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Journal of Youth Studies
ISSN: 1367-6261 (Print) 1469-9680 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjys20
Changing media representations of youth in thenews – a content analysis of Danish newspapers1953–2003
Klaus Levinsen & Charlotte Wien
To cite this article: Klaus Levinsen & Charlotte Wien (2011) Changing media representationsof youth in the news – a content analysis of Danish newspapers 1953–2003, Journal of YouthStudies, 14:7, 837-851, DOI: 10.1080/13676261.2011.607434
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2011.607434
Published online: 17 Aug 2011.
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Changing media representations of youth in the news � a content analysisof Danish newspapers 1953�2003
Klaus Levinsena* and Charlotte Wienb
aDepartment of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark,Odense, Denmark; bCentre for Journalism, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
(Received 24 October 2010; final version received 12 July 2011)
Media plays an important role in shaping public perceptions of youth. Previousstudies have shown consistently negative images of youth in news media through aheavy focus on crime, accidents, and moral decay. Most research in this area hasonly collected data over short timeframes, which makes it difficult to registerpossible changes in modes of representation. The present study has sought toovercome this short come by emphasizing long-term data collection, by focusingon how newspapers have portrayed youth in the period 1953�2003. On the basisof quantitative content analyses of Danish newspapers, we find a strong emphasison crime and accidents; however, culture takes up almost as much space.Furthermore, we cannot confirm a tendency toward increasingly negative mediarepresentations regarding young people. Our data show more neutral portrayalsand an increase in news items quoting young people.
Keywords: youth; media representations; quantitative content analysis; newspapers;young adulthood; youth culture
Introduction
Several youth and media researchers have already contributed with an array of
interesting studies on how various discourses concerning youth are prevalent in
youth media (Evans et al. 1991) and how young people use media in constructing
identity and communication (Evans et al. 1991, Carpenter 2001, Bleakney et al.
2008). So far, research has indicated that framing and representation of youth in the
media in general is negative and that this influences both public opinion on youth
and youth itself (see e.g. Porteous and Colston 1980, Falchikov 1986, Devlin 2000,
Nichols and Good 2004, Wayne et al. 2008, Henderson et al. 2010). Thus, media is
assumed to contribute to negative stereotypes and stigmatization of youth.
The aim of this study is to examine whether news media in Denmark have a
similar negative bias in representing youth. We adopt a dynamic perspective by
exploring how representations of youth change over time. Based on content analysis
of newspapers in the period 1953�2003, we investigate whether there is a negative
trend in the portrayal of young people regarding various types of newspaper articles.
The rationale for this paper is twofold: firstly, very little longitudinal research has
been done on this issue. In this article we will conduct a longitudinal analysis of
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Journal of Youth Studies
Vol. 14, No. 7, November 2011, 837�851
ISSN 1367-6261 print/ISSN 1469-9680 online
# 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2011.607434
http://www.tandfonline.com
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media content concerning ‘youth in the news.’ Secondly, we wish to challenge the
conclusion that there is a negative bias in media coverage of young people.
Different media models may lead to different media output. According to Hallin
and Mancini, at least three media models exists: The Polarized Pluralist Model (e.g.
Mediterranean countries), characterized by a close relation between media and the
political world, weak commercialization, and a low degree of professionalization(Hallin and Mancini 2004, p. 90); The Democratic Corporatist Model (e.g.
Scandinavian countries) is characterized by � declining � political parallelism,
combined with journalistic professionalism; Finally, the Liberal Model (mainly found
in the US and the UK), which is characterized by strong commercial competition
among media (Esser 1999, Hallin and Mancini 2004). The Liberal Model encourages
tabloidization and gives high priority to sensationalism (Hallin and Mancini 2004).
Most internationally published analyses of youth representation in media have been
carried out for the Liberal Model (e.g. Stensaas 1961, Porteous and Colston 1980,
Falchikov 1986, Devlin 2000, McManus 2002). There are several reasons why results
obtained for one media system may not be generalized to others: firstly, we suspect that
tabloidization may lead to an increase in negative portrayals of young people through,
e.g. a higher focus on crime and scandals; secondly, we hypothesize that professiona-
lization of journalists may increase the amount of neutral imagery regarding young
people. Indeed, it may also let young people appear in news items as individuals and
not stereotyped members a subgroup, that is, it may allow youth to speak for itself.
