How could passive audience effects models be applied to the representation of youth in the media?

The cultural effects model argues that media coverage in particular issues results in most people believing the media’s views being correct. For example, media coverage of unemployment and single parent families, give the impression that they are ‘scrounging’ and claim benefits.  This also affects the elderly with people having the beliefs that they do not claim the benefits that they are rightfully entitled to. The media use something described as the hypodermic syringe theory, which means that the media ‘inject’ ideas, attitudes and beliefs into the audience.

The media is often full of stories over exaggerating about the youth culture. For example, the media will describe anybody who wears a tracksuits and their hood up are automatically a ‘thug’ and a danger to society and scare the older generation into avoiding them completely. The media gradually gains ideological values, which are transmitted over a long period of time. It has only been in the last few years that people are now associating teenagers who wear ‘hoodies’ are automatically trouble; this has slowly become more and more exaggerated by the media, therefore causing the passive audience to be afraid of this image. The more media being consumed by the audience, the more they begin to believe things, this is called the cultivation theory.