Lesson Write Up - 29th Jan 2015

Post Modern Media

Postmodernism - confusion of time and space
A Knights Tale - mixes 14th/15th century with 20th century

Bricolage - creating a new text, through intertextual references
Commodification of merchandise - feature of post-modernism

Character, meant to be Geoffry Chaucer - famous historical figure - offers an alternative background and reality

The Simpsons - 1992/3
An example of 'bricolage'

Halloween Special - Treehouse of Horror IV

• intertextuality
• ironic playfulness
• self-reflexivity

using conventions of horror - audience can identify
Gravestones with cultural references

• balanced budget - polital satire
• elvis
• TV violence
• subtle political satire
• ironic playfulness

Homer - van gogh
Lisa - picasso and as 'the screan'
Maggie - salvador dali

Intertextual reference - family guy & the simpsons

Bart - in a suit :

• Rod Serlings Night Gallery

Pastiche - a blank copy
Self-reflexive - Marg 'warn people the episode is scary' - aware of an audience
War of the Worlds - did it as a news broadcast - people belived it - Marg refers to it - creates irony

'The Devil and Homer Simpson'

• 1 part of the episode
• Based on 'The Devil and Daniel Webster'
• 1941 film
• Flanders plays the devil - normally a fundamental Christian

Hells Kitchen
Representation of the devil - reference to film 'fantasia'
The idea that Bart knows the Devil
Tomorrow midnight - taken directly from the film

CGI - can create alternative realities
'Ironic punishment division'
Lawyer - watched a law show - ironic, he doesn't know what he is doing

Lizzie Borden, Richard Nixon, Black Beard
Ironic playfulness of American Police Force - coffee and donuts

'Terror at 5 1/2 Feet'

• Nightmare at 20,000 feet

Futirama - pastiche of 'The Twilight Zone'

Lesson Write Up - 28th Jan 2015

Post-Modern Media

Extra's - hyperreality, self-reflexivity, intertextual references, ironic playfulness
The title sequence for Extra's is also the title sequence from the fictional sitcom within Extra's; 'When The Whistle Blows'

Episode - Daniel Radcliffe

• sitcom within a sitcom
• Warwick Davies
• Daniel Radcliffe
• dressed as boy scout, everything he does contrasts to what the character is
• rebellious
• not acting his age
• swearing
• smoking
• Intertextual references
• The Wright Stuff
• This Morning
• Richard & Judy
• Actual people in thier real jobs discussing fiction as the truth
• e.g This Morning - Phillip Schofield and Fern Britton, playing themselves - state of hyperreality
• media, papers, TV
• rumours as a part of 'show-biz'
• re-uses stories, over and over

'Barry' known as his media identity

Innapropriate Language - Stephen Merchants character

• midget
• mentally derranged
• this could be offensive, but most people understand that it is ironic

Behind the scenes - self-reflexivity
Boy scout scarf - Gryffindor colours - intertextual reference

A Knights Tale - 2001

Set in 14th/15th century
Sport of jousting
Directed by Brian Helgelamd

Set in medieval times - contain songs from the 20th century

• Queen - We Will Rock You - 1970's
• as diegetic sound - creates confusion

Post-modernism looks back - we can use anything from the past, mix it with something post modern to create something new, now.

Goes from medieval dances with traditional music to p/m music - David Bowie - Golden Years

Lesson Write Up - 26th Jan 2015

Media & Collective Identity

Starter:

What does a moral panic consist of?

Concern, hostility, consensus, disproportionality, volatility

 

*We can link specific areas of Cohen's 'folk devil' theory in the exam to specific texts*

 

Ill Manors, 2011, - music video & film

• we are all products of our environments
• Plan B - producer
• what influences the choices you make

 

If you are from/or were brought up in an area where something is produced you will have a different view because you have first hand experience and are not relying on a media representation.

 

Focus on these areas:

• who is producing the representation
• the media form used
• the target audience it is for

What is the message behind the lyrics?

