Consider the view that the current press treatment of teenagers is simply another “moral panic”

The current press has covered a lot of news about today’s teenagers, and most of the news which involves them is about teenagers committing crimes and having bad behaviour towards other members of society. This is increasingly shown over the past few years and with repeated representations of teenagers being in ‘gangs’, society tend to accept the fact that this is a moral panic which is affecting the nation. However, as the news is altered according to the production company, it could be argued that the news presents hegemonic values by contrasting the middle/working class representations to those of the elite. Although the rate of knife crime and gun crime amongst teenagers has increased, the news heavily emphasis on the fact that they are ’teenagers’. The dominant reading of these news bulletins is that teenagers cause havoc and are a threat to our nation. With repeated representations of these teenagers, the audiences of the news become passive and the hypodermic needle theory suggest that the production companies are able to inject their values into the audiences, which shapes their views and opinions on certain topics. The idea that today’s teenagers are dangerous therefore becomes a moral panic.