Abstract

FERNANDEZ, Mariana Cecilia. Differential criminalization of young people in the mass media. Trama comun. [online]. 2020, vol.24, n.120, pp.99-122. ISSN 1668-5628.

This article proposes to analyze the meanings that are disputed and crystallized around youth, responsibility and punishment in the speeches of the mass media. It does so from two criminal cases: an urban micro-crime carried out by a young man belonging to the most vulnerable sectors of society that sparked a homicidal social reaction and an urban micro-crime led by four young people of high social class, which generated amazement in society because its protagonists do not usually star in crime stories or suffer police searches and arrests in police stations. For this purpose, a qualitative methodological approach is used that uses discourse analysis tools to be implemented in a corpus composed of five television news and news items from eight media outlets. The aim is to discuss and problematize the processes of differential criminalization of young people in the mass media field.

Keywords : Youth; Crime; Responsibility; Punishment; Media; Differential criminalization.