Institutionalizing the Informal: The Media “Criminalization” of Troubled Youth

• In Event: Cultural Change as a Catalyst: Tradition, Crises and Criminal Justice

Abstract

Research demonstrates that the popular media (electronic and print) and the social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc) have succeeded in cultivating certain beliefs and values in engineering "moral panics" in order to amplify not only the need for tough “law and order” campaigns but also in scapegoating disadvantaged populations . A comprehensive analysis of the impact of the media on criminal justice is long overdue. Values of the dominant culture pervade history, consciousness and change. One witnesses in the social media an essentialist identity that misrepresents the lived experiences of racialized youth. The media, as risk communication systems, regulate crime control narratives that define deference and difference. How narratives are lived requires a deeper appreciation for the inseparable relationship between discourse and subjectivity re the experiences of the designated “others”.

Author

• Negar Pourebrahim Alamdar, York University