Description

Youth Crime, Moral Panics, and the News: The Conspiracy Against the Marginalized in Canada

This article examines the role of the media in scapegoating youth and of manipulating or decontextualizing the perception of youth by the public. This “blaming” is found in historic constrictions and can be intervened with postmodern conceptions of power and its relation to knowledge. Schissel credits Foucault with looking beyond the event’s meaning to the more relevant question of what makes it possible. He argues that the failure to look at the social structures that construct these identities and the failure to ask the question, “Who controls and who benefits,” will prevent us from meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

media, youth crime, Foucault

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 24, No. 2 (1997): 165-184