The second reason for challenging previous studies is the issue of social setting:
the rates of youth crime are significantly higher in America and UK than inDenmark. This discussion is important for one major reason: although several
American and British studies indicate an increased negative bias in media
representations of young people results obtained in America and the UK cannot
be uncritically generalized to other social settings.
Finally, the third reason is that social, economic, and political changes affect media
representations of social groups: our period of investigation contains significant
social, economic, political, and educational changes. Since the 1950s, Danish society
has changed from being an agricultural into an industrial society. Furthermore, it has
evolved its social security state into a modern welfare state. Like many other modern
welfare states, the Danes experience a prolonged period of youth lifestyles due to the
significant changes in education and social welfare. Culturally and politically these
changes became visible with the youth revolution during the late 1960s and early
1970s, with the expansion of the social democratic welfare state, which aimed to create
better and equal educational opportunities for the large baby boomer generations.
Because of these changes one might hypothesize that young people have become
a much more visible group in society. However, Danish media has experienced itsown revolution in the meanwhile: the leading papers in the country changed from
partisan papers to omnibuses with their demand for neutrality and objectivity in the
late 1960s and early 1970s.
This development also saw a heavy professionalization of journalism. Formal
education of journalists replaced apprenticeships by introducing curricula at the
Danish School of Journalism, which was founded in the early 1970s and reformed in
the late 1990s (Petersen and Lund 1999). In consequence there was larger variety in
terms of issues and genres, but also better understanding of the need for letting
sources (i.e. young people) speak for themselves in media.
838 K. Levinsen and C. Wien
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In summary, this paper will challenge the hypothesis regarding negative media
coverage of youth and present a method for conducting longitudinal analyses of
changes in media representations of various groups.
In the following section we will review existing research in greater depth. Then wemove on to our research design and methodology before presenting our findings. In
the last section we discuss the results and give some concluding remarks and make
suggestions for further research.
Media representations of youth � theoretical perspective and previous research
The concept of ‘media representation’ refers to the ways in which various groups
(based on e.g. age, sex, and race) are presented by media: it is necessary for media toactivate ideas already in the minds of the readers in order to communicate efficiently.
Thus, media uses representation when re-presenting images or ideas that the
audience already know and can relate to (Gipsrud 2005, p. 22). In our point of
view, media representations are synonymous with Lippmann’s concept of ‘stereo-
types.’ In his frequently cited ‘Public Opinion,’ he defines stereotypes as the ‘pictures
in our head’ (Lippmann 1991 [1922]). In other words, when using a stereotype or a
media representation, the journalist invokes images already present in the readers
mind. When Lippmann coined the phrase ‘stereotype,’ it did not have the negativeconnotations that it currently enjoys in everyday language. In order to avoid these,
the present paper will use the term: ‘media representation.’
Several studies have shown that media coverage influences society and vice versa:
research has shown that there is a constant interaction between the political agenda,
our private and public behavior, and the formation of opinion (e.g. Gamson and
Modigliani 1989, Donovan and Leivers 1993, Hurtz and Durkin 2004, Wyn 2005,
Paterson 2006, Slater 2007, Bleakney et al. 2008) and even language (Gorham 2006).
Hacking (2004) has argued that a so-called ‘looping effect’ exists: individuals maychange their behavior in accordance with the predominant descriptions of the
group(s) to which they belong. Ultimately this implies that if the dominant
description of youth in the media involves perpetrators and crime, then a population
of young people may in fact become more violent and criminal. Furthermore,
experiments conducted by social psychologists have shown that stereotypes are self-
reinforcing: for instance, if a population of elderly is repeatedly presented with
information claiming they are slower than others, they become significantly slower
than a corresponding control group (Kite and Wagner 2002). Analyzing how mediadescribes the young is therefore important: if the predominant media description of
the young is negative, then both youth researchers, young people themselves, and
journalists should be aware and take into consideration that particular generation
will change its behavior.
This, combined with the fact that other studies have shown that dynamic
examinations of how media representations change over time, can provide us with
valuable knowledge about cultural changes in society (Paterson 2006, Slater 2007,
Bleakney et al. 2008). There are therefore very good reasons for conductinglongitudinal studies of media representations, when these social mechanisms are
taken into account.
Media representations of youth have been studied for more than 50 years.
