tag:theconversation.com,2011:/es/topics/youth-and-media-6734/articlesYouth and media – The Conversation2016-03-18T05:21:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/564992016-03-18T05:21:55Z2016-03-18T05:21:55ZGrand Theft Auto doesn’t cause crime, but poverty and alienation will<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115558/original/image-20160318-16330-s2pxfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Video games are an easy scapegoat for youth crime rates, but the evidence just isn't there. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GTA V, Videogame Photography</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Auto related crimes have increased 20 per cent in Melbourne over the last five years with <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/brazen-homeinvading-car-thieves-with-no-regard-for-the-law-taking-tips-from-video-games-police-say-20160310-gnfict.html">police citing</a> 16,000 cars stolen in 2015. And Victoria’s Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton is reportedly attributing a rise in thefts and burglaries to the “<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/grand-theft-auto-generation-to-blame-for-spike-in-crime-chief-commissioner-20160316-gnl2v9">Grand Theft Auto generation</a>”.</p>
<p>Victorian police, like many other <a href="http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/04/nj_assemblywoman_wants_to_ban.html">politicians</a> and <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/violent-video-games-incite-kids-to-crime-says-scipione/story-fn7y9brv-1226443402160">police chiefs</a>, cite violent films such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fast_and_the_Furious">Fast and the Furious series</a> and video games such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_V">Grand Theft Auto V</a> as factors inciting youths to commit “stylized” crimes. </p>
<p>Mind you, Commissioner Ashton went on to <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/grand-theft-auto-generation-to-blame-for-spike-in-crime-chief-commissioner-20160316-gnl2v9">tell 3AW that</a>, “We’re not actually dealing with more youth offenders but the youth offenders we’ve got are committing more and more offences.” </p>
<p>There seems to be more to this story than just violent video games.</p>
<h2>Violence and video games</h2>
<p>First person shooter games such as Call of Duty – where violence is viewed from the player’s perspective – are often used to explain <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/don-blame-video-game-industry-mass-shootings-expert-article-1.1297539">violent gun crimes</a>. </p>
<p>And the Grand Theft Auto series is commonly used to explain crimes such as auto theft because the game revolves around three criminals who drive around and steal cars. Grand Theft Auto V was the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, selling over 60 million copies.</p>
<p>Regardless of the crime, violent video games are <a href="https://theconversation.com/violent-videogames-arent-the-problem-its-in-our-genes-12064">commonly used as a scapegoat</a> to explain youth violence because it’s easy to draw mental comparisons between what an individual does on screen and what they do in real life.</p>
<p>Although studies show that playing violent video games does increase short term aggression, there’s no evidence that the effect is greater than other aggressive triggers (like getting cut off in traffic). And it’s important to remember studies exploring aggression only asked players to undertake relatively trivial acts, like <a href="https://theconversation.com/violent-videogames-arent-the-problem-its-in-our-genes-12064">blasting another player with a loud horn or making them eat chilli peppers</a>. Although uncomfortable, these are far from being acts of violence. </p>
<p>Studies exploring the relationship between actual violent acts and video games show a very different story. </p>
<p>By exploring the sales of violent video games along with patterns in violent crimes, US researchers have shown that violent crimes actually decreased in <a href="http://sci-hub.io/http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7287.2010.00216.x/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=">areas where video games were more popular</a>.</p>
<p>Another study found <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/soej.12139/abstract">no evidence </a> of an increase in crime associated with increased playing of video games and perhaps even a decrease.</p>
<p>A similar relationship was found when exploring <a href="http://eml.berkeley.edu/%7Esdellavi/wp/moviescrimeQJEProofs2009.pdf">violent crimes and movies</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115560/original/image-20160318-16324-1icfpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115560/original/image-20160318-16324-1icfpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115560/original/image-20160318-16324-1icfpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115560/original/image-20160318-16324-1icfpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115560/original/image-20160318-16324-1icfpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115560/original/image-20160318-16324-1icfpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115560/original/image-20160318-16324-1icfpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/115560/original/image-20160318-16324-1icfpu9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There’s