"With reference to youth, discuss how their identity has been mediated."

Throughout many years, identity has changed overtime for various age groups, in particular the youth. To form a familiar understanding with another person creates a collective identity whereby similar thoughts and interests are shared between each other.
Jacques Lacans theory is “we try to gain an understanding of ourselves by looking through a mirror” by this she means as a young child, an identity is developed by 'mirroring' what we see around us, such as the media.
As we grow older, the media continue to dominate our thoughts and actions acting as the 'Hypodermic Needle Model'. Media is like a drug, and we inject it without even wanting to, whereby it becomes almost inescapable.

If we take a look at a successful R&B artist within the music industry such as Rihanna, we can see how her personal changes throughout her music career has had an effect on youth, causing their identities to mediate.
Richard Dyer's Star theory is “A star is an image constructed from a range of materials". This can be supported clearly by an artist such as Rihanna. Rihanna has been a role model for many young kids, in particular to girls who may follow certain trends, styles and latest fashion that are set by her. She is moulded to the specific needs and wants of the target audience as identified by the management. For example if we concentrate on her hair, from previous videos such as "Pon De Replay" and "If Its Lovin' That You Want" we can see that her hair is long and styled particularly to suit the current trend at that time. Her hair changed dramatically to a short bob in her video "Umbrella" which caused a lot of young girls to start having their hair cut short into a bob. Furthermore, in her recent videos such as "S&M" and "What's My Name" she dyed her hair red which ceased the 'natural brown' look, creating even more girls to follow this look thus causing youths appearances and identities to mediate. Richard Jenkins says we need to interact in order to form our identity, and this can be done by literally replicating a person who help us to do so within the media, in this case, Rihanna.
Print Media, such as magazines can pick up on Richard Dyer's stay theory and use it to their advantage to increase sales. For instance, by having Rihanna as their front cover will attract youth into purchasing it, which causes both the Magazine Company and Rihanna's management to mutually benefit from this.

The levels of sexual references has also increased over time such as the lyrics to a song and the clothes worn. Sticking to Rihanna, if we take a look into her lyrics of "What's My Name" we can analyse and see that sexual innuendos and promiscuity is heightened within the content of the video. She shows more of her body, and her album covers can be considered to be 'soft porn' in comparison to her older ones. In reference to previous music videos by her such as "If Its Loving That You Want", we can see how innocent both the video and lyrics are in comparison to how explicit this has become and shockingly acceptable in our generation. We can say the youth of today have become 'desensitised' whereby the high levels of exposure is the norm within society and morally acceptable.

Identity is not necessarily mediated simply through time, but through different artists too. For example, two current artists who are successful in the music industry are Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne. The two artists juxtapose each other in their lyrics and what their music videos consist of. Lil Waynes' videos feature money, cars and women as he raps about them in almost every song, creating women to be inferior to men as he raps excessively about them. From his song 'Lollipop' the lyrics are "shawty wanna lick me like a lollipop" which has strong sexual connotations with the video is filled with scantily clad women.
In Nicki Minaj's video 'Super Bass' she calls herself a 'Barbie' referring to being 'played with' and exaggerates the image of sex appeal. However she shows that she is the dominant figure and the male figures are her sexual desires/objects. This can cause a great confusion to the audience and youth as to what image she is trying to portray. Her image may be perceived differently causing distorted implications of her as an artist and an individual thus creating youth identity to mediate. Winships notion can relate to this as his notion of complexity is about being prepared, in terms of audience gratification to finally recognise the ideal version of ourselves. So if we decide to follow Rihanna, Lil Wayne or Nicki Minaj we are finding and accepting our identity, therefore mediating.

In conclusion, youth and their identity has been mediated through the use of music videos whereby many give off different connotations to pick up on. The ones we choose to follow (ie Rihanna over Nicki Minaj or vise versa) will be the identity that we create, and mediate it from the identity we had before. Technology has allowed representations to develop (the use of auto-tune) which i think will help create a collective identity in the future as more and more artists are beginning to use it now over their natural voice which will have an effect on the youth and the way they choose to express themselves.

