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The main points of: The Hunger Games Trilogy and Young Adult Dystopian Literature Guiding Adolescents in Addressing the Issues of Media, Power and Violence

The books in the series have been read by everyone from young people to literary critics.

Adolescents have the most to gain from reading the series.

Issues in the series include: manipulation of media, political manipulation and the consequences of violence.

These are the types of things adolescents are experiencing in their own lives.

One of the most appealing things to young readers is the young protagonist, Katniss Everdeen.

Most social media 'influencers' edit their materials before they put them up.

Science fiction is plausible because it deals with actions and events that have not yet happened but could happen in the future.

Adolescents are empowered when they read/see a protagonist who succeeds in dealing with issues that the adolescent is trying to deal with.

Media is a major part of the daily lives of adolescents.

Some of the things they might see on the media is propaganda, 'cancel culture,' and various popular trends.

The Capitol uses the games to control the population of Panem.

The district citizens are forced to believe that the Capitol is all-powerful.

Propaganda can be defined as the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.

Everyone is required to witness the games on their television.

For the Capitol citizens the games are merely entertainment.

The tributes are changed physically and have to prepare to face the population and give them something to be interested in and supportive of.

President Snow tries to force Katniss and Peeta into the supposed love affair to help prevent a rebellion.

Peeta is brainwashed while a captive to turn him against Katniss.

The Capitol citizens are passive viewers and don't really internalize the fact that the tributes are real children trying to kill each other.

The district viewers, on the other hand, understand full well the reality of what the young people are going through.

The districts are unable to communicate with each other and are fed misinformation about the other districts, furthering the governments ability to control them.

Katniss and Peeta learn how to use the Capitol's own media to their advantage.

Adolescents in the real world need to be able to see the differences between entertainment and reality.

When talking to Rue, Katniss learns about district 11, information she would never have been able to obtain otherwise.

Katniss learns not to accept everything she is told at face value.

Power struggles are another major part of the lives of adolescents.

A government can manipulate historical memory as is being done in America by banning certain books from schools. (Entire topics are being banned from being taught now. Not teaching about evolution was an early approach to the same type of control by government/religious groups. A good example is where I teach they was a book on zoology that was printed for use in our city and not elsewhere which means certain topics were excised from the book.)

Panem presents a false history to the districts.

The Capitol views any type of defiance as a possible sign of a revolution.

Power struggles in real lives include racial injustice, gun violence and abuse. (Think about the school shootings, the shootings of young blacks and the number of shootings in general. These are definitely not things that were going on in any considerable number when I was growing up. The development of the Internet and 24-hour news has put all the bad things happening in front of people's faces all the time.)

Examples of violence adolescents have to deal with (somehow) include verbal abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, gun violence and bullying. (Another major source of violence are video games.)

The Capitol uses physical and psychological violence against the districts.

Katniss' shooting an arrow into the force field in the arena is basically saying 'enough is enough.'

In order for peace to ever be achieved the violence must end. (In America gun violence in 2020, 45,222 people died from gun violence. Over and over we hear from politicians that something needs to be done about gun violence but, ultimately, Congress does nothing.)

Adolescents are becoming desensitized to violence due to how much they see/experience in their daily lives.