Television news media in the UK are still showing a bias in their news stories that the majority of young people are involved in crime. New research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has revealed that young people are being neglected by the media except when they are portrayed as offenders and criminals.
The research looked at the possible causes of the disconnection between young people and television news and suggests that this may be responsible for young people’s dissatisfaction not only with the media but with the political establishment too.
Researchers at London’s Brunel University interviewed more than 30 broadcasters, analysed television news programmes and interviewed 65 young people as part of their project.
The research, which sampled over 2000 news stories, showed that young people were found to be the focus of just 13 per cent of news reports and of these 69 per cent were focused on crime. This is despite the fact that in 2006 only 22 per cent of young people had committed any of the 20 core offences covered by the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey.
Meanwhile 41 per cent of news stories that focused on the general public dealt with crime and law and order issues.
Interviews with young people showed that they are aware of how negative portrayals of them in the news create fear among the older generations and they are dissatisfied with the approach of news stories about crime.
The research also showed that working class and middle class groups of young people are detached from politics, because they see the House of Commons as irrelevant to their daily lives and they wonder why society has not equipped them to understand the political process. Reinforcing this detachment, only 3 per cent of news stories with young people as a main focus were about politics.
A focus group revealed that, so disaffected were many young people with mainstream news reporting, many in their late teens still watch Newsround because it is the only news programme that they can relate to.
Dr Michael Wayne, who led the research project said “This research has shown that broadcasters need to provide a broader range of news stories for young people and that political stories should be less Westminster focused and less dominated by MPs, who are increasingly being seen to be out of touch with the public.”
The study was undertaken by Dr Michael Wayne at Brunel University and will be published in a book ‘Television News, Young People and Politics: Generation Disconnected’ due out next February.
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Source Note: The statistic for crime data was taken from the 2006 Offending, Crime and Justice Survey (OCJS), which is a nationally representative self-report survey that asks young people in England and Wales about their attitudes towards and experiences of offending. Its main aim is to examine the extent of offending, anti-social behaviour and drug use among the household population, particularly among young people aged from 10 to 25. The total sample of young people surveyed every year is around 5,000.
Notes for editors:
Media contact: Matthew Begent, Communications, AHRC, M.Begent@ahrc.ac.uk. T: 0117 9876 773
Research contact: Dr Michael Wayne, Brunel University, michael.wayne@brunel.ac.uk
About Arts and Humanities Research Council ‐ Each year the AHRC provides approximately £102 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from languages and law, archaeology and English literature to design and creative and performing arts. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,350 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. Arts and humanities researchers constitute over a quarter of all research‐active staff in the higher education sector. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.