no evidence linking games like GTA to increased crime or violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ReneSchroeder</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When delving deeper into relationships, researchers often find that video games alone aren’t enough to trigger long-term aggressive behaviour and that violent video games often need to be paired with <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christopher_Ferguson/publication/258129249_Violent_Video_Games_and_Aggression_Causal_Relationship_or_Byproduct_of_Family_Violence_and_Intrinsic_Violence_Motivation/links/00b49530411f544262000000.pdf">family violence and innate aggression</a>, as well as poor <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marjut_Wallenius/publication/223640397_Digital_game_violence_and_direct_aggression_in_adolescence_A_longitudinal_study_of_the_roles_of_sex_age_and_parentchild_communication/links/0fcfd50bf90e5ee865000000.pdf">communication with parents</a> to have an impact on a child. Thise means that things are more complicated.</p>
<p>Victoria’s Assistant Commissioner Robert Hill is also <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/brazen-homeinvading-car-thieves-with-no-regard-for-the-law-taking-tips-from-video-games-police-say-20160310-gnfict.html">quoted saying</a> that burglars were taking inspiration from movies including Fast and the Furious and Grand Theft Auto. But there is no evidence supporting the claim that games like Grand Theft are the <em>cause</em> of increased violence.</p>
<h2>What’s going on?</h2>
<p>The increase in car thefts in the Melbourne area is reportedly attributed to the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/violent-car-thief-threatens-to-shoot-officer-investigating-apex-gang-20160310-gnga2m.html">Apex gang</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-16/apex-gang-member-says-riot-blown-out-of-proportion/7252384">Police say the Apex gang</a> largely comprises of individuals between the ages of 12 and 19 of South Sudanese, Pacific Islander, Maori, and Anglo-Australian decent. They come largely from the Dandenong, a relatively poorer suburb compared to say, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/brazen-homeinvading-car-thieves-with-no-regard-for-the-law-taking-tips-from-video-games-police-say-20160310-gnfict.html">Templestowe</a>, where some of the crimes are occurring.</p>
<p>A recent <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-16/apex-gang-member-says-riot-blown-out-of-proportion/7252384">ABC interview with “James”</a>, reportedly an Apex gang member, indicated that he viewed life in Dandenong as hard. There were, he said, “no jobs”. The gang, he said, “is just a group of youths. Everyone’s got to have friends, you know. It means brotherhood. Everyone looks after each other.”</p>
<p>Although Victoria’s Premier Daniel Andrews has said that that neither he nor Victorians are interested in “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-16/apex-gang-member-says-riot-blown-out-of-proportion/7252384">these ‘poor me’ stories</a>” of disadvantage, there is plenty of evidence that wealth disparity is a fundamental cause of increases in violent crimes.</p>
<p>Ground breaking studies by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson in the 1980’s demonstrated that those who had <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016230958590041X">fewer opportunities and lacked viable options to increase their status in life</a> were more likely to commit violent crimes. They went further to demonstrate that income inequality could explain the high variation in homicide rates <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/cjccj43&div=22&id=&page=">between the US and Canada</a>. </p>
<h2>What needs to be done?</h2>
<p>What’s currently happening in Melbourne is unacceptable. But blaming video games is a pathetic attempt to steer the public’s eyes away from larger problems: disparity in wealth, youth unemployment, lack of decent schooling and general societal detachment.</p>
<p>But understanding the relationships between poverty, family relationships, education and crime is much more complicated. And more importantly, it requires more serious solutions such as the reorganisation of social and educational systems.</p>
<p>It’s far easier and simpler to blame the so-called “Grand Theft Auto Generation”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56499/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Kasumovic receives funding from the ARC for his research exploring the evolution of behaviour. He also explores video games and how they drive individual behaviour in different contexts. </span></em></p>Victorian police are attributing a rise in car thefts to the “Grand Theft Auto Generation”. But blaming video games just distracts from bigger questions of inequality and societal detachment.Michael Kasumovic, Evolutionary Biologist, ARC Future Fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/271262014-06-15T20:35:42Z2014-06-15T20:35:42ZImages of Australian youth: from symbols of hope to disposable lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50435/original/tgryn4xk-1402021794.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Media depictions like Young, Lazy and Driving Us Crazy pander to negative perceptions of young Australians.