 

Web 2.0 allows for opinions from everyone, all different ages, social class, gender etc

 

Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot - 2005

• 'the man in the tracksuit attacks me'
• playing up the stereotype of hoosies and tracksuit being violent and associated with chavs
• 'he looked the wrong way at a policeman'
• the police are violent also, easily provoked, similar to the people who took part in the riots
• 'walking through town is quite scary'
• media image, you should be afraid of people

Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall - 1979

• Part 2 is a protest song against schooling in Britain
• boarding schools for the wealthy, end up ruling the country
• Conservatives - Margaret Thatcher came into power in 1979
• miners strike later on
   

 

 

 

 

Lesson Write Up - 22nd January

Post Modern Media

 

Extras Recap:

• hyperreality
• denial of meta - narrative
• inretextual references
• self-reflexive
• ironic playfulness

Kate Winslet episode:

• Thematically based on religion
• nuns
• catholicism
• Issues such as disability
• used to be censored
• audience understand irony
• not offensive

Exras's - Orlando Bloom

 

Making a fictional sitcom, within a sitcom - this showed a contrast between a traditional media form and a post modern media text.

Shaun Williamson, referred to as 'Barry', his media identity (EastEnders)

See it being filmed - self-reflexivity

Keith Chegwin - playing a racist, homophobe, a hyperreal identity

Irony - picture of Lenny Henry when he couldn't think of any British Blck comedians

 

Traditional Media - reliant on puns, double entendre and catch phrases

T-Shirts with catchphrases - intertextuality

 

Celebrity party - made fun of

Normal bar - audience look up to him

 

Idea of celebrity - a media construct

DigiPak Template

This is the template I am going to use for my digipak. I used Google Search to find an appropriate template.

Lesson Write Up - 21st January

Post Modern Media

 

Extras:

 

Ricky Gervais - Andy Millman - an extra

Format as a sitcom, but not traditional

Self-reflexive - draws attention to fiction - see the lights and sets

Undermines the realism of the text

Non-traditional

 

Kate Winslet:

• Known for her image of being prim and proper, upper class, usually has romantic leads - this is a media construct, we don't know her personally so this is the only image we know of
• She is dressed as a nun, this reinforces the media image, however, the image is soon deconstrcuted as she swears and smokes - it immediatley creates a contrast to the image put forward.
• We as an audience understand that these are not her real ideologies

Ironic Playfulness - audience is aware of the ironic meaning, the audience is actively engaged

E.g: Kate Winslet, as a nun. 'Kate Winslet talking dirty to Anne Frank and Josef Goebels' - ironic

 

Decline od the meta-narrative - episode is about religion, the image is deconstructed throughout.

Kate Winslet - Portraying a hyperreak version of herself, the audience understands it is ironic.

Dressed as a nun:

• Smoking
• Swearing
• Taking the Lords name in vain

One charcter is dressed as Anne Frank - 'maybe keep a journal' - intertextual reference

 

Actress actually has cerebal palsey - she is in on the joke - not offensive or insulting, understands the ironic humour, part of a post modern text.

'I had some spare time since my tap dancing class got cancelled' - deconstrcuting the image, ironic

 

Diversity of representation in Post Modern Media -

• People from different ethnic backgrounds
• Disabilities
• Sexual Orientation

Post Modern Media brings forward the diversity in society, so as everybody has a representation.

 

Dressed in suit from Saturday Night Fever to a prayer circle - intertextual reference

 

 

 



Lesson Write Up - 20th January

Media & Collective Identity

 

How does this clip represent young people in the 1960's?

• rampage
• act on impulse
• negative image
• retaliation
• hard to break away from the stereotype

Future:

 

Cohen: studied the mods and rockers, from his research we now know that it was the press who created the moral panic.

 

If a recreation was made it could show all the different angles from all the different people involved. The police, the press, the mods, the rockers, the public etc.

The film only portrayed the negative image shown in the press 8 years prior, therefore reinforcing the negative image.

The film showed teenagers to be brutal

 

Contempory:

 

London Riots - 2011

How were youths reported during this event?

 

What caused the London Riots?

The shooting of Mark Dougan. This was a turning point and an excuse.

 

What was the main reason behind the riots?

At the beginning it was people who wanted to avenge his death, get the attention of the police, but other people took advantage of the chaos. The media reported it to be a 'free for all'. Looting was a main reason, but there was no definitive one.

 

Who was blamed for the London Riots?

Youths and teenagers, press blamed young people for the events.

 

Cause:

6th August: Disturbances after protest outside Tottenham police station after Mark Dougan was shot.

