Today’s 13-year-olds are not as bad as we’re led to believe from The Conversation.
An extract ‘In 1982 I was toying with the idea of a career in teaching. That year a controversial film, Made in Britain, starring Tim Roth was released and I almost didn’t become a teacher. The film’s central character, Trevor was a dysfunctional, violent, foul-mouthed youth – everything society hates and fears. My natural fear was how would I, as a young teacher, cope with a classroom full of such kids? Of course the film is fictional. It portrayed the 1980s accurately – but did it portray Britain’s youth accurately?
With the way some of the media represents young people, you may be forgiven for thinking that Roth’s character is alive and well and infesting our streets and schools. Different newspapers have their favourite terms for teenagers: the Daily Mail likes “yobs”, while the Daily Express goes with “feral kids”. ……….’
Within the above is the following report
Longitudinal study of young people in England* from the Department of Education
An extract from ‘ ………The analysis presented in this report shows that 13 year olds and their parents are, on the whole, positive about their school, home and personal lives. They appear more likely to make responsible choices than ten years ago – the findings produced in this report are in line with other research suggesting this is a sober, responsible generation of young
people. ……’
So just what is the truth? Do the media just highlight a minority group and then by either design or not imply this is in fact the majority. Is this just for the media of today or could it also be for yesteryear? For, is it not true that there as and may always will be a minority group of individuals who wish to rebel against the Values of Society and will these persons be the ones who the media wish to highlight. For in most cases what makes ‘headlines’ is it tragedies and bad events or good events?
The same can be said of the media coverage of persons on benefits, do they not publish accounts after accounts of persons claiming benefits for which they are not deemed to be entitled or misuse the benefits they receive. This then provides, to the population at large, a distorted belief of persons who claim benefits. There may be many more instances of how the media may distort information. Should the media not provide a balance in their reporting? It may be that you need to view the political leanings of each publication and should this be made clear within each media.
But in any context you will be studying statistics and can these statistics always be believed. Do we really know how the information as been obtained, is it from actual happenings, or is it from what has been said by particular persons. If it is the former are all happenings being included and if the latter, do we know what is being said is the truth. Are the statistics representative and how many persons have been included in the research. In the former have all areas of the country been included and all demographic persons.
So just what can we believe? Or do we just form our own opinions from information gleaned from a variety of sources, whether they be correct or not.
So are the media right or wrong, but this is just your own opinion as to what it is. But as it is an opinion, others may not agree, but we all do have a right to our own opinions.
* Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v2.0.
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