Media and Collective Identity

“Identity is complicated- everybody thinks they’ve got one”- David GauntlettDavid Gauntlett

“A focus on Identity requires us to pay closer attentionto the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups”

-David Buckingham-David Buckingham

Task with neighbour

•make a list of all the ‘stars’ created by internet videos such as ‘Star Wars Kid’

Internet Stars

•images

What do you need for the exam?

•social group as a case study- examples

•at least two different media

•understanding of and reference to theory/cultural critics

•your own voice!

Michael Wesch

•ethnography of Youtube

•analysis of the community

•analysis of cultural phenomenon

Henry Jenkins

•interpretive communities

•fans as ‘cultural producers’

•cultural identity- something in which we actively participate

•cultural convergence

What is ‘Collective Identity’?

•Representation: the way reality is ‘mediated’ or ‘re-presented’ to us

•Collective Identity: the individual’s sense of belonging to a group (part of personal identity)

•A level

A level Media Specification

How do contemporary media represent different collective groups in different ways?

•focus today: young people

•diverse representations including fiction, non-fiction and self-representation

•for the exam, your own examples from the group you are studying will gain you marks

How does contemporary representation compare with that of the past?

•today: young people on TV/online and in film- mainly contemporary

•examples needed for similarity and difference

•examples from the past from your study at school/college

what are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?

•stereotyping: what is its impact?

•what power does the audience have to ‘resist’?

•how do we ‘measure’ the representations we encounter?

to what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’ ?

•increasing media = increasing mediation?

•re-presentation by others/by selves

David Gauntlett

•other ways of reading ‘Identity’

•Gauntlett’s lego project

Identity Online

Identity OnlineIdentity online- end of privacy

Community online- collective thought

Memes

definition online:

“a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet”

Gingers

•Group: people with red hair

•Representation: ‘gingers’

•How might we interpret this representation?

Dr Who

Representations of Young people-

News

Representations of Young people-

NewsNews coverage and moral panics: dual concerns:

•youth as ‘deviant threat’

•childhood ‘innocence destroyed’ by media

Moral panics: representations of young people in the past

•Fiction: Quadrophenia

•non-fiction: a haunt of fears

Martin Barker

•work on history of moral panics

•challenges news coverage’s simplistic view

A Haunt of Fears

• 18th Century theatre

• 19th century ‘penny dreadfuls’

• Music Halls 1890s

• Silent movie crime films

• Horror Comics 1950s

• Rock and Roll

• Video Nasties 1980s

Sound familiar?

• They wore peaked caps, neck scarves, bell-bottom trousers, and a hairstyle cropped close to the scalp, with a "donkey fringe" over the forehead.

• There were pitched battles between rival gangs, armed with iron bars, knives, powerful catapults, and even guns. They patrolled their neighbourhoods shouting obscenities and pushing people down.

The first ‘hooligans’ riots in Aug 1898

Report: ‘The Needs of Youth’

• "Relaxation of parental control, decline of religious influence, and the movement of masses of young people to housing estates where there is little scope for recreation and plenty for trouble ... The problem is a serious challenge, the difficulty of which is intensified by the extension of freedom which, for better or worse, has been given to youth in the last generation."

1939

Contemporary moral panics

•can you think of more recent examples?

Contemporary moral panics

•the hoodie and youth as threat

•hip hop/gangsta rap

•Islamic ‘terrorists’

•videogame violence

•sexualisation of children

Report last week

http://mackle.wordpress.com-Alison Mcleod

Angela McRobbie

•researches young women and subculture

•feminist approach questioning ideas about representation and Identity

Representations of young people- TV

•Skins

•The Wire

Skins

•what issues in the representations of youth does ‘Skins’ raise? How do different audiences respond to it?

Skins

•who watches with parents?

•how do they respond?

The Wire

•series 4: education- what do audiences take from this?

•research by Julian McDougall

Different audience responses

• Teacher trainees saw it as raising the problems they recognised in their classrooms

• Black youth workers saw it as ‘reflecting street reality’

• Drama lecturers saw it as classic complex narrative fiction

• Do we simply make the meaning we want to make from texts?

(Interpretive communities)

Facebook

•perfect case study of collective identity

•How do we construct our own identity on facebook?

•what are the consequences of this?

Facebook logo

•profile pic- what’s yours?

•groups- what do you join?

•campaigns- what do you believe?

•friends- how many?

facebook logo

campaigns:

•Cheryl Cole v sausage roll

•Save Radio Six

Summary: what ‘Collective Identity’can

mean

•not just representations by mainstream media

•self-construction by users of the media

•communities formed from shared identity: age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, cultural values, political ideas etc

Tackling exam questions

1

•What does the question mean?

•What can you use for the answer?

•How can you ‘meet the rubric’ of two media and past, present and future?

2

•SELECT your examples

•ORDER your argument

•PLAN

Advice on answers

• know your case study

• keep hunting out your own examples

• adapt them to the question

• look at both sides of any argument

• refer to critics/theorists

Analyse the ways in which the media represent one group of people you have

studied

• case study of young people

• two or more media for examples: TV drama and news

• news and moral panics (past and present)- Barker/McRobbie

• TV sympathetic portrayal but still ‘constructed’ (present)

• Facebook, Youtube and self representation- Wesch (future?)

• to what purpose are all these images constructed and for what audiences?

“the media do not construct collective identity, they merely reflect it” Discuss.

• what does collective identity mean?

• what’s the difference between construction and reflection: mediation

• two or more media: Film (past), TV and online

• case study examples: construction of ‘gingers’ from South Park and other TV through memes (present)- draw upon Wesch

• audience understandings constructing meaning: ‘interpretive communities’

• use Jenkins’ ideas on active audiences throughout (future?) and Gauntlett on identity

Markscheme

• 20 marks for Explanation, analysis, argument

• 20 marks for use of examples

• 10 marks for terminology (including ‘theory’)

Pete’s media blog

today’s examples will soon be on there and ongoing tips for the exam!

www.petesmediablog.blogspot.com