Reason:

Ongoing debate among politicians, social and academic figures

Criminality, hooliganism, social morality, gang culture

People rioted because of racism, classcism, and economic decline

Gangs vs Police

Blame:

No official blame

'Stupidity of youths'

Poor relations with the police, government cuts, poverty, unemployment, social exclusion - reasons for rioting (for some people)

Everyone labelled in the same way

 

News now, News then

 

Reports on the London Riots -

Quotes from BBC TV report:

'teenage lawlessness', 'created this wreckage', 'unemployment'

 

The report present teenagers negatively.

Interview from a white, older man - said he 'tried to help'

Interview from a black, young man - explaining why young people are acting this way, explaining that people are choosing not to look and the wider picture and the real reasons for the riots

 

The report made it out to be about materialistic wants - money - avoiding the real issue

Manipulating the representaion (the media)

Race issues -

Presented white people to be 'helping', and black people to be the ones 'rioting'

 

It used the most extreme footage over agin for emphasis.

 

One thing that can't be disputed, is that social media is the present time, it is now. It's the immediate feelings and thoughts of people. It is the news as it's current and informative and it only takes one awe inspiring tweet to go viral. This is why social media should come with a level of social responsibility, thats something worth keeping in mind. You never know who is reading it and how it will go down, especially if it reaches the masses. (Source BBC News)

 

 

 



Still Images For My Ancillary Texts

 

Taking inspiration from the black and white mood board I made, I took some still shots for my ancillary texts. I used fake flowers as props as when doing my research into my genre I found that using natural surroundings and objects was a common theme.

The shots that I took outside were also inspired by my chosen genre because I found that more industrial and derelict looking locations were also common.

By incorporating these themes into my own product, the audience can see common conventions and therefore identify which genre my product fits into.

Filming Day 2 - Sunday 18th Jan

Yesterday I had the day off work so I took the opportunity to use the day for filming. Although I still have many shots to film outside, the weather was awful so I decided to film some indoor shots. I also took advantage of the time I had with my cast member and I took some still shots for use on my ancillary texts.
Keeping in mind the images I had found for inspiraton I went out in the morning to buy some fake flowers that I could use as props in the still shots. I really liked the images that I produced when using these props. I asked Kekezza (my main cast member) to bring the outfit that she wore on the last filming day we had, to show continuity through the shots. Because of the bad weather when we were filming inside the shots looked quite dark, therefore I decided to make use of any extra lighting I had in the house. We had an extra lamp with and adjustable stand that I was able to easily position to get extra lighting when filming.
When filming I did have a problem with the SD card I was using, the camera came up with messages saying it was unable to save and videos. However I overcame this problem by switching to another SD card. I decided to have a quick look through the still images on my laptop once we were done filming and I quickly edited two images on the website picmonkey.com. Just to see how I could play with effects. These are the two edited shots:

I plan to go through all of images again and choose sitable ones for my project, I then plan to use photoshop to develop my images further.

With the moving shots I filmed for my music video I will need to save them onto the editing suite I was using to edit before so I can continue working with the same file and add to the work I have already done.

Lesson Write Up - 19th January

Media and Collective Identity

Starter Task -

 

I think that youths have represented negatively in the media because it provides society with a scapegoat. Cohen supports this idea and says that teenagers are seen as folk devils because in a result of a moral panic the public has someone to blame. The Brighton beach fights in the 1960's allowed the media to write stories on this age group. The media had a choice on how to present the events, the chose to present the teenagers negatively during the incident, therefore creating an image. Similarly the London Riots of 2011 provided the media with another incident to report. Since the Brighton beach fghts the negative image the press created has become a stereotype, therefore during this incident teenagers were used as a scapegoat.

 

Tessa Perkins - stereotypes

No stereotype can be created without some form of truth behind it to be based on



Lesson Write Up - 15th January

Post Modern Media

• postmodernism suggests that advertising yoday tells us as much about society as fine art paintings
• meanings are created by the viewer

Neo Conservative Agenda - 1980's

• globalisation
• free market consumerism

 

Companies no longer local, becomes globalised

Post modern food - e.g McDonalds, food inspired by different cultures

 

What defines you is the things you buy and own - these things create your identity

Offering glamour and fashionable lifestyles

People now had credit to pay for up to date things

 

Duran Duran, Wham! - music videos showcased celebrity lifestyles

 

Conspicuous consumption - about showing people what you have bought

 

Collapse of the Soviet Union -

A lot of western things were banned, e.g music

Tried to compete with the wesr, but communism couldnt compete

 

 

9/11 tradgedy - live on TV, hyper real event, people around the world watched it happen through the media, therefore we saw it how they presented it

