Young people in the Portuguese press discourse: an exploratory study

Abstract

Previous research has shown how media discourse presents youth as a homogeneous and problematic category, but in Portugal media coverage of youth remains unexplored. This article is a summary of an exploratory study about this discourse, containing a detailed analysis of all reports about young people published during the period of a week in the major newspapers and news magazines. Within its limitations, it examines the contents and the style of news reports, having in mind some features of newspaper production, the way these discursive features reveal and constitute a form of controlling youth discursive action and propitiate the reproduction of ageistic knowledge, attitudes and ideologies.