Theories and Definitons

Apathy – Not caring

Associations – When things are linked together

Binary Oppositions – Class/race/gender/age/disability

Brand – The company or name that gets popular, attached to the person or product

Buzz Words – Words that have certain triggers

Collective Identity – Sense of belonging, sharing same interests as others

Connotations – The implied messages within media texts

Construction – The way something is put together

Counter Culture – A culture that goes against the mainstream

Democracy – The choice of voting for what you want

Direct Address – When a product or person is made to be reaching out to you personally

Enigma - Mysterious

Global media – The media worldwide

Hegemony – Dominant view

Iconography – Visuals associated with a person, can be part of their collective identity

Identity – Your characteristics and personality

Identity Construction – The creation of an identity

Ideology – A set of ideas

Intertextuality – Referencing other films

Marketing – The way something is advertised to the public

Marxism – Communism, one way of thinking and living

Media Saturated – Media is inescapable, we see it everywhere

Mediated – Changed, adapted

Mise en Scene – Literally what’s on the set (costume, props, backdrop)

Moral Panic – A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order.

Narrative – Story line

Neo Marxism – Modern Communism

Perspective – The viewpoint of someone or something

Post Modernism – Our reality is constructed

Regulation – Censorship, blocking of content

Representation – The way something is portrayed. (editing, camera, colours, mise en scene etc.)

Social inclusion – The breakup of groups

Social Order – Stance and status (hierarchy)

Star – The popular figure

Subculture – A group with their own separate beliefs to society

Subservient – Doing something without question

Subversion – Going against the stereotype or social norm

The Feminine Mystique – Women are capable of what men are doing

The Male Gaze – Women objectified by male media

Web 2.0 – Websites that allow users to create and share content rather than

David Buckingham “A focus on identity requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups”.

David Gauntlett – “Identity is complicated – everybody thinks they’ve got one”.

Henri Jenkins – Teens are constantly updating and customising their profiles online adding photos and songs and posting to each other’s virtual ‘walls’. While this could be interpreted as just playing around, these activities could also be a means to construct an experiment with their identity. In particular, it can be a space for exploring one’s gender identification and sexuality.

Henri Tajfel – Individuals strive to improve their self-image by trying to enhance their self-esteem, based on their personal identity or various social identities - ‘in’ group, ‘out’ group.

Hypodermic Needle Model – Media is like a drug, it’s all around us and we even take it in without trying. The Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciousness of the audience unmediated; the experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text.

Jaques Lacan - Theory of mirroring behaviour

Karl Marx - Marxism theory

 Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs – A pyramid of needs:

Biological and Physiological > Safety > Belongingness and Love > Esteem > Self actualisation

Merlau Ponty – We have an embodied experience and anything in which we use our bodies to create, we help builds our identity.

 Michael Foucault – We are born with a basic identity. Our identity mediates as we get older and meet other people. We gain a collective identity by doing this and become part of a group. However, it can be seen as a negative to be part of a collective identity because this encourages stereotypes to be created. Once you are in a group, it’s hard to change and be seen as different.

Stuart Hall – Proposes that the media, as a principle from of ideological spreading, produces representations of the social world via images and portrayals. Hall asserts that ideological things become ‘naturalised’.

"The media do not construct collective identity; they merely reflect it."

I disagree with this statement as the media consistently portray youths in a negative light, particularly in news papers and online news sites which use biased words when describing an event or incident to make the audience see this group in a negative way.

Michael Foucault's theory on collective identity says that being part of a collective identity can be negative in some respects as this influences the creation of stereotypes. The media then takes these stereotypes and portrays all youths to be of the group which is behaving negatively. The media uses negative words to describe these events such as 'brazen', 'criminals', thugs and many more. It also generalises when describing these groups, using words such as 'youths', which creates a moral panic in society as they will then see all youths as dangerous or as a threat when really not all youths are how the media described this small group.

Stuart Halls encoding and decoding theory explains that the media encodes messages in their texts for us to decode into our own ideas and opinion, however by using biased words it sways the decision which the audience makes, creating a reality in their mind which doesn't really exist. An example of this is the London Riots. The media exaggerated the actions committed and created fear in society, blaming the entire event on youths. They did this through the use of pictures, video footage and biased words such as 'yobs', 'animals' and 'thugs' which categorises youths and controls the mind of the audience, telling people in society how to think instead of letting them decided for themselve.

This is a form of post modernisation, where the media controls the mind of the audience and constructs a reality for them in their mind which they will base their life around. If the media merely reflected on collective identity, they would not use biased words or construct any type of view in the audiences head but would instead just describe or explain an incident and allow the audience to make their own judgement. This point is backed up by Strinati's theory on post modernism. Stranati says; post modernism is said to describe the emergence of a social order in which the importance and power of the mass media and popular culture means that they govern and shape all other forms of social relationships.