• We are not just consumers of media anymore, we are prosumers
• We can produce out own media texts
• Digitalisation

We experience our lives and communicate to each other through the media

Proliferation of media hardware

• television
• mobile phones
• computers

McLuhan - 'the world has become smaller' - due to technology

Idea of simularcrum - 'a copy of a copy of a copy' - there is no such thing as originality

Media no longer holds a mirror up to society and reality, it is society and reality - Strinati
Intertextuality - one media texts references another
It mixes form, genre, media, and high and low art.
Hybrid Genres -

• The Simpsons

Pastiche -  blank copy
Style of Context - the visual impact is more important than the message

Self relexivity -

• media texts can never be a true representation of reality of truth
• we consume other peoples ideology

Postmodernism only aplies to certain types of societies - developed economies

'all things are subject to interpretation, whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not the truth' - Nietzsche

Always competing truths and realities

 



Lesson Write Up - 14th January

Post Modern Media

Communists ans capitalist economies.

Smaill conflict areas

Vietnam War - ended 1975

Proliferation in media hardware - TV's now in colour, live broadcasting of the war, red was a vivid colour

 

Young black men drafteed in for the war, middle class white boys could go to college and avoid being drafted.

Consumer goods, e.g, music that contains different ideas

The Beatles wrote their own songs - young, their ideas were being broadcast to other young people. They took drugs and it changes thier perception of reality.

 

The Beatles - Revolution Number 9 - breaking forms of popular music, abstract

 

Woodstock Festival - 1969, first major rock festival, offering an alternative

 

Kent State Massacre 1970

 

Marshall McLuhan -  'the medium is the message'

Timothy Leary - 'turn on, tune in, drop out'

 

1970's crisis of identity

Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen - banned, was at No 1, but the BBC changed the charts so it hit No2

 

Interview with the Sex Pistols - swearing before watershed

 

Irony - a main feature of post-modernism

Lesson Write-Up - 13th January

Media & Collective Identity

moral panic - society agreed something threatens social order

folk devil - a group of people that society blames bad things on, a scape goat

why do we have moral panics? - to allow society to agree that something is bad (the media creates scapegoats)

To what extent did the mods and rokers create an ideology for future/contempory representations of youth?

This was essentially the beginning of the negative representation of youth as the media chose to represent teenagers as hooligans, during this historical event. This image is now the stereotype we have of teenagers.

 

Moral Panic - media creates a panic about a group of people that society collectively aggrees could affect the social order

Folk Devil  - who the media puts the blame for the moral panic on

Why do we have moral panics? - gives us a focus and shows society who to blame

 

Mods & Rockers Rebooted - 2014 - TV Documentery

• summary of the ideologies
• how the groups formed
• how the press reported it

Mods & rockers - born in mid/late 40's, post-war baby boom
Working class youths had spare money and time
Teenagers taking risks
'Youth Species'
Mods-Modernists

• embracing the newest things
• wanted to create a new ideology
• wanted to be the best
• didn't see themselves how everyone else did

First teen generation that didn't have to do national service.
Older generation looked on with suspiscion
'Identification with different types of music - black american' - idea of 'freedom'

'Clacton is afraid of the future' - newspaper headline
97 youths arrested - 'boredom caused the problem on both parts'
'wild ones' 'mods' reference to Hitler and young people
Economic, social and identity change for Britain
Journalists creating the probalem - giving lists of places where fights were going to happen
Margate - Whit Weekend - 75 arrests

Moral panic because people knew that teenagers act badly at home but it becomes more of a problem when the public are involved
The press paid people to cause a disruption
Teenagers around the world saw British teens as inspiration - fashion, music etc
Engineered to show that the police were responsive - most people arrested were charged with threatening behaviour and language
Now the number of youths is low - have become a minority

Other Moral Panics:

• Jimmy Saville, entertainers of the 80's
• Social workers, lack of capability 'Baby p'
• Drug culture
• London riots
• Video games and violent behaviour
• Trolling

Summary -

Cohen states that teenagers are seen as 'Folk Devils'
Moral panics are a snap shot of time in which the majority of society place a blame
The mods and rockers were seen as a moral panic as teenagers were 'out of control'
A moral panic consists of 5 key elements to be believeable and impact on society.
The press manipulate messages to create moral panics
The way the press report a story is not always true and air, we live in a blame culture society so we accept this for reporting


Ancillary Text Inspiration

Lesson Write Up - 12th January

• Moral - something you believe to be right
• Panic - sense of distress or worry
• Moral Panic - when something happens in society that lots of people disagree with

• Moral - concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour
• Panic - sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour
• Moral Panic - the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order

Mods & Rockers

Clash of Ideologies

 

Rockers: leather jackets-motorbikes-tattoos-punk-piercings

Mods: suits-scooters-smart-clean-neat

 

Through the creation of the internet more identities have been created.