Stensaas (1961) found that most stories about young people in American newspapers
Journal of Youth Studies 839
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had a negative bias. Stanley Cohen’s study ‘Folk Devils and Moral panics’ (Cohen
1972), analyzed how media stories of the so-called ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ stigmatized
an entire generation of youth as being problematic and deviant. Another example is
Geoffrey Pearson’s study of juvenile hooliganism, which pointed out that the young
have always been an object of public concern and fear. Indeed, this has contributed
to an array of labeling mechanisms where they are typically portrayed as dangerous
and threatening to society (Pearson 1983). The question is, however, whether thenegative image of youth is a stable or transformative phenomenon?
Porteous and Colston (1980) found similar tendencies in the British press.
Furthermore, they showed that news on youth was dominated by news issues of
either sports or crime, where youth was seen as victims of accidents, crime, and
violence (Porteous and Colston 1980). A later follow-up study, employing 21 British
newspapers from 1985 as data, demonstrated that the preferred article subjects when
dealing with young people, was youth as victims of crime, youth unemployment, and
sports (Falchikov 1986). An Irish study (Devlin 2000) also confirmed the image of
youth as: ‘[. . .] either being a problem or having problems [. . .]’ (Devlin 2006, p. 47).
About 85% of all new stories dealing with young people were related to crime,
violence, victims, and vulnerability. According to Devlin (2006), these results are in
accordance with a general discourse where youth are described as: ‘[. . .] either
actively ‘‘deviant’’ or passively ‘‘at risk’’, and sometimes as both simultaneously’
(Griffin 1997, pp. 17�18, cited in Devlin 2006, p. 47).Besides these studies of general tendencies in media coverage, attention should
also be paid to research concerning episodic events. Iyengar (1991) introduced this
distinction between episodic and thematic framing of news stories. Episodic framing
describes events that illustrate issues. The thematic framing presents collective advice
or general advice. McManus (2002) investigated Californian newspaper coverage of
youth violence and concluded that there were significant differences in framing news
items on youth according to newspaper. These followed what he called ‘critical
discourse events.’ An example is found in the Columbine High shooting: after such
events, journalists increase their use of thematic frames (contrasted to episodic
frames) and exhibit an increased willingness to discuss both causes and solutions to
problems. In other words, everyday news coverage of youth might differ significantly
from news coverage that follows in the wake of critical discourse events.
Although our study focuses on printed media, valuable insight can be obtained
from research on youth media representations in TV. Heintz-Knowles (2000)
conducted an analysis of how American prime time television frames youth. They
found that about half of all entertainment programs included young people in someway. Those participating were mostly white and dealt with issues relating largely to
romance, relationships, friendships, and family matters. When widening the analysis
to include the entire range of programs, a general tendency was to describe youth as
the source of problems that adults must solve (Heintz-Knowles 2000, p. 6).
Aubrun and Grady (2000) found that especially local networks had a tendency
toward negative stereotyping of young people. Their study identified significant
differences in how local media portrayed young people: local media will typically
present stories on youth from a spectator’s angle, using short clips, thereby making it
difficult for viewers to engage emotionally. The national TV networks would often
present news stories on youth alongside the social context. It would furthermore
present and discuss possible solutions to the problem described (2000, pp. 2�5).
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These findings are in correspondence with those of Amundson et al. (2005), who
found that: ‘[L]ocal news stories about youth tend to treat adolescence as a source of
personal problems and social disruptions that need to be addressed by adults.’ Their
results, furthermore, indicated that the dominating criteria regarding stories about
young people was: ‘‘‘if it bleeds it leads’’’ (Amundson et al. 2005, p. 25).
Nichols and Good (2004) gives evidence of news stories and Americans in generalbecoming increasingly negative toward teens (Nichols and Good 2004, p. 5). They
point to many different reasons for this development: changing role expectations
over time; adult familiarity with youth and media influence, and rapid media growth
over the past five decades. The most frequently reported news topics on youth,
covered youth as crime victims, accidents involving youth and violent youth crime,
making the public media audience. This was to: ‘[see] youth in problematic terms.’
(Nichols and Good 2004, p. 9).
Wyn conducted an analysis of media representations, including both television
and newspaper news in the US, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK (Wyn 2005). He
concludes that these can be divided into two competing discourses: on the one hand,
youth is described as a threat to society and on the other as the: ‘. . . hope for the
future . . .’ (Wyn 2005, pp. 31�32). A recent British study found strong correlations
between coverage of young people and violent crime, and conclude that television
news was ‘failing to offer viewers an understanding of the full range of issues and
social determinations that impinges the young people’s lives’ (Wayne et al. 2008,Henderson et al. 2010).