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Channel Seven</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The idea of a generation gap is an old one, but the discrepancies between young people’s lived experience and other people’s perceptions present a very contemporary challenge. Today The Conversation begins a series, Another Country: Youth in Australia, which considers key aspects of being a young Australian and the consequences of public misrepresentations, ignorance or indifference for the nation’s future.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>If you have been <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/youth-unemployed-need-tough-love-says-tony-abbott/story-fn59noo3-1226887053227#">listening to certain politicians</a> you may be gripped by the rising tide of panic about a younger generation who – apparently – threaten the very fabric of our society. </p>
<p>Young Australians are lazy, narcissistic and dishonest. They do not do what they are told. They are <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/abbott-still-doling-out-stereotypes-about-the-unemployed-after-18-years-20140603-zrvxd.html">slackers</a>, sponges and <a href="http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/cafe-has-work-but-nobody-wants-a-job/1478875/">bludgers</a> who are – apparently – unable and unwilling to <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/workfit-victorians-on-dole-for-more-than-two-decades/story-fni0fit3-1226933709319">get or hold down a job</a>. </p>
<p>They cannot spell. They <a href="http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741754247">cannot read or write</a>. They cannot name the capital of this country. They wear their pants hanging down around their arses, their undies on the outside and are always blasting crappy music through their earphones as they tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/YOLOSWAG">#yoloswag</a>. </p>
<p>This younger generation has been profiled in bestselling works such as <a href="http://www.narcissismepidemic.com/">The Narcissism Epidemic</a> (subtitle Living in the Age of Entitlement) and <a href="http://www.dumbestgeneration.com/home.html">The Dumbest Generation</a>. These books argue that they suffer from a seeming inability to understand complex ideas or make rational judgements. </p>
<p>Today’s youth are <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-17/holman-the-youth-dont-care-but-they-should/4760288">characterised by apathy</a> and political disinterest. They occupy a twilight world defined by Instagram and hashtags. They are only interested in themselves – hence, their signature gesture is <a href="https://theconversation.com/note-to-selfie-youre-more-than-just-a-narcissists-plaything-20514">the selfie</a>.</p>
<p>Worst of all, they are said to be darkening our world with an epidemic of misbehaviour. When they are not <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-06/students-drinking-drug-use-affecting-school-performance/5302478">binge drinking or taking drugs</a>, they are murdering each other – or innocent passers-by – <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/kinghit-assaults-show-moral-sense-skewed-by-intoxicatingly-violent-culture-20140106-30dfv.html">with king hits</a> and coward punches. Society is forced to retaliate with lockouts and curfews – or a popular commercial alternative such as the <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/buzz-beats-graffiti-vandals/story-fni0cx4q-1226651709640">Mosquito alarm</a>, badged by European civil liberties groups as a form of sonic torture for under 25s.</p>
<p>These are the generational stereotypes informing our responses to some of the most pressing social problems of our age, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-rising-youth-unemployment-demands-our-urgent-attention-25990">youth unemployment</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/sharp-rise-in-youth-homelessness-shatters-stereotypes-10773">homelessness</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-shows-muddled-mental-health-priorities-27106">mental illness and suicide</a>. </p>
<p>It is the kind of thinking that allowed the recent federal budget to single out a section of the population for special attention and to dismantle a universal welfare safety net in a manner that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago – not even as punishment for the alleged misdemeanours of my own so-called Generation X.</p>
<h2>Unloved but ‘in love with themselves’</h2>
<p>Only a few days after the budget, much of the media returned to generation bashing as usual. The ABC’s All in the Mind <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/the-narcissism-epidemic/5455512">declared</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Research says young people today are more narcissistic than ever.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This was a rehash of some <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/society-and-culture/we-love-labels-but-should-know-the-limits-before-libelling-gen-y-20110309-1bnxz.html">questionable American research</a> that has been recycled in Australian media for several years now. It has previously appeared, for example, in the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/new-generation-infected-by-narcissism-says-psychologist-20110302-1bewf.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a> as “New generation infected by narcissism, says psychologist” and “Gen Y are selfish lazy narcissists”, and in <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/is-this-the-most-narcissistic-generation-weve-ever-seen-20130419-2i5ne.html">The Age</a> as “Is this the most narcissistic generation we’ve ever seen?” </p>