The media predominantly controls what we see, however Web 2.0, allows us to have our own voice.

 

60's -

 

Teenagers in the 60's had time, money and freedom that they had not had before.

The negative image that was created of teenagers in the 60's is what has been carried on in the media. Therefore this negative image has been reinforced.

 

Mods v Rockers

 

Two different groups of people, had different ideologies.

Didn't like each other.

The report of the Brighton Beach riots in the 1964 by the media changed how those groups of people were perceived by the rest of society. (maybe forever)

Stigma attached.

The media created a folk devil/scapegoat in the teenager.



These words are what the class described pictures of the Brighton Beach Riots as:

• violent
• rebellious
• disruptive
• immature

All these words are similar to the words we used to describe teenagers as last week, without any influence.

The press presented young people as folk devils because they chose to present them negatively.
This created a moral panic.

The teenagers involved in the riots didn't actually have that much freedom. his was the only way they had to represent themselves. We now have the internet as a way to represent ourselves.

The Press & Their Message

What actually happened compared to how the press reported it, is very interesting.
They over exaggerated events, demonised teens, made them out to be more violent and aggressive.
The press encouraged the people to fight so they had interesting stories to write.
The whole event was very influential in how teenagers are not represented.

In the newspapers that reported the incident the riots were described as:

• vermin
• mutated locusts
• sawdust Caesurs
• odious loutes
• internal enemies
• grubby hoards of loutes and sluts

The media creates an identity, stereotypes and identities are hard to change.

How the press report a moral panic -

1. Exaggeration & Distortion - 'over reporting' emotive language, repetition of false stories
2. Prediction - if it has happened once before it is bound to happen again
3. Symbolisation - signs represent a moral panic for example interviews that are dramatised and over exaggerated to let the audience hear what they want.

Cohen - Folk Devils & Moral Panics (1972)

'a moral panic occurs when a condition, episode, person, or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.'

What Does A Moral Panic Consist Of?

1. Concern - awareness of a negative impact on society
2. Hostility - towards the group to separate them from society and to folk-devil 'them' from 'us'
3. Consensus - a wide group of society accept the threat of the group in question
4. Disproportionality - the action taken is disproportionate to the actual threat posed (exaggeration of crime in the media)
5. Volatility - they can easily disappear as soon as they came, and move on to a new topic.

Other Moral Panics:

• Jimmy Saville and 80's entertainers
• Social workers and lack of capability, e.g Baby P
• Drug Culture
• London Riots
• Video games and violent behaviour
• Trolling

Summary:

Cohen states teenagers are seen as folk devils
Moral panics are a snap shot of time in which the majority of society place a blame
The mods and rockers were seen as a moral panic as teenagers were 'out of control'
A moral panic consists of 5 key elements to be believable and impact on society
The press manipulate messages to create moral panics
The way the press report a story is not always true or fair, we live in a blame culture society so we accept this for media reporting.

Lesson Write Up - 8th January

• Freud - pshyco analysis
• Marx - ruling class
• Darwin - natural selection
• Neitczhe - german philosopher - 'God is Dead'

Postmodernism rejects meta-narratives
Paradox of the idea of no systems, so then it becomes a system itself

Postmodernism has created choice in society, e.g:

• vegetarianism
• gay marriage
• divorce

Postmodernism suggests that society is fragmented.
Postmodernism suggests there is no one truth - distrust of meta-narratives - there are many truths
Media texts are a construct of someones representation, therefore cannot be true.

