Welcome back to the class of Welfare and Rights of Youth. Today, the topic we're going to talk about is the social image, subculture, and problem needs of youth. Remember what's the key idea that we defined in our previous lecture? We defined three main concepts of the welfare and rights of youth, and we also learned that even though adolescence is very short Do you remember how many years? It is from 12 to under 18 years old. That's right. However, different positioning and expectations are formed because of different sociocultural and spatiotemporal backgrounds. We also learned that while it is important to promote the welfare of youth, we must not ignore the more important issue of defending rights. We've learned the key ideas and spirits of children's rights from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. And we further understood that in the Chinese society, even though we agree with the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, we might also ignore the fact that some practices we find good for the youth actually violated the spirit of the Convention, and they also sacrificed the rights of youth. Today, in our lecture, we're going to start from inspecting the social image of youth, and at the same time, understand the definition and meaning of youth subculture. Also, in this framework, we're going to understand the essence of youth misbehaviors and problems, and restructure our perspective and strategy in order to respond effectively to the needs of youth. So now I'm going to share with you, do you remember that we asked you, what association do you have with youth, and what do these associations reflect? In fact, these associations represent the overall perspectives and prejudices against the youth from the general public. But what if these prejudices are being constructed? Let me first show you some news titles related to youth. Think about what kind of perspective and images about youth that we have because of these titles? Are there many of us who chose all of the above? What exactly are the words that make us feel this way about youth? If I slightly modify some of the words in the titles, think about how you feel when we look at these news titles again. From the words I've changed, do they have special meanings? Because in these reports, we see the use of some sensational, brutal, overly-speculated and exaggerated negative words to describe the behaviors of youth. Let's look at the first news. In the title, there is a word called 'argue'. What does that mean? Does it mean quibble? Or to excuse himself? But this case hasn't been sentenced, it hasn't even entered legal proceedings, why do we call him excusing himself? The teenager only said that he picked up a knife on his way to buy meal, but the media used the word 'argue' to describe what he said. How about the second news? In the title, when there's only one teenager who carried out the crime, the title said 'bad teenagers'. Does that sound like a group of bad teenagers? And what‘s in the third news? Reporters used the phrase 'to our surprise'. Think about it, such a young boy, to our surprise, was the head criminal of prostitution. He, to our surprise, did something like that. We must wonder: what is he going to become when he grows up? Therefore, this phrasing makes the youth delinquency seem even more unforgivable. And the fourth news? Ah, the youth was really abominable! Look at how abominable he was, and how evil his reasons were. Killing was only for fun? Do these youths have conscience? I believe many people look at these titles and they condemn them at the same time, because many adults around me do exactly the same thing. Therefore, we realize that when we use certain words, even just one or two simple words, we create many negative social images of the youth. And you may find that I mentioned five titles. Why did I leave one of them unmodified? Yes, there is one title that hasn't been modified, and which one is that? The values has changed? The youths bragged about being a sex slave, about making money by being somebody's dog. Why didn't I modify this title? To be honest, this entire sentence is extremely derogatory to the youth. It describes them as salves, dogs, and they did what they did solely because of their distorted values of mammonism and for making money. This sentence makes it seem like the adults aren't mammonish at all. We, adults don't think money is important. And we, adults all have the right values. Since we are not mammonish, youth who is mammonish seems like a dog or a slave. Is that so? I didn't know how to revise the title, so I didn't. What the title highlights are the mainstream discrimination and prejudice toward youth In such a news event, you might think that it's just a special case. Sensationalism is often seen in news titles, but think about it News appears in our daily life 24/7 I listed a paper presented in 2002 from professor Su of NCCU's Department of Journalism, which discussed how youth crime events are remade and reproduced by newspaper and news media. This is a research paper. According to professor Su's analysis From Jan 1st, 2000 to May 31st, 2000 against 7 newspapers, 252 news events and 99 news reports broadcast at 7 pm from three different TV news channels This is a common scenario in Taiwan. I believe the same is happening in other Chinese society. In professor Su's research, we can see that newspaper and news report Over-focus on youth murder, kidnapping and other violent criminal events, while TV news, compared to newspaper or printed media, will more likely to make a deduce, They found that newspaper and news reports often overreport murder, kidnapping and other violent criminal events in comparison, TV news tends to make images more exaggerated. To the audience, these images make a deeper impression. Also, in the youth criminal news, we criticize them, accuse their behaviors, and we feel like they will affect the whole society. So most of the youth criminal news is reported through authoritative people. Many of the new titles mentioned before actually came from the police, and from this perspective, we may label them as the edge of society... etc, and even twist the public perception to youth. These events, words, and pictures are constantly appearing in our daily lives and being depicted in social media which then deepen the mainstream perspective toward youths However, in fact, for the youths around us, or a variety of statistic data, the vast majority of youths is law-abiding, and has no misbehavior. Therefore, I want to discuss with you how the public image of youth shows us certain perspectives we hold to the youth and the services we want to provide for them. A reminder is that negative image of youth exists not only in the Chinese world. In this week's reading materials, there is an English article: What's wrong with adolescents? This article also discusses how the mainstream of Western society perceive and treat the youth, as well as the existence of myths and misunderstandings to the youth. What are these misunderstandings? The author divides these into three categories. First, many think that the youth is in storm and stress period. Right? In our previous lecture, we mentioned the concept of storm and stress period. We believe that youths are moody and impulsive, and we also believe that they are easily influenced by peers. Consequently, it generates the so-called peer pressure, which makes it easier for youths to misbehave. In the real life, we believe that youths are living around plenty of crisis and risks, just like they're walking on a cable, where mistakes may happen at any time. However, the author also mentioned that for these three myths, most of them are actually misunderstandings. Because according to studies, this storm and stress period is just a stage of the development process. 80 percent of adults have gone through it, which means that it's not gonna last. youths will grow up eventually, and the influence by peers is it's actually also very important in this period of time, it and can be very positive and supportive. Think about it, when you were young and in a bad mood, who would you want to talk to? Who would you want to talk to? How important friends are! Would you talk to older people if you don't have friends? Not at all! Cause they won't even understand. Isn't it? Also, a crisis is a chance, If we can provide a safe environment, let them explore themselves and discover their own interests in this stage, Every youth can become a good grown-up, a great citizen. So in such a process, We shouldn't ask: What's wrong with adolescents? Instead, we should ask: What's right with adolescents? This is the point of view that the author of this article wants us to think about. I also hope that after reading this article, we can start from this point, and think about whether we can see What's right with adolescents? Of course, a little reminder, we expect everyone, can not only see the negative behavior and image of adolescent, But also use a positive attitude to look at this cluster. I also want to remind you, sometimes in the newspapers and magazines, we can see adolescent being eulogized for being dutiful or sacrificial for their family. But don't forget that under these positive images, it also means that they sacrifice a lot. they lost their rights to subsistence and development. Remember last time, we talk about how important the rights to subsistence and development are in the right of youth. If they lose their leisure, lose their entertainment, and participate in cultural and artistic activities, This is a deprivation of their rights. We should never deprive their rights and meanwhile praised their virtue, use the praise to cover up the fact that we ignore the importance of right protection. So what I'm trying to say is we have to keep learning and try our best not to be influenced by the mainstream perception, and affect our views and judgments on youth, and I also hope that this course can help you learn new vision and perspectives.
