ABSTRACT
It is a well-established theory in media studies that co-existing media are in a constant process of remediation (Bolter and Grusin 1999). The trope of the childsavage, through which colonized people are linked to children, and vice versa,1 is a century-old metaphor that has been passed on and transformed in various media. A recent surge of this trope can be noted in a segment of the printed press in the UK: the tabloid. In the construction of images of childhood, this medium may not be the first to leap to mind, but the popular press in general performs “a significant role as social educator,” and thus also contributes to the ways in which society thinks about children (Conboy 2006, 9). The tabloids have a reputation, however, for providing entertainment and seeking sensation, rather than being an accurate and reliable source of information. It is not surprising, then, that the tabloids’ representation of children has been criticized for being biased. As Patricia Holland writes, “‘Bad’ children are news,” implying that good children are not (Holland 2006, 124). With crime serving as a recurrent subject of interest, it is especially child victims, young delinquents and children beyond adult control that are frontpage news in the popular press (MacMillan 2002, 28). It is here that the childsavage trope is reintroduced, albeit in a restricted sense, as a synonym of the violent, raging child which the adult cannot pin down.