In conclusion, I believe that the media constructs collective identity’s such as youth. Post modernism is used to control the way by which the audience thinks so that the view of which the media is constructing will be seen as the correct view and allow them to control the way people live their lives. The more the force of the media dominates society’s views, the more the Marxist theory becomes true; if we are all persaded to think the same way, we will all eventually have the same view about the collective identities of people, their behaviour, activities which they take part in and their interests.In the future, this will possibly lead to people realising the truth behind the media and that the media is constructing views rather than reflecting them which could possibly result in people not listening to what the media has to say or take notice of the points which they are trying to put across, resulting in the media losing its power in society.

Web 2.0

How does the internet provide an enormous challenge for regulators?

Those who set regulations will not be able to keep up with the rate by which we can spread information. An example of this is the London Riots and the use of Blackberry Messenger (BBM) which people used in order to send viral messages (Broadcasts) to spread the details of the time and place of a riot. Regulators could not keep up with this information as by the time that they had blocked the BBM Service, many riots had taken place and a lot of damage had been caused. This service was also encoded so authorities could not track the origin of these messages which created a challenge for them.

How does the internet provide a post-modern vision of identity?

The internet has become a dominant factor in youth’s lives and is inescapable. The internet constructs a reality and controls the mind of those who use it.  Through this mind control and construction of reality, the post-modern vision can create moral panic in society. An example of this is the way in which youths are represented by the media, using negative, biased words to describe them, creating moral panic in society that youths are out of control and dangerous.

‘This brazen Facebook user posted a picture of himself with suspected stolen goods’

o   Brazen –Describes user with biased word

o   Use of Facebook- Careless

o   Viral

‘The Tottenham riots were a grim, reminder, if any were needed, of the level of anarchy that exists barely below the surface in same of our worst urban estates.’

o   Warning: Young People

o   Categorises those from estates

o   Lower Class

This quote is creating moral panic within society by basically telling people that even when things are going well and nice, underneath there is always anarchy which can break out at any time. This creates fear for them even if nothing is wrong. It also directs the blame for this anarchy at those of the lower-working class who live on estates in particular.

How does wed 2.0 present a change for rioters since the Brixton Riots?

The riots in Brixton began with the Police not helping a young black male quick enough and the public intervened and began to riot. This was then spread through word of mouth and more people then joined in. However with the London Riots, web 2.0 allowed the information of the riots to be spread virally, meaning that they spread a lot quicker and across a much bigger distance. There weren’t riots just in one area like with the Brixton riots but instead they were spread across the whole of London and in some cases outside of London. Both of these events have the fact that it was a black male dying which caused them in common.

How has online press affected us in today’s society?

The online press has created a lot of prejudice in society. As a result of this prejudice, moral panic has been generated.

How does it present an area of control for today’s society?

How must we regulate ourselves as young people due to web 2.0? How is it a form of taking our identity back?

Magazine Annotations

How far do you agree with this statement? 'Identity is complicated, everybody's got one'- Gauntlett

From the day that we are born, we begin to form our own identity. Our identity is formed by our surroundings, the events we take part in and the company which we keep. This is why I agree with the point that identity is complicated, because it is influenced by so many factors. As no two people live the same lives, each of these three influences are different for everybody. No two people know all of the exact same people or have the same relationship with them, nor do they have the exact same background or partake in the exact same event. Our identity makes us unique and differentiates us from others. As we grow our identity is constantly changing. One of the main influential things on children's lives nowadays is the Internet. The Internet contains many social networking sites where individuals are able to create their own profile (Ponty). They can also socialise with others as well as join groups which they feel relate to them. This will allow them to communicate with others who have something in common with them, forming a collective identity and in some cases, even a culture (Gauntlett). Social networking sites also allow people to see what is popular at any time, giving people the chance to be part of the 'in-group' and join in with what is generally seen as 'cool' at the time (Henri Tajfel).

In conclusion I agree strongly with the above statement as there are many influences which affect an individuals identity, making it completely different to any other persons identity. This shows how complicated identity is as it can not be duplicated. I also agree with the part of the statement which says that everybody has an identity as people begin to form their identity from the moment that they are born. This makes it impossible for any person to not have an identity. Apart from the environment which we grow up in and our background, the main influence on our identity is the media, the Internet in specific. It allows us to be creative when creating our profiles. It also allows us to meet others who have similar interests to us and form a collective identity, joining groups which are seen as popular and avoiding those which are seen as unpopular. Videos can also be viewed on the Internet as well as play games which also influence identity. The television also affects the make up of a persons identity.