“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.