Post Modern Media - Artistic Movements

Classiscism:

• (Romans onwards)
• religious imagry
• represents religion

Romanticism:

• (1700's)
• presented the world in a positive light
• wasn't a real representation

Impressionism:

• (1800's)
• development
• not attempting to be life like

Post-Impressionism:

• 1890's
• Van Gogh
• letting out emotions through art
• becoming an individual

Cubism:

• early 1900's
• movements changing more rapidly
• Picasso
• not trying to be representative of society
• expression of the individual

Surrealism:

• 1920's
• pushing back boundries
• dreams, emotions, desires
• Salvador Dali

Abstract (modernist)

• breaking down forms
• abstract expressionism
• expressing emotions abstracrivly

Pop-Art:

• how we experience the world
• consumer goods
• define ourselves by what we have
• reflects culture at the time

Post-Modernism:

• takes familier things and makes them unfamilier
• becoming/using popular culture
• personal experience

 

Modernism - looks forward,progresses

Post-Modernism - nostalgic, says we canot create naything new because we've already done everything - we borrow things from past eras, mix them up and that creates something new

 

In a post modern society, media is the art form.

Sometimes the actual construction can be the art, for example Tracy Emins - Bed, and buildings.

 

Post - Modernity

 

Post-war Europe - world divided into two; communism and capitalism

The Cold War

Cuban Missile Crisis - 1962 - John F Kennedy

Russia sent Cuba nuclear missiles that could harm the US.

People thought we were on the edge of WWIII

 

Idea of Post-Modernism - living on the edge of an apocolypse

Lesson Write Up - 7th January

Post Modern Media

 

3 questions in the exam:

2 on coursework

1 on either PMM or M&CI

• Definition of Post-Modernism - there isn't one. It's an aesthetic. WE don't know the definition because we are living in post-modernity.
• Post-Modernity - historical era, post WWII, 1948 ish - still going on, the theories of post modernism still apply
• Modernism - describes an era of art/culture/society. The modern world and industry

 

Enlightenment (17th century - )

• moving away from religion
• moving towards science and logic

 

Difference between traditional and post-modern media texts.

Historians, philosphers etc, give historical eras names becased on shared features.

 

Post-modernism is the first era to have mass communication

• access to mass media is what is different about postmodernism

Technology/science/logic all developed during enlightenment

Human condition - what it is to be human - we express through art

 

Examples - cave paintings, people painted thier experiences.

• peoples art shows people what it was like to live in that particular era
• media texts are cultural art forms

Features of a Post-Modern Society:

• state of hyperreality (media reality is more real)
• style over substance and content
• high and low culture - breakdown of distinction
• decline of the meta-narrative
• subject over objective
• multiple realities

Religion

• dominant
• God made man in his image
• meta-narrative, society was structured around the idea of Christianity

Science and logic can explain more things, therefore people bgan to move away from myth and superstition.

 

Progress

• industrialisation
• technology

WWI - machine guns

WWII - holocaust, nuclear bombs

 

people now questioning whether technology and progress was good.

Lesson Write Up - 6th January

Media & Collective Identity

(Lesson 2)

Starter:

1) 2
2) Historical, contempory, future
3) 3
4) Theories and Theorists

Mean Girls -  11 groups with their own identities, values and beliefs.

• Plastics - have set rules, the members share the same ideology, therefore have a collective identity
• Art Freaks - seen as weird by other groups, because they don't share the same values and beliefs

Cady

• To get into the plastics she has to change her ideologies.
• Changes herself to fit in, her original values wouldn't have allowed her to fit in and have something in common.

Conform to a certain identity by changing and sharing ideologies.
Whatever you believe you will always have someone in common who shares those values and beleifs

Young people predominantly control social media, therefore if young people control it there may come a time when the representation of youth becomes more positive and realistic/true.

Teenagers and young people are used as scapegoats in the media.

Collective Identity

• Shared ideology and values within a group of people
• It refers to a set of individuals and the sense of belonging to a group

David Gauntlett

'identity is complicated, everybody thinks they have one'

• identity is complicates
• you're identity is shaped by others
• you take pieces from identities you like to build your own
• we can be influenced by:
• film/TV
• other people
• upbringing

• having an identity helps us to understand our purpose
• we like/watch/follow media for reasurrance of self-worth
• collective identity makes us feel needed and wanted
• however the identities they create are not always positive

Top 5 Google Searches: 'news stroies about teen.....'

1. teenage violence
2. teenage pregnancy
3. teenage crime
4. teenage bullying
5. teenage drinking

All of these results are negative, this shows the influence of the media nd how we now percieve youth.

• Representations of youth are extreme, e.g - Skins, Inbetweeners
• Representations of youth depend on the audience

Representations in the News

 

Research of six UK newspapers over the past 10 years found the words most commonly associated with, 'teenagers', 'youth' and 'young people' were:

• binge drinking
• yobs
• crime

Bob Satchwell - Director of the Society of Editors, says that positive news stories are published in the press. He says there are stories about high acheieving A Level students, Olympic athletes, soldiers and footballers.

