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.