Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics Of ""Youth In Crisis""In this book, Charles Acland examines the culture that has produced both our heightened state of awareness and the bedrock reality of youth violence in the United States. Beginning with a critique of statistical evidence of youth violence, Acland compares and juxtaposes a variety of popular cultural representations of what has come to be a perceived crisis of American youth.After examining the dominant paradigms for scholarly research into youth deviance, Acland explores the ideas circulating in the popular media about a sensational crime known as the “preppy murder” and the confession to that crime. Arguing that the meaning of crime is never inherent in the event itself, he evaluates other sites of representation, including newspaper photographs (with a comparison to the Central Park “wilding''), daytime television talk shows ( Oprah, Geraldo, and Donahue ), and Hollywood youth films (in particular River's Edge ).Through a cultural studies analysis of historical context, Acland blurs the center of our preconceptions and exposes the complex social forces at work upon this issue in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Acland asks of the empiricist social critic, “How do we know that we are measuring what we say we are measuring, and how do we know what the numbers are saying? Arguments must be made to interpret findings, which suggests that conclusions are provisional and to various degrees are sites of contestation.” He launches into this gratifying book to show that beyond the problematic category of “actual” crime, the United States has seen the construction of a new “spectacle of wasted youth” that will have specific consequences for the daily lives of the next generation. |
Contents
On Images of Crime | 45 |
The Discourses | 61 |
Confessions as | 75 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics Of ""Youth In Crisis"" Charles R Acland Limited preview - 2018 |
Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics Of ""Youth In Crisis"" Charles R Acland Limited preview - 2018 |
Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics Of ""Youth In Crisis"" Charles R Acland No preview available - 1994 |
Common terms and phrases
activity adolescent adult gaze audience become behavior Central Park Chambers's concern confession connotative consensus consequence constitution construction contemporary youth context crime criminal daytime talk show debate delinquency depiction described deviance discourses Dorrian's drug effect emotional evidence fear forms Foucault gender Geraldo Geraldo Rivera guests Hebdige hegemony historical host of accidents ideological individual instance involved Jennifer Levin juvenile killed labeling theory Levin and Chambers Levin's death Levin's sexual male moral panic Morton Downey movie narrative Oprah parents particular police political popular culture position preppy murder provides qualities rape refers relations representation response River's Edge Robert Chambers role Samson scene sensational sense significant sion social order society speak specific spectacle story structure subculture subculture theory suggests talk show teenagers teens tion topic transgressive trash TV truth victim wasted youth wilding women young youth films youth gone wild youth in crisis
References to this book
Breaking in to the Movies: Film and the Culture of Politics Henry A. Giroux No preview available - 2001 |