Rich, Wrinkly and Rowdy politicians: Is this how teenagers ‘read’ television news?

Abstract

Australian legislators have expressed concern about the indifference shown by young Australians toward government (SSCEET 1988, 1991). Those educators who have taken up their call for programmes in ‘active citizenship’ must look closely at what adolescents take from TV news. TV has sometimes been blamed for popular disenchantment with politics. Such arguments have been rejected because TV news shows no anti‐institutional bias, but instead underlines the importance of government However, like any text, the meaning of TV news is polysemic and not fixed by its producers. The interviews on which this article is based show that fifteen and sixteen year olds will decode TV news in ways quite unintended by its authors. They can see suits in which male politicians are shown as signifying their affluence and distance from their own lives, or read into the ages of politicians that politics concerns old people and not them.