<p>The budget coincided with the launch of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Wanna_Marry_%22Harry%22">I Want To Marry Harry</a>. This is the most recent offering in a long line of reality TV shows designed to take advantage of young people’s emotional immaturity for the enjoyment of mostly adult audiences, who are encouraged to feel a sense of superiority. </p>
<p>Earlier in the year, Channel 7 made the point more explicitly, launching the first series of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/is-young-lazy--driving-us-crazy-the-worst-show-of-2014-20140219-32yz4.html">Young, Lazy and Driving You Crazy</a> (a spin-off of the successful UK series <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young,_Dumb_and_Living_Off_Mum">Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum</a>). Alleged underachievers are inserted into a range of stitched-up scenarios in which they compete with each other to say ridiculous and offensive things. Why? Because basically they are appearing in a reality TV show and this behaviour is expected of them.</p>
<p>But the most astonishing offering of the budget weeks was Chris Lilley’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/jonah-from-tonga/">Jonah from Tonga</a>. Here is a program that features an almost 40-year-old man masquerading as a 14-year-old Tongan boy, replete with brown make-up, curly wig, fake tatatau and a repertoire of obscene and thuggish gestures. The Tongan and Polynesian communities have mounted a social media campaign <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Mynameisnotjonah">My Name is Not Jonah</a> to make the point that these culturally and generationally cross-dressed charades are both racist and creepy.</p>
<p>As one critic <a href="http://overland.org.au/2014/05/blackface-in-a-white-nation/">put it</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The fact that Lilley can win praise for racial cross-dressing might be the best satire of Australian racism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He did not mean this as a compliment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50431/original/zz9nczs7-1402020823.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50431/original/zz9nczs7-1402020823.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50431/original/zz9nczs7-1402020823.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50431/original/zz9nczs7-1402020823.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50431/original/zz9nczs7-1402020823.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50431/original/zz9nczs7-1402020823.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50431/original/zz9nczs7-1402020823.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s telling that Jonah from Tonga’s demeaning depictions of youth are somehow less obviously offensive than racial stereotyping.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is noticeable that much of the humour in Jonah – and Lilley’s previous blackface, brownface and yellowface creations, as well as the ludicrously narcissistic <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/jamie-private-school-girl/">Ja’mie</a> – lies in the way that the young characters’ dialogue so often mimics that of the adult characters around them. </p>
<p>I’m going to work hard, says Jonah, be smart, go to university – as he welds children into footlockers and forces young boys to eat dog shit. The intended audience is meant to fall around laughing – apparently thinking never in a million years, because Jonah is “mentally defective”, as the adult characters around him say, and a “fuckwit”.</p>
<p>Once again, the humour depends on allowing a mostly adult audience to feel a sense of superiority. The racial stereotypes manufactured in Jonah are apparently less visible to adult audiences because they are wrapped in a pre-existing set of generational prejudices. These programs tell us nothing about the younger generation and everything about the adults who make them.</p>
<h2>Attitudes shape actions</h2>
<p>The two-dimensional portrayal of young people in the media is of increasing concern because the way in which young people are represented appears to be contributing to how they are treated. </p>
<p>Somehow the idea that young people might have problems has, as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Giroux">Henry Giroux</a> has so often pointed out, mutated into a prevailing belief that <a href="http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/doing_cultural.htm">young people are the problem</a>. Society disinvests, education is defunded, institutions abandon civic responsibilities, class divides harden, charities struggle to meet the flood of needy demand – and governments move their considerable resources into police, prisons and punishment.</p>
<p>Young people were once characterised by the idea of innocence and hope for the future. They were — so, for example, the Anzac myth went — the best and the brightest, embodying the “destiny of the nation”. </p>
