News Media Distortions and Representations of Youth Crime in Canada: An intersectional analysis

• In Event: Children and Crime in the Media

Abstract

This research explores national news media representations of youth crime in Canada between 1991 and 2014. A mixed-methods analysis of national Canadian newspapers portrayed teenagers as being troublesome, violent, and a threat to the Canadian social fabric, which supports existing literature on moral panics. On the surface, these representations of young people as a threat might seem simple and straight forward, however, the depictions simultaneously tell a stereotyped story about race, gender and class. To compliment prior research in the field, an intersectional analysis of newspaper content was performed. Findings indicate that many of the moral panics involving youth crime in Canadian news tell a deep-seated story involving race, gender, and class that lead to simplistic and discriminatory understandings of the causes of crime.

Author

• Jennifer Silcox, Dalhousie University