This Master thesis approaches the social representation of the youth groups in the favelas (slums) from the Case Study of the Project Favelagrafia, which is formed by nine photographers who live in nine different favelas in Rio de Janeiro. It intends to understand how the media images carry meanings and create realities about these young people. Therefore, the study starts with a bibliographical review that takes back the history of the formation of the favelas as a product of the space social stratification in the city, followed by the social construct of the favela as a place of the other, defined by what it is not or it doesn t have: space of the chaos, the lack and the danger. Such perception of the common sense about the favelas, also extended to its young dwellers, is analysed firstly from an exploratory quantitative survey with the members of urban average layers. Also, the paper reflects on the media representations that reinforce stereotypes, using as a method the image search results on Google, analysed from the ideas around representation, stereotyping, difference and power. Finally, from the in-depth interviews with the participants of the Project Favelagrafia, forty photographs produced by them and their views about city, favela and young people in the favela are analysed. The thesis ends with an invitation to reflect about another social representation of the youth in the favelas from the focus of the Project Favelagrafia, favouring the look of the power and multiples youths that can be found there.