Summarizing previous research within this area, one can say that media
representations of youth depend on media type and genre. However, it seems to be
valid for both newspapers and television news that adolescence in general is
described as a problematic group in society, which gives rise to concern among
adults. This is therefore the classical theme of how adult generations are caught
between hopes and fears regarding their conception of youth. As already mentioned,
most research has been carried out in British or American contexts where most
studies (so far) are based on data collected over relatively short periods. This does
not allow conclusions about trends in media representations of young people. In our
design, we operate with a fairly long timeframe, since we examine newspaper
representations of young people from 1953 to 2003.
Conducting our analysis as a longitudinal study leads to a methodological
weakness: we cannot maintain an analytical constant through such an extended
period. This reduces the possibility to draw definitive conclusions about cause andeffect. However, this does not leave this analysis as a ‘stand-alone’: a previous study
has been carried out on the changes in media representations of the elderly in
Denmark over the same period of time and using a similar methodology (Wien
2005). This showed a significant change from more favorable media representations
in the beginning of the period as opposed to the end of the period of investigation.
The findings of that study correspond well with other studies indicating that public
perception of the elderly is more positive in agricultural societies where experience-
based knowledge is highly valued, as opposed to the modern welfare state where the
elderly are put in homes and declared incapable of managing their own affairs. The
major change from positive to negative representations of the elderly in news
occurred in the early 1970s (Wien 2005). We will use the findings of this previous
study to support the conclusions of the present study and furthermore we intend to
Journal of Youth Studies 841
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anchor our findings in contemporary history (including media history) whenever
appropriate. However, in our conclusion we will only be able to describe the changes
in media representations of youth, compare them to changes in media representa-
tions of the elderly and give possible explanations for them.
Method and data
Our project ‘Youth in the news’ encompasses both quantitative and a qualitative
content analysis of newspaper items. However, as the aim of this article is to provide
an overview of trends, we narrow our presentation in this article to the results of
the quantitative analyses. This type of analysis is suitable for analyzing and
describing patterns in media content and illustrating the extent and presence ofcertain issues, frames, and stereotypes in a large corpus (Berelson 1952, Gunter
2000). As we focus on pattern changes in the overall framing of youth, related issues,
and changes, it is clear that the quantitative content analysis can provide valid
answers.
We have chosen to conduct our analysis on the basis of newspaper content,
thereby excluding television, radio, and the web. Despite rapid developments in
electronic media over the last 50 years, newspapers remain the main supplier of news
stories for other media (Schudson 2003). Moreover, the choice of newspaper materialenables us to collect a comprehensive and consistent corpus as all Danish newspapers
are available on microfilm or in full-text newspaper databases. Neither radio,
television nor web news can be collected systematically as they have not been filed
consistently.
We have chosen five different newspapers to represent the Danish newspaper
landscape: one national, quality broadsheet newspaper (Politiken), one national
tabloid (BT), one regional newspaper (Fyens Stiftisidende), one local newspaper
(Næstved Tidende), and finally a religious, niche newspaper (Kristeligt Dagblad).From each of these, we selected all issues from the same week (week 46), every 10th
year in the period 1953�2003. This particular week is called ‘The News Week’ in
Danish journalism research (see e.g. Wien 2005) and is in general considered as an
‘average’ week. In this way we obtained a total sample of 210 newspapers, which
gives a sufficient basis for analyzing trends during the period. However, we are aware,
that assessment of change across broad time periods will not be sensitive to changes
that occur between the chosen data points (Riffe et al. 1993, Lacy et al. 2001).
A group of three research assistants read through all papers and identified allmaterial about young people. They used two criteria for the selection process: the
first was UN’s definition of youth, based on age (14�24 years). In this way, every
news item mentioning a person between 14 and 24 years was selected. However, news
items do not necessarily mention a person’s age, which is why a second criteria had to
be implemented: if terms like ‘youth,’ ‘adolescence,’ ‘kids,’ ‘youngsters,’ or any
synonym was used, the item was selected for further analysis. Our sample includes
both news items on young celebrities and ‘ordinary’ kids.