<p>This quaint-sounding idealisation of youth was in many ways a product of a previous century’s belief in progress. The myth was often at odds with grim realities, which, for example, included child labour and poverty. Nevertheless, the idealisation of youth arguably helped to engender a progressive tendency that contributed to the eradication of social problems.</p>
<p>In our own century this idea of progress has imploded, to be replaced by the image of a future in ruins. In this vision, the future is filled not with promise, but with uncertainty. </p>
<p>Accordingly, young people have ceased to be represented as a repository for our brightest hopes, but as the embodiment of our darkest fears. Culturally, they are condemned to eke out a marginal existence. They are uneconomic propositions in an economically minded society that fails to measure compassion, hope or social justice. </p>
<p>No longer understood as a resource for the future, young people are deemed to be unworthy of social rights – not even, as the budget demonstrated, <a href="http://www.dss.gov.au/about-the-department/publications-articles/corporate-publications/budget-and-additional-estimates-statements/2014-15-budget/budget-fact-sheet-working-age-payments">Newstart allowances</a>. They are represented as parasites on the adult world. They are deemed to be, as Zygmunt Baumen <a href="http://www.syracusehumanities.org/news/2014/03/disposable-life-zygmut-bauman/">has argued</a>, a disposable generation.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>See the rest of the Another Country: Youth in Australia series <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/youth-in-australia">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camilla Nelson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The idea of a generation gap is an old one, but the discrepancies between young people’s lived experience and other people’s perceptions present a very contemporary challenge. Today The Conversation begins…Camilla Nelson, Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/171862013-08-18T20:21:35Z2013-08-18T20:21:35ZThat’s what makes them beautiful: why One Direction fans are smarter than you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29445/original/2xzzcfx9-1376795164.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">British band One Direction has a huge following worldwide. But media criticism of their fans doesn't respect the knowledge and power they possess.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Tracey Nearmy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the weekend, rumours <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/08/16/one-direction-fans-documentary-larry-shippers-suicide-rumours_n_3766001.html?utm_hp_ref=tw">have spread</a> that Crazy About One Direction, a documentary on the eponymous boy band broadcast by the UK’s Channel 4, has led to suicides among distraught fans. One thing is certain. The group’s admirers are incensed about their portrayal in the show.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-viewing-crazy-about-one-direction-channel-4paul-ogradys-working-britain-bbc1-8764347.html">reviews</a>, the program isn’t kind to the people who made the band a global phenomenon. It depicts “Directioners”, the band’s devoted fans, as hysterical fantasists whose obsessions are simply weird, and even pathological. Apparently, this is more than the new Beatlemania that grabbed your mum. The eternal propensity for teenagers to swoon is sharper, because heartthrobs can touch you through Twitter.</p>
<p>The suicide rumours build on other recent tragedies where young people appear to have taken their lives in response to social media experiences. This troubling development revives some of the anxieties that landed in Australia, along with Harry Styles and his fellow band members, in 2012. Famously, fans who had waited all night to welcome the band were suckered as the singers <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/fans-upset-as-one-direction-whisked-away-at-airport-20120410-1wlsj.html">sneaked out</a> the back entrance of Sydney airport. The fact that thousands of teenagers had taken the risk of staying out all night for no reason only confirmed, to adult eyes, how cynically boy bands manipulate their gullible audiences.</p>
<p>What these accounts ignored is that Australian Directioners had a great time hanging with their mates, and playing up to the stereotypes of incredulous journalists. Audiences use boy bands to create their own entertainment. The English group are just raw materials that teenagers fashion into cultures of emotion, identity and friendship. This is probably why Directioners are upset over the documentary: the world is poking fun at their work. Certainly, studies of teenagers who love heartthrobs often find sophisticated understandings of media industries, and the place that girls in particular have in them.</p>
<p>Parents might fret. But when addressing these fears, painting girls and boys as dopes is the worst thing you can do. Looking at the evidence on what teen heartthrobs mean to the people who love them, we find that many are wiser than we imagine.</p>
<p>This isn’t the first time that global teen media has spat in the face of the kids who make it tick. But young women comprehend this culture very well. And they can change it.</p>
