MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

This presentation examines the use and representation of the millennial generation as children during the 2012 Presidential Election. The millennial generation includes the nation’s newest voters, born between 1981 and 2001. Television media repeatedly referred to this group as “child-like” in their involvement and engagement in the political process and campaigning. Through a discourse analysis of 179 hours of television coverage from the thirty days before and after the 2012 election, four discourses are identified. The analysis included a coding of The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, Hannity, Hardball, The O’Reilly Factor, and The Rachel Maddow Show. Research by PEW identifies these six shows as being the most popular sources millennials turned to during the election for political information. The four discourses were identified using Gee’s (2011) analysis techniques for open coding media texts. They include: describing millennial voting patterns as immature, referring to the millennial generation’s work ethic as child-like, confounding the millennial generation with the younger generation, and using humor to critique the millennial generation’s “young” attitudes. Research has shown that media discourses are important because they often reflect and reproduce a larger societal view of that group. Further, a lack of trust between millennials and the media appears when members of generation critically reflect on their own representation in the media, Selected References Gee, J. P. (2011). An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method (3rd ed.). New York: NY, Routledge. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. (2012). Cable leads the pack as campaign news source: Twitter, Facebook play very modest roles [data file]. Retrieved from http://www.people-press.org/2012/02/....