A total of 1174 items were collected and subsequently coded for a variety ofvariables such as: subject, length, data of publication, use of sources, use of direct
quotes, and so forth. Regarding the coding of positive/negative bias in news stories
on youth, we developed three relatively simple categories: news items that described
young people as a resource, as engaged in societal development, as sympathetic,
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conscientious, beautiful, or talented were coded as having positive bias. Below we
present the examples of newspaper items with positive bias. The examples are
gathered from the beginning and the end of the period and have been selected among
the shortest items in the sample:
In Short
A young, Danish scientist, Mag. Scient Niels Palle Wieth-Knudsen, who is son of KnudAsbjørn Wieth-Knudsen, will today be defendig his controversial doctoral thesis at theUniversity of Lund. In his thesis Niels Wieth-Knudsen rejects Einstein’s [sic] theories incertain fundamental regards.
14 November 1953, Næstved Tidende (local paper)
EKSTRA:
The bare breasts under the jacket inevitably bring one to think that this is yet anotherviolin-babe to be marketed on her looks. The surprising thing is that the slender JanineJansen and her long dark hair has got more than mere attractiveness going for her. In herhands a Stradivarius makes wonders of Ravels ‘Tzigane.’ It is not as superb a production asNikolaj Znaider’s, but it is intense, sombre and smouldering and Jansen makes no faults.Even when she takes up the more kitschy and popular stuff such as Sjostakovitj’s‘Romance’ and the overture from the movie ‘Schindler’s List’ by John Williams, herinstrument sings with good taste [. . .]
13 November 2003, Politiken (national quality paper)
None of the items give the age of the person being portrayed, however, they were
selected because the journalist’s described the participants as being ‘young.’ Both
articles were coded as having positive bias, since both protagonists were described as
talented.
Correspondingly were items describing young people as the source of (some)
problem(s); maladjusted, criminal, or detached people from society were coded as
having negative bias. We have selected two examples:
Juvenile delinquency
Saturday, a number of youths � apparently non-islanders � took part in a local shindig.Some of the ‘guests’ apparently thought that more laughs were to be found outside, so theysped up and down the main street all through the evening and set off firecrackers. This mayseem innocent, but there were juvenile delinquents among them. A motor owner discoveredthis when he arrived at his car in the parking lot outside the local bank and found the radioantenna snapped off. It was located at the entrance to the cinema. The perpetrator of thesedoings deserves a severe spanking for such malicious intents.
9 November 1953, Næstved Tidende (local)
Punk rockers go mad
The police used their trungeons and five were arrested when a dozen ‘punks’ were returningto Copenhagen from a party in ‘Elværket,’ Helsingør Friday night. The group were veryprovocative on their way through Helsingør going to the railway station and when thepolice arrested two of the worst, the rest went on a rampage. One person has been chargedwith assaulting a policeman.
16 November 2003, B.T. (tabloid)
Journal of Youth Studies 843
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In both examples, the young persons are described as belonging to a certain group
(juvenile delinquents or punks). Neither the age nor the names of the young people
are mentioned. However, the first article was selected because the journalist uses the
term young people about the group of ‘bøllespirer’ or young delinquents. The secondarticle was chosen through an interpretation of the context (punkers are assumed to
be young).
Finally, news items where neither negative nor positive bias could be identified
were coded as ‘neutral.’
Three research assistants took part in coding. The inter-coder reliability test
showed fair agreement between their coding (Krippendorpf ’s Alpha at 0.77�1.0, see
Appendix Table 1).
We must accentuate some reservations regarding our method: our data werecollected as stratified random samples over a 50-year period. Every stratum only
covers a short period of time (one week) and there is a chance that random
fluctuations based on specific events in one or more of these weeks affect our results.
We compensate for this by focusing only on very significant trends seen over the
entire period instead of variations between the strata. All longitudinal studies of
media coverage of certain issues face this problem.
Results
The number of articles, their distribution across newspapers, and the years can be
seen in Table 1. When looking at the entire period, the years 1973 and 2003 display a
greater number of articles about young people than the remaining material.
Incidentally, 1973 displays significantly more articles than of any other year. An
explanation may be that news coverage in 1973 was still affected by the youth
revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s where much attention was paid to the
young generation. The youth revolution is a multifaceted phenomenon, reflecting the
cultural, social as well as political changes that took place in the years around 1967�1973 (Schildt and Siegfried 2006). Although it is highly debatable how much these
changes affected the mainstream culture, there is no doubt that a number of events
received much attention in the newspapers � especially those events attached to the
leftist movement and the opposition to the war in Vietnam.
All newspapers have approximately the same number of news items on young
people (218�293), except the religious niche newspaper (Kristeligt Dagblad) with
only 134. This might be explained by the articles in this paper being longer and fewer
for each issue. A parallel study of Kristeligt Dagblad � focusing on the elderly �revealed 282 items concerning this theme (Wien 2005). Since the readers of Kristeligt
Table 1. Youth items in newspapers.
Newspaper 1953 1963 1973 1983 1993 2003 All years
Politiken (national) 35 32 52 38 50 58 265
BT (tabloid) 33 36 58 38 40 59 264
Næstved Tidende (local) 30 36 56 37 31 28 218
Kristeligt Dagblad (religious) 19 22 40 15 13 25 134
Fyns Stiftstidende (regional) 31 28 64 39 57 74 293
N 148 154 270 167 191 244 1174
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Dagblad are � as a rule of thumb � elderly, it is plausible to suggest that the limited
number of articles about young people is the result of an editorial policy: editors will
focus on the stories they believe most relevant to their audience. It must be noted that
all papers have changed format over this period and our figures cannot indicate
developments in the relative proportion of news items on young people over this
period.
It is important to analyze which issues are discussed the most in news items about
the young, since public conception of problems regarding these are closely linked to
the issues discussed in the public sphere. As already mentioned, research in this area
has indicated that news coverage of young people often associates them with crime
and accidents and as either victims or perpetrators (Porteous and Colston 1980,
Falchikov 1986, Devlin 2000). Another large issue seems to be sport.Table 2 provides an overview of the issues in news items distributed over 13
different subject areas. As can be seen, ‘crime’ takes up a large part of the news items
in Danish newspapers (22%). This issue is followed by ‘culture’ (16%). The category
‘culture’ is quite broad and incorporates a variety of subissues like ‘music,’ ‘theater,’
‘literature’ and ‘media.’ News items covering pop stars and other media celebrities
are also included in this category. When comparing ‘crime’ and ‘culture,’ we notice
that the issue of ‘culture’ is as salient or even more salient than ‘crime’ in 1953, 1963,
and 2003. However, there are no clear trends that differ systematically from earlier
studies in this area � neither the number of stories nor the proportion of stories
about crime and culture, respectively. Among other salient issues are ‘sport’ (12%)
and ‘education’ (11%). Our corpus cannot confirm that ‘accidents’ are among the
most salient issues regarding youth, as found by Porteous and Colston (1980).
In summary, our analysis reveals some nuances in terms of salient issues in the
Danish newspapers than is reported by the previous research in this area.Our data cannot confirm that negative representations of youth dominate media
representations in Danish newspapers. Quite the contrary, Table 2 reveals slightly
more positive than negative or neutral representations of youth. However, this share
Table 2. Classification of youth items by subject. Per cent.
1953 1963 1973 1983 1993 2003 All years
Crime 23 19 22 30 28 16 22
Culture 24 34 9 9 13 16 16
Sport 8 10 14 11 7 19 12
Education 8 9 14 14 12 8 11
Politics 3 2 9 7 17 5 8
Social 4 6 9 3 5 9 6
Ethics, philosophy, and
religion
5 3 4 4 2 2 3
Accidents 8 4 2 1 3 2 3
Labor 8 4 2 1 3 2 3
Family 2 3 1 7 1 3 3
International 1 2 4 1 3 3 3
Health 2 1 3 4 2 3 3
Other 7 5 6 7 5 11 7
N 148 154 270 167 191 244 1174
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has been declining slowly since 1973. In the same period, we see a slight increase in
negative representations of youth. The subject of most articles coded as negative
was � not surprisingly � ‘crime.’ One should notice the clearest tendency from 1983
and on: ever more neutral articles (See Table 3).
An analysis of how positive, negative, and neutral articles are distributed among
the newspapers reveals that it is the regional newspaper (Fyens Stiftstidende) that
contains the largest share of negative articles and not the tabloid (BT) as one might
have expected. However, this tendency of increased negativity toward youth in
regional media resounds well with the findings of Aubrun and Grady (2000) and
Amundson et al. (2005). Another interesting aspect in this finding is that previous
work done on media representations of the elderly in Denmark showed the inverse
tendency: the local newspapers would prioritize positive stories on the elderly, while
the more negative and critical news items on the elderly were found in the national
newspapers (Wien 2005). This might be explained through journalistic selection
criteria for news stories: one reason for a journalist to write a story is that he or she
believes that his audience may identify with it (Schultz 2007). As the audience of the
local paper in general is older than the audience of the national papers, journalists at
local papers might prioritize positive stories on the elderly at the expense of news
items on young people.
