identity theory
TRANSCRIPT
“IDENTITY IS COMPLICATED. EVERYONE THINKS THEY’VE GOT ONE”
(GAUNTLETT, 2007)
David Buckingham
• Institute of Education, University of London, Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media
• Well respected authority on Digital Media and Identity
“A focus on Identity requires us to pay closer attentionto the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups”
-David Buckingham
David Buckingham
• “our identity is something we uniquely possess: it is what distinguishes us from other people. Yet on the other hand, identity also implies a relationship with a broader collective or social group of some kind. When we talk about national identity, cultural identity, or gender identity, for example, we imply that our identity is partly a matter of what we share with other people.” (Buckingham, 2008)
What do audience groups use to construct an identity?
• Social media to interact with friends, celebrities, opinion leaders and strangers
• Clothing (physical or images of)• Your environment and the people in it• Music videos• Blogs/vlogs• Magazines• TV showsDate 5
Why do young people create similar identities?
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 6
Why do young people create similar identities?
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 7
Self-Identity and Social Identity• Self-identity refers to how we define ourselves. Self-identity forms the basis
of our self-esteem. In adolescence, the way we see ourselves changes in response to peers, family, and school, among other social environments. Our self-identities shape our perceptions of belonging.
• Social identity is constructed by others, and may differ from self-identity. Typically, people categorize individuals according to broad, socially-defined labels. For example, if you have dark skin, you may be labelled "black" by others even though you may not have adopted that identity for yourself.
How do audiences use media platforms to create self and social identities?
In your group, you will be given an identity theory.
Can you-
• Translate it and make sense of it• Can you think of an example of where this
could be applied or challenged?
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 9
Tafjal & TurnerConceptSocial Identity Theory
Explanation• In the Social Identity Theory, a person has not one, “personal self”, but
rather several selves that correspond to widening circles of group membership. Different social contexts may trigger an individual to think, feel and act on basis of his personal, family or national “level of self”
• Apart from the “level of self”, an individual has multiple “social identities”. Social identity is the individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership of social groups
How could this be applied to youth identity and in particular, ‘Cyberbully’?
1
Tafjal & Turner
• Social identity theoryYou adapt and change your identity as you
move between different social groups.
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 11
Identity Construction Quotes• Sheldon StrykerWe interact with others to create an identity, this is
called identity negotiation. This develops a consistent set of behaviours that reinforce the identity of the person or group. This behaviour then become social expectations.This is particularly relevant for collective identities (especially sub-cultures) that develop a specific way of relating to each other (attitude, language, ideas) that goes some way to helping construct our identity.
• Mikhail BakhtinThe Russian philosopher Bakhtin believed that individual people cannot be finalized, completely understood, known or labeled. He saw identity as the unfinalised self meaning a person is never fully revealed or known.This ties in with the idea that identity is a fluid concept, a life-long project that is never complete.
2 & 3
• Sheldon Stryker• How you interact with your social group
changes your identity. You adopt language and behaviour techniques that are specific to you.
• Mikhail Bakhtin
Identity Construction Quotes
Identity Construction Quotes• Sheldon StrykerHow you interact with your social group changes
your identity. You adopt language and behaviour techniques that are specific to you.
Microcosm • Mikhail Bakhtin• People cannot be pigeon holed or labeled. Our
identity is constantly evolving
Henry GirouxConcepts• Youth as empty category
• Quote“Youth as a complex, shifting, and contradictory category is rarely narrated in the dominant public sphere through the diverse voices of the young. Prohibited from speaking as moral and political agents, youth become an empty category inhabited by the desires, fantasies, and interests of the adult world. This is not to suggest that youth don't speak, they are simply restricted from speaking in those spheres where public conversation shapes social policy and refused the power to make knowledge consequential with respect to their own individual and collective needs.” (Giroux, 1998)
4
Henry GirouxConceptsYouth as empty category
• ExplanationGiroux's theory addresses the media's influence on youths. He believes that youths act as a sort of vessel open to influences of adult culture and how the media chooses to represent them, therefore shaping the youths cultural contexts.
Can you think of any examples of this?
Henry GirouxConcepts• Youth as empty category
• ExplanationThe media chooses the way they represent race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, occupation, age and so on, therefore leaving an influence on the youths that are not necessarily true. The media acts upon what it's audience wants. When appealing to a adult audience, the media will reflect fears and anxieties that adults may find entertaining, therefore giving an unrealistic view on youths. Giroux suggests that the media influences them in a certain way as youths are so impressionable, for example, if they are represented as loud and abusive in films, they will act on this because they are being told to act in such a way.
Does this remind you of any other theories?
Hegemony – The bourgeoisie reinforcing their own dominant ideologies on audiences and not being challenged.
Suggests that audiences are passive? Cultivation theory or hypodermic needle theory?
Subcultures
Subcultures
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 20
• Road men/ Gangster (?!) Predominately male/black/young. Puffa jackets. Grime/hip hop
• Ravers – drum n bass music, drug culture, 90’s influenced• Chavs – tracksuit, large jewellery, RnB chart/house• Indie/alternative /Hipster– avoids mainstream music, sense of entitlement! Likes
vintage clothes, old technology, dock, bright socks and rolled up trousers! Live gigs and festivals.
• Tumblr- bloggers, like provocative topics, American Apparel, sushi? Subverts chav culture.
Subcultures
“Subcultures try to compensate for the failure of the larger culture to provide adequate
status, acceptance and identity. In the youth subculture, youth find their age-related needs
met.” (Tittley, p.2).
Subculutres• Youth are no longer children but they are also not yet adults,
i.e. they are too old to sit in with Mum and Dad on a Saturday night watching Casualty, but they are not old enough to get into bars, pubs and clubs etc. They do not have a fixed identity at this point so they form these subcultures to forge their own as a collective.
Subcultures• Thrasher (1927) studied gangs in the jails and on the streets of Chicago.
He found various reasons for young people joining gangs, including:
1. A sense of family – mostly from broken homes so desired a group of people to feel part of.
2. Guidance – again, because of lack of family guidance they seek someone to teach them and to help structure their belief system.
3. Solidarity – giving them the self-esteem and security that they longed for.• Gangs were forming in Chicago as a result of urban neglect. These
young people represented the “inner cracks of identity that occur in the turbulent years of adolescence”.
Subcultures• Jordaan & Jordaan (1993) gathered information from
lots of other studies of youth subcultures and found, among other things, the following special characteristics which the collection of people share, including: – An awareness of membership/a sense of belonging, i.e.
shared interests etc.– A reason for being in the group/an internal motive, i.e.
hippies spreading the message of peace and love and punks spreading anarchy.
– Pressure to conform, i.e. Jimmy not wanting to talk to his old friend who is now a rocker.
Subcultures• A group of people within a larger culture who differentiate themselves from that culture.
• Ken Gelder’s provides 6 key ways to identify a Subculture:
1. often negative relations to work (as 'idle', 'parasitic', at play or at leisure, etc.);
2. negative or ambivalent relation to class (since subcultures are not 'class-conscious' and don't conform to traditional class definitions);
3. association with territory (the 'street', the 'hood', the club, etc.), rather than property;
4. movement out of the home and into non-domestic forms of belonging (i.e. social groups other than the family);
5. stylistic ties to excess and exaggeration (with some exceptions);
6. refusal of the banalities of ordinary life and massification
Subcultures
• In pairs you are going to research a Subculture
• Try and find;– What differentiates that Subculture– History of the Subculture– Examples of the Subculture in different Media