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 – G325• One exam.• June 4th.• 2 hours.• 2 sections.• Section B will be done with Mr Sherringham.• Section B will be done with me.

Section 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: contemporary British 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: