Perceptions of Youth and Crime

Level(s): Grades 7 to 12

Overview

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In this lesson students develop an awareness of the ways in which public perceptions regarding young people have been affected by media portrayals of youth violence and youth crime. Students begin by assessing their own attitudes towards youth and crime through class discussion and a Youth Crime Quiz. Next, they learn how to recognize bias in news reporting and then apply this knowledge by monitoring youth-related stories that appear in newspapers, magazines and television news. A "take action" component to this lesson encourages students to contact news sources that demonstrate bias in the reporting of youth-related stories.

Learning Outcomes

Students will:

become aware of the gap between Canadian's perceptions about crime and actual crime statistics.
understand the media's influence on society's perception of young people.
understand the impact that the media's portrayal of youth violence has on their own lives.
understand how media bias can result in negative depictions of young people in the media.

Preparation and Materials

For background information on this topic, read the selected resources on the right sidebar of this page.

Photocopy:

Procedure

Guided Discussion

Ask your students:

In terms of crime, how old is a "youth"? (Between 12 and 17 years of age)
When you see stories about teenagers in the news, or read stories about teenagers in the newspapers, what types of stories come to mind? (Stories connected to crime and violence will likely dominate student responses. An American survey in 2001 reported that 48% of television news stories about children were connected to crime or violence and 40% of newspaper news stories made the same connection.) Source: "Off Balance: Youth, Race and Crime in the News"
When you hear stories about teens and violence in the news, how does it make you feel? (Answers will vary; many students may feel offended that teenagers are often portrayed in a negative light; some may feel that these stories reflect reality. Give your students the opportunity to fully explore their feelings)
Do you ever see teenagers like you and your friends in the media?
Why is there so little emphasis on stories about regular kids, and so much emphasis on negative stories about kids?
How do media stories about teenagers and crime affect your perceptions and attitudes on this issue?
How do they affect your parent's perceptions and attitudes?
The term "media myth" is used to describe the media's continued portrayals of images and information that are not based on fact. A "media myth" is created when whole groups of people are misrepresented because the extreme actions of a few of them dominate the media.
Can you think of any examples of groups of people who have been affected by media myths?
What media myths have been created regarding teenagers?
Do you think media myths about teenagers have ever affected how you have been treated?

Activity One

Distribute the Youth Crime Quiz to students.
When students have completed the quiz, discuss the answers as a class. (Were they surprised by the results of the quiz? Do they agree with the reactions to media violence identified in Question 9?)
In a journal entry, have students describe how they perceived youth crime before, and after, taking the quiz.

Activity Two

Distribute the Detecting Bias in the News handout to class and discuss with students.

Divide the class into six groups.
Assign each group the following news sources:
- newspapers (three groups - each with a different newspaper)
- a nightly newscast (two groups - each with a different station)
- four news magazines (one group will study the contents of the latest issues of four news magazines)
Each group is to monitor its news source for two weeks, keeping track of all stories that pertain to youth.
As a group, students are to tally the total number of stories by category - i.e.; violence/crime, human interest, sports, education, and 'positive portrayal' - and create a chart of their results.
Students will summarize each story, noting the prominence of the story, i.e. whether it was a lead story or front-page news, or buried in the newspaper or newscast.
any bias contained in the story.
the reaction of at least one person who has seen or read the story.
When each group is finished, they are to present their findings to the class.

Class Discussion

Identify the similarities and differences between the reporting styles of the three news sources.
For stories dealing with the same news item, was there a difference in how the story was presented by each news source?
In stories relating to youth and crime, were the young people involved portrayed as victims or perpetrators?
How does the portrayal of teens as victims affect our perceptions of them?
What about the portrayal of teens as perpetrators?
Which news source are teenagers most likely to get this story from? What about their parents?
Does the news source make a difference to a person's perception of a story?

Activity Three: Taking Charge

If students found a disproportionate number of negative articles about teenagers, let them write letters to the editors or producers of their news sources, voicing their concerns and offering suggestions for stories that will provide a more balanced portrayal of young people.

Students can find several tips for taking a proactive stance on this issue in the Media Awareness Network's Media Toolkit for Youth, on the right sidebar.

Evaluation

Journal entry
Group assignment