Print news, like Broadcast news, is infamously known for sensationalistic and emotive language that is used as a condescending manner towards youths in today's mainstream media. They tend to capitalise on youths' mishaps and use these stories as a use of fear to other age groups, to make them fear the younger generation. Youths are usually portrayed, mainly in middle-class friendly magazines like The Daily Mail and The Guardian, as troubled and delinquent "hooded youths." Phrases like this demonises youths and generalises the younger generation as all being liabilities and a problem for our modern society, giving young people a deviant status and a societal burden in mainstream media.
An example of Print news' sensationalistic attitudes towards youths is an article taken from The Guardian at the peak of the London Riots in August of 2011. The headline of the article itself uses powerful emotive language, "London riots escalate as police battle for control." Words like "battle" and "control" immediately send to readers connotations of violence, making us assume that the rioters and police have been exchanging in voilent behaviour, whether that be violence for control or violence for justice.
The first sentence of the article reads, "The Prime Minister cut short his holiday and flew back to Britain as London witnessed devastating scenes of violence." This immediately demonstrates how the Guardian is portraying the authority as caring and concerned, while they display youths as dangerous and villainous.
The next sentence cements The Guardian's views of the London Riots as heavily against youths. The sentence reads, "Buildings were torched, shops ransacked, and officers attacked with makeshift missiles and petrol bombs as gang of hooded and masked youths laid waste to streets right across the city."
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