Youth, Media and Violence : Interrogating the Dominant Discourse

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction: a conceptual Dilemma. 2. Language of electronic abuse. 3. Socializing with violence. 4. Violent screen and innocent mind. 5. Intervention and future prevention. Bibliography. Index.

"This volume attempts to interrogate the prevailing assumptions regarding youth and their relationship with media. Though the subject of youth has attracted substantial interest in India, rarely, an attempt has been made to understand youth as a different category, youth subculture(s) and the uses/misuses of mass media by them.

The dominant assumptions have adopted methods borrowed from positivist view of science. But media research, with inspiration from interpretative traditions view media product with varieties of meanings so that analysis are possible and this does not mean that media have direct and predictable effects. It is important to note that when researchers seem to disagree with the dominant assumptions of media research, it is not always on the basis of actual research. The pronounced scepticism about the results of effects research is very much due to the basic perception having both, a theoretical and an empirical basis, that media effects cannot be considered in such a simple and unambiguous manner.

Thus, the present volume explore the levels of understanding, consequences and diffusion by young people in order to critique misleading claims and to inform and debate about their ways of moral thinking and argumentation; which are in many ways an important theme." (jacket)