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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: