Leena - Teens in the Media

ARGUMENT: In the article “A Tangle of Discourses: Girls Negotiating Adolescence” by Rebecca C. Raby, Raby argues that discourses are implied unevenly between adolescence in different social locations making their effects unequal between individuals. The discourse on teenagers is significantly affected by gender, class, and race. A discourse is a set of meanings, images, stories and statements that produce a social understanding of things or people. Since discourses are understood by society, they claim to be the truth being reinforced into our perception of reality. Our consumer culture has been able to manipulate teenagers in a variety of ways, while framing adolescence as a stage that requires a degree of self-reflection. Popular concern about adolescence is of being dangerous, ungoverned, and in need of control. Discourses however cannot be a reflection based on society’s perception, for example with adults because every teenage experience is different. Focusing on the concept...

What do we learn about teens via the media? The film " The Mean Girls " (2004) tells the story of Cady Heron, a young "tom-boy" teenager who was once educated by her parents in Africa. The movie tells her story transferring into a public school for the first time. Her experience involves drama, cliques, and rules that were implied into the social culture of high school. Cady finds herself involved with a group of girls "The Plastics" which she experiences the highs and lows of her teenage life. This film portrays the culture of high school to be unexpectedly crazy. Cady was a student with good grades, pressured into fit in a culture different than something she has ever experienced. As a teenager, I shared some of the same qualities of Cady, being a "tom-boy", I always wore sneakers and always made the Honor Roll in school. Entering high school, I thought of the worst. The media portrays high school to be a place where one is not accepte...

Quotes: Based on the Article titled "Framing Youth" By Lesley Bogad, I decided to elaborate on three quotes mentioned in the text: 1. Dominant discourses about youth — adolescent development, age, erasure of difference — secure the weight of their voice(s) through repetition and reproduction in mainstream texts, popular culture and “scientific” studies which naturalize them as a part of the “common sense” of American culture. This quote explains how the most common written and spoken ideas about youth regarding their development throughout adolescence and puberty, as well as the ways society portrays them as different than any other group secures the common sense in American culture about teens. Along with researchers and scholars with heavy weighted voices who follow these same discourses, common sense of inexperienced and emotional youth remains embedded in our culture through television, films, and magazine covers. Youth as a category has a very little weighted vo...

Reflection: In Chapter 5 of “Media and Ideology” David Croteau explains how media has its own ideology, such as a belief system that help justify those in power by distorting reality through messages portrayed to viewers. Since “reality” may have multiple meanings to people, those in control of the media are able to portray fabrications of reality for purposes of entertainment. These distorted messages are examined through Ideological analysis that asks what these messages tell us about society and ourselves. Ideology has influence on cultural and social norms as well as views in the society that we live in. Although many will not admit, the media has an influence on an individual in one way or another. Ideology in the media has a strong influence where it can normalize certain behaviors that one may know is false. It may also normalize attitudes that people feel towards another. I agree with Croteau and I believe that media is becoming readily available more than ever, allowing ...

About Me Hello, My name is Leena. I recently gradua ted from Rhode Islan d College with a Bachelors in Justice Studies and currently enrolled in the course Teenagers in the Media for the summer as well as an online class because I currently owe 8 elective credits for my program. I am twenty two years old and I work at Edible Arrangements. I had this job for four years throughout my college experience, but currently looking for a job related to my field of study. I do not have any children, but I have two nieces that are like my own. My older sister passed away in 2012 so help raise them with my mother. For fun I like to do many activities as well as travel. This summer I plan to complete both of my summer courses, work, and take a trip in August. After Graduation Ceremony! (A pin of my sisters face on my cap) Painting a wine glass during my mothers paint show