| Abstract: | In this paper, the focus is on cultural representations of children and young people in the Finnish media. The research data consists of 150 articles drawn from Finnish newspapers between 2003-05. It is mainly portrayals of children and youth (ages 7-18) who have been successful in the field of sports, the arts or education. The portraits are analysed as a particular media genre, from a critical discourse analytical perspective, combined with an intersectional analysis. The focus is on cultural constructions of age, childhood, youth and gender, but connections to representations of class and ethnicity will also be explored. Five case studies – the portraits of three athletes below the age of 13, a young female rap artist and a young entrepreneur – are used to demonstrate the analysis.
While on surface the media portraits seem to celebrate the young interviewees, on a closer look, however, it seems that they implicitly convey stereotypical, and often negative understandings of childhood and youth. At the same time, they seem to also implicitly reinforce traditional gender stereotypes. Intersections of age, gender, class and ethnicity interact in particular ways in the texts and work to create particular images of young people as either ‘amusing’, ‘threatened’ or ‘serious’. It seems that it is particularly the combination of masculinity with young age that creates tensions in the media portraits, while femininity does not appear equally problematic |
Ph.D., Lic. Theses