A very important factor regarding the formation and maintenance of stereotypes
is the degree to which the members of a social group are dealt with as individuals
(‘Susan Smith’), members of subgroups (‘skinheads’), or by general group epithets
(‘youth’). Simplified, this means that a reduced tendency toward dealing with people
as individuals heightens the chance for discriminatory stereotyping. In the middle of
the twentieth century, when media started writing about young people as a special
group in society, they were very often described as either members of criminal gangs
disturbing public order or as members of bands introducing new cultural symbols
and forms of expressions (Thompson 1998, Welch et al. 2002).
In our analysis we coded our news items into three categories: one that registered
whether the young people were dealt with as individuals, one that registered whether
the young people were described as members of certain groups, or gangs and finally
one that registered texts where group epithets like ‘youth’ or any synonym was used.
As shown in Table 4, young people are described as individuals in almost half the
texts (49%) and as group members in approximately a quarter of the articles. Finally,
about one-fifth of the articles used group epithets. Looking at the development over
Table 3. Negative and positive representations of youth.
1953 1963 1973 1983 1993 2003 All years
Positive 83 86 127 29 55 78 458
56% 56% 47% 17% 29% 32% 39%
Negative 38 37 90 69 66 78 378
26% 24% 33% 41% 35% 32% 32%
Neutral 27 31 52 69 70 88 337
18% 20% 19% 41% 37% 36% 29%
N 148 154 270 167 191 244 1174
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time, we find an increase in the number of articles describing young people as
individuals and a decrease in the amount of articles describing young people as
group or gang members: in 1983, 1993, and 2003 about half of the articles described
young people as individuals. The group perspective was likewise most prevalent in
1953 (36%), 1963 (40%), and 1973 (42%). Cross tabbed with the variable subject, we
find that 25�30% of the texts indexed as ‘crime,’ ‘culture,’ or ‘sport’ dealt with young
people as members of certain groups or gangs. This result also corresponds with the
professionalization of journalists mentioned above.
Youth has been described as ‘the most silenced generation’ (Grossberg 1994, cited
in Mazzarella 2003, p. 236), and it has been argued that media prefers to portray
young people through expert views rather than their own words. According to
Mazzarella (2003, p. 236), giving space to experts such as psychologists, sociologists,
doctors, or teachers, might result in a tendency toward generalizing single
problematic episodes to an entire generation. Our data allow us to test whether
this pessimistic hypothesis is reflected in journalist sources for news items about the
young.
Our analysis of sourcing patterns (Table 5) shows that young people are quoted in
relatively few articles (18%). Looking at changes over time there is an increase both
in the number and share of articles quoting a young person: in our material from
1953, only 5% of the articles contained quotes, while this had increased to 14% in
1963 and 1973 and finally in 1983, 1993, and 2003 to 23�26%. In other words, media
seems increasingly willing to let young people speak for themselves. A possible
explanation for this might be changes in journalistic practices: in the late 1960s, the
Table 4. Young people as individuals or group members?
1953 1963 1973 1983 1993 2003 All years
Individual 71 60 104 95 111 128 569
48% 39% 38% 57% 58% 53% 49%
Group 53 62 112 8 25 34 294
36% 40% 42% 5% 13% 14% 25%
General group epithet (e.g. ‘youth’) 23 27 35 45 43 60 233
16% 18% 13% 27% 23% 25% 20%
Other 1 5 19 19 12 22 78
1% 3% 7% 11% 6% 9% 7%
N 148 154 270 167 191 244 1174
Table 5. Quoting young people in news items.
1953 1963 1973 1983 1993 2003 All years
Quoted 8 22 39 38 49 57 213
5% 14% 14% 23% 26% 23% 18%
Not quoted 140 131 230 129 141 187 958
95% 85% 85% 77% 74% 77% 82%
N 148 154 270 167 191 244 1174
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majority of Danish newspapers changed partisan newspapers into omnibuses. In
striving for the objectivity of the omnibus newspaper, journalists use an increasing
number of first hand sources.
Regarding the use of experts, we find that 14% of the texts in the material contain
quotes offered by some expert, i.e. a psychologist, sociologist, social adviser, doctor,
or teacher. This share is almost constant through the entire period with the exception
of 1953 where only 5% of the articles contain a quote by an expert.
