Slideshare collective identity intro

Collective Identity

What is it?

How does the media influence it?

Learning Objectives:

• Gain an overview of the exam.

• Begin to understand what youth collective identity means.

The exam – G325Section B:• One hour.• Long essay.• Choice of two questions – answer one only.

G325 Section B

• Contemporary Media issues.

• We will be looking at Media and Collective Identity.

• The group we will be looking at is: youth.

Big Questions

• How are teenagers and young people in the media portrayed?

• Are these portrayals accurate?• How does the intended audience influence

the messages sent about youth in the media?

• How do young people create their own representations? How are these different to those created and aimed at adults?

Starter Discussion

• Who is your favourite young person in the media? (real or fictional)

• Why do you like them?

Hebdige (1979)

• Studied sub- cultures in 1970s.

• Subcultures allow youth to express opposition to society and challenge hegemony.

• Style is key aspect of subculture – attempt to resist hegemony.

• Representations tend to be limited: Youth as fun or youth as trouble.

Who are you?

Who aren’t you?

Subculture

Fashion:Clothing, hairstyle

Opposition/ resistanceTo dominant culture

Lifestyle/practices

Music, art

counterculture

Dialect/ slang

Place, gender, class, race

Subculture• Bands

• Writers

• Magazines

• Artists

• Fashion

What subculture are you? What social groups are you a part of?

• These groups have a ‘collective identity’.

Article on pop tribes:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/feb/25/emo-pop-tribes-mods-

punks

Jacques Lacan• Mirror stage – child begins to develop their identity

– recognise themselves in a mirror at around 6 months, helps to develop sense of self.

Just like the recognition of the mirror, images on screen offer:

• Identification• Aspiration

• What are potential issues with this?

A Brief History of the Teenager

1945-60: Birth of the Teen

• 1940s – WWII = demand for labour = young people with disposable income

• Economic potential is obvious – market of the future• But also the first negative stereotypes• Youth simultaneously represented “a prosperous and

liberated future” and “a culture of moral decline”

• First sign of adult culture’s dichotomous image of teenagers

• Film example: ‘The Wild One’

Generation gap

• Hegemony = a dominant social group keeps an oppressed group in their subservient position by making them feel this position is ‘normal’ or desirable.

• Adult mainstream exploited the image of the ‘rebel teen’

• Sold to teenagers as aspiration• Sold to adults as a fear

James Dean – an accurate portrayal of youth?

• First celebrity to capture the dissonance of youth;

• ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ – lots of delinquent behaviour. Conforms to adult fears.

• But: Dean’s character isn’t a ‘bad boy’ – confused, sensitive, frustrated… and very handsome.

• ‘Live fast, die young’ = the start of adults fetishising youth?

Decade Movement (s) Films Event Media

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Each pair will be assigned a decade.

You need to use the internet to complete your row of this chart: