Seemingly, the academic discourse usually discusses young people and youth issues in neutral, professional and rational way. As the professionals tend to study social problems in a calm way, society would likelihood to trust the professionals, and believe that the academic discourse portrays youth without any bias. But in fact, academic discourse portrays unfavourably to youth and treated youngster as a problem. The academic researches often study on the problem behaviours of adolescence, such as suicide, drug addiction and sex crime; therefore, the negative perception would be created towards youth (Balswick, King and Reimer, 2005: 167). And youth becomes problematic under the portrayal of academic discourse. Compare with the media and politicians,
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Obviously, it is not merely a kind of stereotypes and stigmas, but it also formed the moral panic. The concept ‘moral panic’ presented in Stanley Cohen’s book “Folk Devils and Moral Panics” which generally defined as ‘an episode, often triggered by alarming media stories and reinforced by reactive laws and public policy, of exaggerated or misdirected public concern, anxiety, fear, or anger over a perceived threat to social order’ (Krinsky, 2013: 1). Cohen (1980: 9) believes that media, politician and the professional play the important role to the construction of moral panic. While there is some issue defined as a threat to social values or interests, media would first portray the issue in an easily recognisable form (more likely in a surprising form), and the public attention will be increased. Then the politician would urge the government to intervene, and the professional would begin to study the issue that likelihood to confirm the existence of threat. Finally the panic would be generate in society, and results in social changes due to the government intervention. Since youth is the future of society, it is necessary for adult to identify who is trustable, and who has the ability to hold the power and preserve social hierarchy. Therefore, it is believed that moral panic is the way for adult to create a standard of ‘qualified youth’ and screen out the …show more content…
However, it is worth to think that, does the government policy really implement to protect youth, or it is just a way of social control to serve the authorities interests? Obviously, society and government tried to label youth sub-culture and youth as social problem and deviant, and suggest that the number of participation to problem behaviour would be increase due to the excessive unsupervised time and lack of recreational place (UN, 2004: 217, Banham Bridges, 1927: 571, 574). Under this assumption, government allocates vast resources in social service and youth education which aims to reduce youngsters’ recreation time to prevent crime, for instance, provides venue rental service (like sports courts and dancing rooms) and offers the extracurricular activities and programmes. However, it is not valid to assume the reduction of recreation time is associated with the reduction of youth delinquency as there is no sufficient evidence to show the relation of unsupervised time and youth delinquent behaviour (Gottfredson, Gerstenblith, Soul´e, Womer and Lu, 2004: 264). Since youth created anxiety and fear in society which shaken social order, it is possible for government to limit youth behaviour through policy making, and consolidate the social order to serve the
Obviously, it is not merely a kind of stereotypes and stigmas, but it also formed the moral panic. The concept ‘moral panic’ presented in Stanley Cohen’s book “Folk Devils and Moral Panics” which generally defined as ‘an episode, often triggered by alarming media stories and reinforced by reactive laws and public policy, of exaggerated or misdirected public concern, anxiety, fear, or anger over a perceived threat to social order’ (Krinsky, 2013: 1). Cohen (1980: 9) believes that media, politician and the professional play the important role to the construction of moral panic. While there is some issue defined as a threat to social values or interests, media would first portray the issue in an easily recognisable form (more likely in a surprising form), and the public attention will be increased. Then the politician would urge the government to intervene, and the professional would begin to study the issue that likelihood to confirm the existence of threat. Finally the panic would be generate in society, and results in social changes due to the government intervention. Since youth is the future of society, it is necessary for adult to identify who is trustable, and who has the ability to hold the power and preserve social hierarchy. Therefore, it is believed that moral panic is the way for adult to create a standard of ‘qualified youth’ and screen out the …show more content…
However, it is worth to think that, does the government policy really implement to protect youth, or it is just a way of social control to serve the authorities interests? Obviously, society and government tried to label youth sub-culture and youth as social problem and deviant, and suggest that the number of participation to problem behaviour would be increase due to the excessive unsupervised time and lack of recreational place (UN, 2004: 217, Banham Bridges, 1927: 571, 574). Under this assumption, government allocates vast resources in social service and youth education which aims to reduce youngsters’ recreation time to prevent crime, for instance, provides venue rental service (like sports courts and dancing rooms) and offers the extracurricular activities and programmes. However, it is not valid to assume the reduction of recreation time is associated with the reduction of youth delinquency as there is no sufficient evidence to show the relation of unsupervised time and youth delinquent behaviour (Gottfredson, Gerstenblith, Soul´e, Womer and Lu, 2004: 264). Since youth created anxiety and fear in society which shaken social order, it is possible for government to limit youth behaviour through policy making, and consolidate the social order to serve the