Previous research in media representations of youth has indicated that there are
considerable differences in how media represents young females and young males,
both in terms of priority and subjects they are related to (Falchikov 1986, Devlin
2000, Mazzarella 2003). Our data confirm this. Table 6 reveals that 38% of the
articles are about young men, while only 16% of the articles are about young women.
This asymmetry seems to be quite constant over the entire period, except for 2003,
where 21% of the articles were about young women and only 34% are about young
men.Whether the representation of sexes is negative or positive, we find that almost
half of the articles about young men use negative representations leaving only about a
quarter of the news items with positive and one quarter with neutral representations,
while the opposite is the case for young women: almost half of them are positive
Table 6. Gender in news items.
1953 1963 1973 1983 1993 2003 All years
Man/men 66 52 103 65 83 82 451
45% 34% 38% 39% 44% 34% 38%
Woman/women 21 23 33 26 29 52 184
14% 15% 12% 16% 15% 21% 16%
Both sexes 12 14 40 13 12 24 115
8% 9% 15% 8% 6% 10% 10%
Not mentioned 49 65 94 63 67 86 424
33% 42% 35% 38% 35% 35% 36%
N 148 154 270 167 191 244 1174
Table 7. Gender � positive or negative representations (all years).
Man/men Woman/women Both sexes Not mentioned Total
Positive 170 107 57 124 458
38% 58% 50% 29% 39%
Negative 223 32 26 97 378
49% 17% 23% 23% 32%
Neutral 58 45 32 202 337
13% 25% 28% 48% 29%
N 451 184 115 424 1174
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while only 17% are negative. This is also reflected in the choice of subjects: a vast
majority of the news articles about crime and accidents are about young men (see
Table 7).
Concluding remarks
The most noteworthy result from this study is that we do not find a tendency toward
increasing negativity in our data. On the contrary, there seems to be an increasing
share of neutral items in the news.
Our analyses have also shown that in the long perspective, issues like crime and
sport take up a large percentage of the media coverage regarding young people in
Danish newspapers, as was found in earlier British studies conducted by Porteous’and Colston’s (1980) and Falchikov’s (1986). However, it also appears that culture is
reported quite frequently in Danish newspapers. Although it is not possible to say
anything definite about the causal relations, we believe that lower crime rates and the
different media systems may provide an explanation for these differences, indicating
that studies of youth representations in the news media should also pay attention to
the national and cultural settings.
Furthermore, our analyses show that young people are now quoted more
frequently than before. This finding corresponds with the professionalization ofjournalists and the transformation of newspapers into omnibuses. These changes and
the fact that the number of newspaper articles has increased significantly in the year
1973 may also reflect the societal changes over the years, where especially the youth
revolution during the 1960s and 1970s has contributed with a renewed public
attention for young people.
We expected to find an increasing amount of expert commentary as this was the
case regarding the elderly. Here, professionalization of the social sector increased the
number of knowledgeable people speaking on behalf of the elderly (Wien 2005). Thisis not the case, however. We cannot offer an exhaustive explanation for this, although
one reason might be that the youth revolution counterbalances such effect: a central
issue in the youth revolution was young people wanting to speak for themselves � to
be heard and not ‘the most silenced generation.’
We found significant differences in how media deals with young males and
females. There are more representations of young men than women through the
entire period, although the share of news items on young women has increased
slightly in 2003. However, we also note that young males are more frequentlyassociated with negative representations and with issues like crime and accidents than
are young women.
In this way, our findings have contributed to the debate on changes in media
representations of young people and to the research in this field by providing an
outline for a number of follow-up studies. Our study, which has provided an overview
of the changes in newspapers’ representations of the young, can be expanded with
more detailed and profound studies of the relationship between the journalistic
professional culture, the editorial environment, and the priorities which are madewhen reporting on youth. Of special interest would be a study clarifying what web 2.0
and social media mean to representations of youth in media. Also, it would be of
interest to ‘measure’ the distance felt by both the young and the rest of society
regarding media representations and the real world.
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Acknowledgements
Thaks to our colleauges Arjen van Dalen, Christian Elmelund-Præstekær, David NicolasHopmann, and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version ofthe paper.
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Appendix Table 1. Intercoder reliability tests
Coding category Krippendorff ’s alpha
Newspaper (name) 1.0
Size of article 0.99
Classification of items by subject 0.82
Negative, positive, and neutral representations 0.87
Individuals or group members 0.79
Quoting young people 1.0
Experts 0.77
Gender in news items 0.80
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