arses, their undies on the outside and are always blasting crappy music through their earphones as they tweet #yoloswag.

This younger generation has been profiled in bestselling works such as The Narcissism Epidemic (subtitle Living in the Age of Entitlement) and The Dumbest Generation. These books argue that they suffer from a seeming inability to understand complex ideas or make rational judgements.

Today’s youth are characterised by apathy and political disinterest. They occupy a twilight world defined by Instagram and hashtags. They are only interested in themselves – hence, their signature gesture is the selfie.

Worst of all, they are said to be darkening our world with an epidemic of misbehaviour. When they are not binge drinking or taking drugs, they are murdering each other – or innocent passers-by – with king hits and coward punches. Society is forced to retaliate with lockouts and curfews – or a popular commercial alternative such as the Mosquito alarm, badged by European civil liberties groups as a form of sonic torture for under 25s.

These are the generational stereotypes informing our responses to some of the most pressing social problems of our age, including youth unemployment, homelessness, mental illness and suicide.

It is the kind of thinking that allowed the recent federal budget to single out a section of the population for special attention and to dismantle a universal welfare safety net in a manner that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago – not even as punishment for the alleged misdemeanours of my own so-called Generation X.

Unloved but ‘in love with themselves’

Only a few days after the budget, much of the media returned to generation bashing as usual. The ABC’s All in the Mind declared: Research says young people today are more narcissistic than ever.

This was a rehash of some questionable American research that has been recycled in Australian media for several years now. It has previously appeared, for example, in the Sydney Morning Herald as “New generation infected by narcissism, says psychologist” and “Gen Y are selfish lazy narcissists”, and in The Age as “Is this the most narcissistic generation we’ve ever seen?”

The budget coincided with the launch of I Want To Marry Harry. This is the most recent offering in a long line of reality TV shows designed to take advantage of young people’s emotional immaturity for the enjoyment of mostly adult audiences, who are encouraged to feel a sense of superiority.

Earlier in the year, Channel 7 made the point more explicitly, launching the first series of Young, Lazy and Driving You Crazy (a spin-off of the successful UK series Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum). Alleged underachievers are inserted into a range of stitched-up scenarios in which they compete with each other to say ridiculous and offensive things. Why? Because basically they are appearing in a reality TV show and this behaviour is expected of them.

But the most astonishing offering of the budget weeks was Chris Lilley’s Jonah from Tonga. Here is a program that features an almost 40-year-old man masquer