The Representation of Youth Through the Media - Essay Example

Even though both boys and girls are exploited for visual media advertisements, the number of girls used for this purpose seems to be extremely more than that of the boys. Female body is considered as one of the most beautiful things in this world and the exploitation of female body shapes for business purposes is growing day by day. In most of the films and television series, the story line would be something related to the teenagers. All the people, irrespective of age difference or sex difference, are interested in viewing programs related to the teenage community. In fact teenage is the golden era in the life of a person and therefore even old people like to see television serials and films related to teenage life to go through their beautiful memories. Media business people know this psychology very well and they often make films and TV serials which exaggerate teenage life styles and their life philosophies. Thus, in most of the visual media, teenager representation or youth representation seems to be far from reality. This paper analyses teenage representation in media, especially in the visual media, like television programs and films. Representation of youth in visual media According to Taylor & Lisa Taylor (Author) › Visit Amazon's Lisa Taylor PageWillis (1999), “Both television programs and films are produced with their contrasting contexts of consumption in mind” (Taylor & Lisa Taylor (Author) › Visit Amazon's Lisa Taylor PageWillis, 1999, p.3). It should be noted that both television programs and films are viewed by people of different kinds. However, television programs are mostly viewed by a family as a whole whereas films are viewed individually in most of the cases. For example, people like to see adult movies or films privately rather than publicly. On the other hand television serials are mostly watched in groups. Thus, television program producers usually avoid the intrusion of sex contents as much as possible whereas film makers may not obey such unwritten rules. In short, both television programs and films are made in different contexts. For example, Saved by the Bell is an American television program that telecasted between 1989 and 1993. This TV series followed the exploits of several students along with their principal at fictional Bayside High School. Each season of the series basically represented a year of high school for the students, plus summer vacations, ending with their graduation. The sitcom name is an idiom for being saved, by a school bell ringing, when a student is unprepared to answer a question asked near the end of a classroom period (Mashable, 2012). Even though the major theme of this serial was the stupid things performed by teenagers during their school days, it attracted all people because of the comedies involved in it. It should be noted that all people may experience such stupid things in their teenage life and old people was very much interested in viewing this TV serial because of their interests in rewinding their old memories in teenage life. “While for some reason the main characters here are like the most popular people in school you might or might not relate with that but you could at times relate with what's going on in their lives” (Saved by the Bell, n.d.). All people like to see the stupidity others. For example, most of the people like to see the slipping and falling of another person even though they may not ...Show more