This research has used a critical discourse analysis approach encompassing
postcolonial theory and theory of media effects in order to investigate the influence of
political discourse in the media upon youth’s violence in Cameroon. As a result it has
been found that the use of private violence by young people in urban cities has
become ordinary. Such an attitude reflects among other some aspects of youth’s
lifestyle designed to cope with the hardship of their social status and to resist the
elite’s dominance. While no counter-narrative has been found in the independent
publications about the portrayal of youth’s violence as criminal by the state-owned
press, the young people nevertheless have produced through a street culture a
narrative deconstructing the political discourse in the media and highlighting their
grievances in a more or less violent tone. Thus the use of private violence during the
riot in February 2008, is far from an isolated (re)action of angry young people , it
obeys the very practicality of their existence and the political turmoil it might cause
is incidental to the way of life in which it is embedded.