Media Glossary

Collective Identity: A sense of ‘one-ness’. A membership in a social group that is collective and has a sense of togetherness.
Hegemony: Leadership or dominance, esp. by one country or social group over others.
Subculture: A cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture
Subversion: corruption, going against the typical view/social norms
Ideology: The ideas and manner of thinking of a group, social class, or individual:
Dichotomous: divided or dividing into two sharply distinguished parts or classifications
Dissonance: disagreement: a conflict of people's opinions or actions or characters
Archetypal: Very typical of a certain kind of person or thing
Subservient: Less important; subordinate
Anarchy: A state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority
Counter Culture: A subculture that is opposed to the dominant values in a society
Surveillance: close observation of a person or group
Mediated: adapt, change.
Divergent: the act of moving away in different direction from a common point
Perspective: A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view
The Female Gaze: Women are capable of what men are doing
The Male Gaze: Women objectified by male media
Post – Modernism: involves the belief that many, if not all, apparent realities are only social constructs, as they are subject to change inherent to time and place.
Viral: the rapid spread of information about a product or service by viral marketing techniques
Media – Saturated: Media is inescapable, we see it everywhere
Emergence: The process of becoming important, prominent.
Social Order: Stance and status (hierarchy)
Hierarchy: The order of status
Distorted: Giving a misleading or false account or impression; misrepresented
Moral Panic: the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order
Reflection: The media presents opposite views from what has already been constructed
Construction: The way something is put together
Apathy: Lack of interest, not bothered.
Online media:
Regulation: A rule or directive made and maintained by an authority (Censorship, blocking of content)
Web 2.0: user centred information sharing (twitter and facebook)
Desensitised: Make less sensitive (exposure)
Verisimilitude: The appearance of being true or real
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”.
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
Karl Marx – Marxism Theory
Merlau Ponty - We have an embodied experience and anything in which we use our bodies to create, we help builds our identity.
Richard Jenkins: We need to interact in order to form our identity. With others or the media, partaking in an event (reality virtually) with people who help us form a collective identity.
Henri Jenkins:
Strinati:
David Gaunlett: “Identity is complicated; everybody thinks they’ve got one.”
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.
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’.
Caroline Howarth:
Jacques Lacan – Mirror stage. “we try to gain an understanding of ourselves by looking through a mirror” Child beings to develop their identity by ‘mirroring’ what they see (media).
Marxism: Communism, one way of thinking and living
Neo – Marxism:
Richard Dyer: “A star is an image constructed from a range of materials”
Michel Foucault: We are born with a basic construction of identity. Our identity mediates as we get older and meet other people creating a collective identity. However, it can be limited because a stereotypical view is created and portrayed as assumptions are made.
Isidore Isou:
Audience Gratification Theory: Blumer & Katz; Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine. Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life. Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts. Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains.
Winship: notion of complexity is about being prepared, in terms of audienc gratificatioin to finally recognise the ideal version of ourselves. A constructed audience is 'made'
Maslow:hierachy of needs is often portrayed in the shape of a pyramid, with the largest and most fundamental levels of needs at the bottom, and the need for self-actualization at the top.

To what extent do audiences use media to construct their own sense of collective identity?

Over several years, there has been a dramatic change within the media and the ways in which it helps construct certain identities. Identity is forever mediated and can be suggested that it isn’t always certain. Our views and opinions can change so quickly depending on the way in which media choose to represent and construct certain stories back to us via various media texts.

For example if we consider the London Riots, we can agree that a strong stereotype was created by the media that youth were the main cause and problem of this matter. Henri Tajfels theory can strongly relate as the youth were portrayed in a negative light. This made them the ‘out-group’ leaving the elder and ‘mature’ class and viewers of the news to be the ‘in-group’. Already collective identities have been recognized however, some young people may decide to dress differently to hoodies and tracksuits so they don’t fall under the stereotypical category of those who judge. This then creates even more identities as the media have constructed an image of youth within society to form. His theory suggests that there is a strong distinction made by the media about the ‘youth’ that damaged the streets of London.

With the use of Web 2.0, the London Riots was spread all over the internet and on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This enabled people to communicate and share information which helps to develop a collective identity by having an opinion and sharing the same thoughts. Merlau Pontys theory can be applied here as we have an embodied experience and can present ourselves in many ways. By joining social network sites and integrating with other people who share the same ideas and personalities, gives us a sense of belonging; a collective identity. In addition, Blackberry Messenger was also used to spread the message of the riots. By having many open options makes it harder for regulators to keep things under control and many views and opinions are able to be spread. To cease this, Blackberry decided to turn off the use of Messenger in order to get some sort of control with the situation. However, this created more confusion as networks were down and complaints were made, creating even more frustration and anarchy within society.
From my perspective, I believe that the use of Web 2.0 helped me to create my sense of identity. Interacting with other people and getting used to the functions of Facebook and Twitter made me dependant on it so much that it has become an addiction, something which I have to check and update every day. The freedom to share my thoughts with others helps me to interact with them in order to gain something in common, suggesting that media plays a great part in creating my identity, thus helping to construct a collective one.

As an audience, we read newspapers to update us about everyday life. The media are able to construct their views about youth, portraying them in a negative light - as we know this is what sells. Michael Foucault’s theory can relate to this as he says that everyone is born with a basic identity, which is then mediated through the people we meet and soon becomes limited. His theory is clearly applicable here as it causes all audiences to refer to youth as ‘yobs’ because of the headlines and therefore construct us to be destructive and rebellious creating a limited view of our identity, which is falsely interpreted due to the mass media. A sense of moral panic is thus caused, creating a threat within society.
Furthermore, online press play a huge part in moulding our views as it has become a dominant aspect in which it can influence our minds and become our 'everyday reality'. Videos of the London Riots were shown of the destruction that was caused giving people a reason to dislike the youth of today. However, by having videos shown(on Youtube and Sky News) of youth justifying themselves, supports the media in creating these identities for us within society.