<p>If you want to know what girls think about teen idols, all you have to do is ask. When you do, you find a knowing cynicism. “Fanatics” say things like this <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=D206A4EAC901C9BF9F54E7D1E780C150.journals?fromPage=online&aid=81719">about boy bands</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…they’re just like five people they think you fancy…you have the sweet blond one who’s the main lead singer, you have the ugly tall one…it’s not hard to do.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You also discover people who know only too well that the adult world - including the objects of their affection - regard them with either patronising or scornful eyes. And this makes them angry.</p>
<p>Take the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/">Titanic</a> as an example. It <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Titanic.html?id=q1Q8PlAnosQC">owed its success</a> to the millions of girls and boys who fell in love with Leonardo DiCaprio. These were the devotees who saw the movie over and over again, buying all the peripheral merchandising that pocket money and Saturday jobs could afford. But where their love for Leo may have been unrequited, it was not unconditional. Girls noticed when the rising Hollywood star bristled at a heartthrob status that didn’t sit well with his acting ambitions. And frankly, they thought that he should have been more grateful.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29446/original/rrwc2cyp-1376796353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29446/original/rrwc2cyp-1376796353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29446/original/rrwc2cyp-1376796353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29446/original/rrwc2cyp-1376796353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29446/original/rrwc2cyp-1376796353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29446/original/rrwc2cyp-1376796353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29446/original/rrwc2cyp-1376796353.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leonardo DiCaprio stole the hearts of a generation of young women with his lead role in Titanic - although he wasn’t so keen on the fuss.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/20th Century Fox</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twitter channels this anger into a redoubtable force, at times to the platform’s chagrin. When Twitter changed its trending algorithm to knock Justin Bieber from his eternal summit, his fans <a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/05/17/justin-bieber-fans-go-to-war-with-twitter/">responded</a> with skilled hashtag manipulation that kept the Canadian crooner right there. Fair enough, Bieber egged them on. But this doesn’t change the fact that millions of girls forced a global media brand to recognise that they existed.</p>
<p>Outraged One Direction fans have employed exactly the same strategy. The hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23THISISNOTUS&src=hash">#THISISNOTUS</a> is an online call for girls and boys who want to demand more respect for who they are: people with thoughts, feelings, intelligence and taste. One Direction seem to know this, and they’re worried. They’ve quickly <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/crazy-one-direction-liam-payne-2173791">taken to the same medium</a> to distance themselves from the offence Crazy About has caused.</p>
<p>Far from being a story about poor deluded adolescents, the One Direction incident confirms that girls are major players in global media industries. This gives them power which they are willing and able to deploy. Efforts to “protect” them from the risks of media must start by acknowledging that their passions are considered. They’re really quite rational, even if they look hysterical to others.</p>
<p>The main predicament for most One Direction fans is that they live in a world that either pretends they don’t exist, or else doesn’t take them seriously. So the next time you laugh at a teenager screaming at a boy band, remember this: she knows what you’re thinking, and you are the problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17186/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over the weekend, rumours have spread that Crazy About One Direction, a documentary on the eponymous boy band broadcast by the UK’s Channel 4, has led to suicides among distraught fans. One thing is certain…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170932013-08-15T20:44:55Z2013-08-15T20:44:55ZBorn this way? Becoming Bradley Manning in a digital world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29321/original/yy357qbt-1376545132.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In truth, whistleblower Bradley Manning's experiences with online media are not so far removed from other 'digital natives'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jim Lo Scalzo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As US Army private Bradley Manning <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23700938">stares down</a> 90 years in jail, his lawyers are fighting the weight of history. Prosecutors want us to see a soldier who shamefully turned his back on a sacred oath. To others, he is a heroic whistleblower who sacrificed his own liberty for the greater good. His lawyers want the court to see neither. </p>
<p>Manning’s team are playing for leniency by building, as lawyers do, another way of seeing things. Their client’s crime, so the argument goes, was caused by a disastrous command decision. A private soldier with a litany of personal problems should never have been given the chance to wreak such chaos.</p>
<p>Seeking the smallest possible tariff, his lawyers portray Manning as an imbroglio of <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1128731/bradley-manning-i-hurt-the-united-states">personality disorders</a>. Take a young man plagued by gender uncertainty, narcissism and political immaturity. Add social isolation and war. Stir.</p>
<p>Sadly, we know that this unappealing psychological sketch is really quite normal. It fits with the growing recognition that young men are especially prone to anxieties that are desperately difficult to talk about. </p>
<p>We are aware of this now, because Manning’s dreams and dilemmas coalesced into his media habits. In this, he is a victim of a culture that colonises and exploits the desires and talents of its young users. He really is as ordinary as his brief would have us believe, as an icon of the commonplace hazards in everyday media life.</p>
<p>Bradley Mannning is a harsh reminder that young media users are enmeshed in deeply political <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Geertz">“webs of significance”</a>, even when they’re on their lonesome. By some accounts, his crimes were less “Spooks” and more teenage pre-party. The friendless soldier <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11874276">reportedly</a> “listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history”. </p>
<p>The tale is insightful. It tells how a landmark crime was committed by a forsaken youth who just wanted to have fun, in a moment of musical ecstasy where he might have imagined he was home, safe in his bedroom. We know all about Bradley Manning because his private pleasures got caught up in the interests of nation states and media businesses. For the young, it has ever been so.</p>
<p>Manning’s case presents a potted history of media research that can be summarised in four sentences. Young audiences have always been remarkably creative, when it comes to using media to make the best of crappy social circumstances that they can’t change. More often than not, the motive is about becoming the person you want to be. But these desires have origins and consequences that aren’t about individual choice. And many of the young people who make media thrive still end up as isolated as they were in the first place. </p>
<p>Manning also represents an ongoing tension between those who see young people as “digital natives”, versus others who caution that, for the majority, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Critics warn that we place too much faith in <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/08/13/teens_on_facebook_ruby_karp_mashable_and_the_anecdotal_evidence_problem.html">teenage media literacy</a>. And it’s increasingly common to find stories about young people who have been turned into examples because they don’t understand the public nature of social media.</p>
<p>In April this year, 17-year-old Paris Brown was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/apr/09/paris-brown-stands-down-twitter">forced to resign</a> as one of Britain’s first Teen Police Commissioners because of allegedly racist, homophobic and pro-drug tweets she had posted some years earlier. Interestingly enough, Brown quickly accepted that her ill-considered messages meant she had to stand down.</p>
<p>This is significant as a recognition that identity and media go hand-in-hand. Anthropologist Erving Goffman famously <a href="http://clockwatching.net/%7Ejimmy/eng101/articles/goffman_intro.pdf">defined life</a> as a series of acts, where we tailor our performance according to the impression we wish to make on spectators. Social media and the like have amplified the “performative” aspects of daily living by increasing our audience, and the number of “masks” we must wear to win their favour. Many of us seek virtual validation: as if to have no digital life is to have no life at all.</p>
<p>This adds another dimension to the Manning case. His defence has argued that psychological problems made him incapable of seeing the difference between being a political activist, a spy, and a person who just wanted to be accepted. If this is true, it surely matters that the blurring of identities is a characteristic of on line communication for everyone.</p>
<p>It’s perfectly clear that the need for social interaction was a significant motivation for Manning’s actions. This counts more than the lapses in technical judgments that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jul/16/bradley-manning-wikileaks-security">led to his downfall</a>. The scale of his misdemeanour is unprecedented. But its mechanics, the disclosure of information in the pursuit of kudos companionship, and all of the vulnerability that ensues, is the very stuff of digital culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Ruddock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As US Army private Bradley Manning stares down 90 years in jail, his lawyers are fighting the weight of history. Prosecutors want us to see a soldier who shamefully turned his back on a sacred oath. To…Andy Ruddock, Senior Lecturer, Research Unit in Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.