Representation of Youth in the 1960s: A Different Reconstruction

Let's go back in time to 1961, just 3 years before the media in Britain represented its youth as being violence driven hooligans who were a threat to the very fabric of society.

1961 saw the release of the film 'The Young Ones' starring, amongst others, Cliff Richard.

The story is about the youth club member and aspiring singer Nicky (Cliff Richard)  and his friends, who try to save their club in western London from the unscrupulous millionaire property developer Hamilton Black, who plans to tear it down to make room for a large office block. 

The members decide to put on a show to raise the money needed to buy a lease renewal. The twist in the story is that Nicky in reality is Hamilton Black's son, something he keeps keeps secret from his friends until some of them try to kidnap Black senior to prevent him from stopping the show. 

Although he is fighting his father over the future of the youth club, Nicky can't allow them to harm him, so he attacks the attackers and frees his father. In the meantime, Black senior has realised that his son is the mystery singer that all of London is talking about, after the youth club members have done some pirate broadcasts to promote their show. 

So, although he's just bought the theatre where the show is to take place, in order to be able to stop it, the proud father decides that the show must go one. At the end, he joins the youth club members on stage, dancing and singing, after having promised to build them a new youth club.

Here is the trailer for the film - how is the representation of British Youth different here to what you have previously seen?



The trailer for the film 'The Young Ones' paints a very different picture of youth compared to what I have previously seen through my research.

During reports on the conflict between the Mods and Rockers that took place over a bank holiday weekend, the mass media quickly began to dehumanise the youth sub - cultures and refer to them in animalistic terms - they were labelled the 'wild ones'. However, the title of the film advertised in the trailer is called 'The Young Ones' which has much more positive connotations - being young is commonly associated with innocence and purity, which is clearly being demonstrated of the youths in the trailer. As opposed to behaving wildly and causing chaos, the characters seem to be having harmless and innocent fun, as depicted in the upbeat musical numbers and scenes on the beach. They are also portrayed as being very civilised, as they approach the authoritative adult in a polite and respectful manner - this contradicts reports from the media, once again from the bank holiday weekend incidents involving the Mods and the Rockers. The older generation were said to be scared by the action and demeanour of the youths, but the trailer shows the adult and teenagers actually performing together on stage, suggesting there was more harmony and peace between the two than the media reported. Plus, there seemed to be a greater sense of unity and community within the youth in general, as the media in the 1960s exaggerated the extent of the rivalry and animosity between the Mods and Rockers - the depiction of the relationship between the younger generation appeared supportive and collaborative as opposed to detrimental. 

What are Moral Panics?

By Hayley Burn: A Summary

• Discusses Stanley Cohen's work and his coinage of the term 'moral panic'.
• incidents that could have been kept at a local level are amplified by mass media.
• youth cultures in each era are associated with certain types of violence which provoke public reaction and emotion.
• society cannot accept responsibility for its own failures and so they look to find someone who can be incriminated. 
• amplification which takes place through the media's work serves to appeal to the public so they can concur with ready-made opinions about the course of action to be taken with the 'moral barricade' e.g. politicians or editors.
• media's coverage of events such as Mods V Rockers conflicts were exaggerated and distorted.
• majority of people in society share common values of reality and what is acceptable and not acceptable.
• Eldridge explains "Rather than manipulating in the sense of trying to get people to change their views or politics, by reinforcing what is already present in society it gives the public what it wants." [Eldridge 1997: 63]
• Cohen's 'control culture' failed to deal with the problem presented to them, which is why the topic of youth culture has continued to reappear at various points in our society.
• More moral panics will be generated and other, as yet nameless, folk devils will be created. This is not because such developments have an inexorable inner logic, but because our society as present structured will continue to generate problems for some of its members...and then condemn whatever solution these groups find. [Cohen 1987:204]

Past Exam Questions

Here is a collection of past questions from the Collective Identity section of the exam paper. Hopefully, by looking at these you will be reassured that the exam does not hold any great terrors for you.

A good piece of advice to try to make the question more accessible is to replace the term 'group of people' with 'British Youth'. 

For example:

Analyse the ways in which at least one group of people is mediated'

becomes

Analyse the ways in which British Youth are mediated.

Stanley Cohen "Folk Devils and Moral Panics"

Audience Reception Theories

Hypodermic Syringe Theory - 1920s

A model of communications suggesting that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver. The model is rooted in 1930s behaviorism and is largely considered obsolete today.

e.g. Hitler and the Nazis - via propaganda, Hitler managed to convince and brainwash Germany into believing that Jews were a danger/threat to society.



Two Step Flow - 1940s

Ways that most people form their opinions under the influence of opinion leaders, who in turn are influenced by the mass media. So according to this model, ideas flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.





Uses and Gratifications - 1960s

• The audience is active and its media use is goal oriented
• The initiative in linking need gratification to a specific medium choice rests with the audience member
• The media compete with other resources for need satisfaction
• People have enough self-awareness of their media use, interests, and motives to be able to provide researchers with an accurate picture of that use.
• Value judgments of media content can only be assessed by the audience.

Stanley Cohen: Folk Devils and Moral Panics

A leading writer on Criminology and Sociology, Cohen is credited with coining the term moral panic in his 1972 study (Folk Devils and Moral Panics) of the popular UK media and social reaction to the Mods and Rockers phenomenon of the 1960s.







Cohen suggests the media overreact to an aspect of behaviour which may be seen as a challenge to existing social norms. However, the media response and representation of that behaviour actually helps to define it, communicate it and portrays it as a model for outsiders to observe and adopt. So the moral panic by society represented in the media arguably fuels further socially unacceptable behaviour.

Thirty years ago, he created the term "moral panic," which is used to summarize the disproportional, gripping fear that engulfs a society in the face of a moral dilemma so deep it could upend the social. Moral panic, Cohen taught us, is the dance of the devil that stirs within us in the face of demonic, demagogic problem.

Mods, Rockers and Bank Holiday Mayhem - Documentary