The survey of over 1,000 14-17 year-olds, commissioned by cross-party think tank Demos, showed that four-fifths of those questioned believed their age group is unfairly represented in the media. 85 per cent said that they felt negative stereotypes affected their job prospects.
The report, entitled ‘Introducing Generation Citizen’ also showed the current generation as engaged with social issues. 80 per cent of the young people believed their generation to be more concerned with social issues than their predecessors, and two thirds of the 500 secondary school teachers questioned agreed.
The report’s author, Jonathan Birdwell, said: ‘People think of teenagers as apathetic, lazy and self-centred, with a sense of entitlement; that’s the dominant negative stereotype. But our research shows the reality is that more young people are volunteering in the community, and the most common words used by teachers to describe them in our survey were caring, hard-working and enthusiastic.’
The Youth Media Agency’s director, Susana Giner said: ‘There’s a lack of balance. The fly-on-the-wall stuff in Ayia Napa and places like that is not typical of teenagers; it’s typical of our voyeuristic circus-freak-show television. [They] face news stereotypes which are always around gangs and knife crime. That’s a real problem.’
Andy Burns, CEO of East to West, told Youthwork: ‘Perception is everything but in this case it’s more about projection. Society, through the mouthpiece of the media, projects its frustrations, anger and anxiety in the direction of young people – blaming them for all its ills. What I see is the creation of a distorted image that puts young people at a disadvantage. The great fear is that young people then become self-fulfilling prophecies; they embody the projection and so the cycle is perpetuated. The great privilege and need for us in youth work is to hold up mirrors of truth ref lecting back to them and society that they are fearfully and wonderfully made, made in the image of God - stick that on a CV or personal statement!’
One teenager, Rob from Newcastle, told The Independent: ‘In the last six months I’ve applied for about 30 part-time and weekend jobs to work around school. I just want to get a job so I’m not living off my mum and dad, but I keep getting turned down. If I didn’t mention I was 18 on my CV I think I might have got further. Now I’ve started not putting my age down. Bad news sells better than good news which is why I think the portrayal of teenagers in the media is so bad. I did a survey asking people what they thought of teenagers. One woman told me “Teenagers are going nowhere in life and the nation hasn’t got a hope in hell of surviving once they’re leaders.” She said teenagers were all low lives hanging around street corners drinking. I was blown away by it.’
