Page 600 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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youth and Media use

Communications technology has come a long way. E-mail, instant messaging,
blogs, and other new features in communications technology have all revolu-
tionized the way the world communicates on a fundamental level. But no group
of people has these tools mastered more than young people. As a population,
youth have traditionally been presumed to play a passive role in mass media,
perceived as sponges at the mercy of media messages, and absent from the pro-
duction process. Yet today’s rapidly changing communications environment has
been cause for some to believe the role of youth in mass media is no longer as
one-sided. Has the relationship between mass media and youth really changed?
And if it has, how so?
Young people have historically played an interesting, yet for the most part
static role in the public policy of mass communications. The dominant tradition
behind discussions of youth and media, particularly in the United States, has
been that of studying “effects.” For many years, the prevailing school of thought
asked what the impact of media messages was on young impressionable minds.
As a group primarily observed by adults and the like, youth and their relation-
ship with media have been largely misunderstood, and for good reason: young
people live in a complex, rapidly changing environment, and today’s communi-
cations environment is no different.
Attempting to describe youth generations, particularly that of today, poses
a great challenge. Historically, research on children or youth has more often than
not considered this population in negative rather than positive terms. And when
displayed in a positive light, they are too often thought of merely as “someone
who is not taking drugs or using alcohol, is not engaging in unsafe sex, and is

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