• Olympics - every 4 years
• Soldiers - only hear of them when they have died or been seriously injured
• A-Levels - only happens once a year
• Footballers - carry negative connotations anyway, cheats, selfish, money obbsessed

Portrayal of teenage boys in the media as 'yobs'

Figures show more than half of the stories about teenage boys in the national and regional press last year (4374/8629) were about crime. The words most commonly used to describe them were: 'yobs (591), thugs (254) sick (119)

The best chance a teenager had of recieving sympathetic coverage was if they died. Some of these news stories used the words 'angel', 'model student' and 'perfect son'.

This media coverage has now led teenage boys to be fearful of each other as the media has painted a negative image of them.

Future Example:

• control of your own identity on social media, you are more likely yo portray yourself in a positive light.



Lesson Write Up - 5th January

Media & Collective Identity

Representations of Youth & Youth Culture

• How is youth culture represented in the media?
• truant
• negativly
• rebellious
• violent
• How is youth culture represented in TV programmes?
• rebels
• anti-social
• bad-behaviour
• disruptive
• How is youth culture represented in the news?
• dangerous
• selfish
• easily influenced
• How is youth culture represented in films?
• rebels
• anti-social
• disruptive
• anti-establishment
• How is youth culture represented on social media?
• community
• judgemental
• influential

No, I don't think that youth's view the representation of youths the same as adults because I think that youths would be more understanding of circumstances and be more aware of media stereotypes. However, yes I think they could view representations of youth the same as I think that both young people and adults could be judgmental and make assumptions of representations.

If I panic in the exam I can talk about my own experiences, as I am a youth.

Media and Collective Identity is one out of 2 questions that you can answer in your exam. There are 6 topic areas in the exam:

• contempory media regulation
• global media
• media and collective identity
• media in the online age
• post modern media
• 'we media' and democracy

You only choose ONE question. Either Media & Collective Identity or Post Modern Media.

The main area of focus will be:

Representations of youth and youth culture in the media.

We will study relevant theorists, we will apply their theories to texts. We will consider the following 4 areas:

• How do the contempory media represent nations, regions and ethnic/social/collective groups of people in different ways
• How does contempory representation compare to previous time periods
• What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people
• To what extent is human identity represented in the media

Important Exam Rules - Must refer to the following areas:

• HISTORICAL representations
• CONTEMPORY representations (main focus area)
• FUTURE representations

a contempory media text is classified 5 years from the exam date

Important Exam Rules - Must refer to at least 2 different media texts/forms

• Media texts we will look at include -
• film (good for historical references)
• Tv (good for historical/contampory reference)
• Press (*)
• TV News (*)
• Social Media (good for future/contempory reference)

Our Focus:
'The representation of youth in the media is complex and repetitive, depending on who and how the media is re-presented to the audience depends on how consumers percieve youths of society'

How to validate our argument we must consider the following:

• who produces the reprentation
• the media form used for the representation (tv, film, social media, TV news, press)
• The target audience for the representation: (young, actual, aprent, older non-parental, OAP's)

Case studies for evidence referal:

• Press
• London Riots (2011) (contempory)
• Brighton Beach Riots (1964) (historical)
• TV News
• Current Affairs
• Anne Maguire murdered by Will Cornick, stabbing in the classroom
• Films
• Fish Tank (2009)
• Quadrophenia (1979)
• TV
• Geordie Shore (contempiry)
• Inbetweeners (*)
• Made In Chelsea (*)
• Social Media
• Facebook
• Blogs
• Instagram

Important Exam Rule - Must refer to theory and theorists

You are assessed on the strength and validity of your argument

How you will achieve marks in the exam:

1. EAA - Explanation, analysis, argument
1. Must make sure my argument relates back to the question
2. Must make sure my answer includes a variety of media thoery and texts to support my arguement
3. I must personally enagage with the media forms and industries to demonstrate my own opinion
2. EG - Examples
1. My use of theories and industry knowledge connect clearly to the quesion asked
2. I must refer mainly to contempory examples, but back up my argument with historic and future texts
3. Must show that my argument develops through my answer and apply theory when relevent
3. T - Terminology
1. use relevant media thoery and write in a formal manor