In conclusion, it can be seen that the audience rely heavily on media to construct their own sense of identity. The world and its news can only be fed by the media in many forms therefore, depending on how an article, story or text is written, we will interpret it in the way the media want to and make our minds up from that. With the continuous development in technology and new inventions, it will help to promote and present media in different formats and in effect, dominate our lives and way of thinking. It can be said that collective identity will still be formed in many different ways of interaction with the help of the media and the ways in which they decide to sell their products.

“The Media do not construct collective identity; they merely reflect it.” Discuss.

For many years now, the youth have been both constructed and reflected in the media in a negative light. However collective identity (the process of sharing common factors with others) can be either constructed or reflected, some may say both. Tabloid and broadsheet newspapers achieve to contain the two, giving readers more to say about the youth of today.

Michel Focault’s theory is demonstrated by the media as he says that everyone is born with a basic identity, which is then mediated through the people we meet and soon becomes limited. This can relate to the statement as the mass media dominate our lives as it is inescapable which lures people in to having a stereotypical way of thinking and behaving.

Representation of youth in the media creates a sense of moral panic as the youth are continuously reflected negatively so that the portrayal of youngsters is very nearly impossible to change. During the riots, The Daily Mirrors front page said “Yob Rule” and gave the youth a name whereby most newspapers and articles continue to use whenever they refer to us doing anything destructive. The term ‘Yob’ immediately brings to mind younger people and therefore feel negative towards them. It is words like these which actually construct collective identity rather than reflect it, making the youth look worse than they actually are via the use of bias words and phrases.
Furthermore, The Suns front page was “Rioters aged 7” which increases moral panic as people will think it’s not only teenagers that are causing this anarchy but it’s those even younger. However, we know that adults were involved in the riots but do not see it reflect them as it does not create the same buzz as it does to those younger. It’s as if people are all ignorant to have an opinion for those older who do it but comes as a shock to them when they hear that the youth are reliable. Perhaps we’re just following by example?

The negativity that is shown across to the readers of these articles continue to reflect youth quite stereotypically to be destructive, rebellious and careless. The Hoodies or Alter Boys article has statistics to help strengthen their viewpoint by saying things like “85% of teen boys said newspapers portray them in a bad light” and “80% of teen boys think adults are more wary of them now than they were a year ago.” by using these statistics, makes us assume that the majority of teenage boys believe this as opposed to the minority. Many stories in this newspaper articles are about how youth are reflected in a bad way as there has been an increase in newspaper stories about teens and crime over the past year. The newspapers choose not to represent youth in a positive light, even though there are many positive things happening i.e statistics on education. For example “White working class boys are turning their backs on university even if they do well enough at school, a study revealed yesterday.” Daily Mail, 19 June 2008. The Daily Mail haven't written a figure which means this could be a minority of ‘white working class’ but they still choose to write this in the newspapers over the amount of people who choose to go to university, because that isn’t a story that people will want to read of the youth, simply because it isn't negative. It therefore can be believed that the media construct collective identity rather than reflect it.

A stereotypical assumption of boys would be that they like to play a lot of computer games, some of which are violent (COD) which could be why boys are portrayed to be in crime and violence more than girls. This can be backed up as the ‘Women In Journalism’ website says that boys are named as ‘yob, thugs, feral, hoodies, louts and scum.’ Games like COD are advertised everywhere on billboards, ad breaks and heavily rely on graphical content to create a sense of realism which is perhaps why boys are involved in partaking in real violence. It can be argued that the media infect the youth to act this way as collective identities can be created by those playing the same games and contributing similarly via their actions within society; making it beneficial for them to then write about our actions on various media contexts. From this example, we can see that the media is thus constructing our opinions on youths and their video games and as a result, has repercussions on our views of reality. People may now see that violent video games do effect youths and will attempt to stop them playing them. Print media will pick up on this, create moral panic and therefore contribute to post modernism this way as the media are a powerful force.

If we consider Broadsheet newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, they both used headlines referring to the word 'Mob'. Even the slightest change of letters can alter the meaning of a word, as 'yob' is considered to be much worse than 'mob' and is more of a realistic view of defining togetherness and collective identity about the London Riots. It can be said that they apply a more of a reflection of the youth and are considered to be more factual based and impartial, providing the opportunity to change minds about the youth of today.
Because of this difference in tabloids and broadsheets, readers will come away with different opinions and views. According to Stuart Halls encoding and decoding model, we decode the media the way we see fit. However, with the tabloids creating moral panic and exaggerating events, readers adopt a biased opinion; unlike they would if reading a broadsheet.

In conclusion, it is clear to see both collective identities have been constructed and reflected. However, as people are forever idolising celebrities and prefer to read something entertaining rather than factual, it can be said that most people read and prefer tabloid newspapers. They fall into the constructed collective identity created by the media, which targets those of a lower to middle class who then become highly opinionated about the youth within society.

Magazine analysation

View more presentations from comedykid