Collective identity- a sense of 'one-ness'. A membership in a social group that is collective and has a sense of togetherness.
Hegemony- the dominant ideology in society.
Subculture- a group of people who subvert the norm and cultural beliefs in society e.g Punks, mods
Counter culture- a group that runs a counter culture to subvert oppression.
Subvert- to go against something, in terms of this study to go against the norms and values of society.
Ideology- a set of ideas set by the dominant class in society.
Archetypal- a generic version of a person, similar to a stereotype.
Subservient- to obey others and listen to their demands, not go against.
Obtrusive- unwanted imposing ideas on something.
Enigmatic- difficult to interpret, creates a sense of mystery.
Binary opposites- a pair of related terms used in the opposite context.
Connotations- what you see, the associations with this.
Denotations- exactly what you see.
Male gaze- idea that certain shots and perspectives are from a males perspective, for male audiences for example in a music video a woman's legs being shown frequently.
Construction- the activity of creating something or someone through various means e.g. star construction
Ideology- a set of ideas or beliefs in society
Intertextuality- the shaping of a texts meaning by other texts.
Web 2.0- the idea of the internet allowing us to communicate with others and we have a wider access to materials.
Heirachy- a heirarchy is a way of representing the dominance in society in terms of authority.
Verisimilitude- the quality of realism in a media text e.g. film
Superimposition- the placement of an image or video on top of an already exsisting image to add effect.
Distorted- alteration of something exsisting to give effect.
Mediated- the concept of adapting or changing something
Govern- to have some control over society by some sort of authority e.g. Primeminister
Emergence- the idea of something new coming out into society
Social order- heirarchy of people in society
Media saturated- the idea of media controlling everything
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Key Theorist Glossary
Henry Tajfel- theory assumes that individuals strive to improve their self image by trying to enhance self-esteem based on either personal identity or various social identities.
Richard Jenkins- we need to interact to form our identity with other people or the media e.g. partaking in social activities/events.
Marxism- Started by Karl Marx, a communist theory which determines that all members of society will be governed by work and in a classless society.
Neo-Marxism- view class divisions under capitalism as more important than gender/sex divisions. Newer form of Marxism.
Merleau Ponti- we have an embodied experience and anything in which we use our bodies to create new things.
Henry Jenkins- teenagers constantly build their identity through the internet for example Facebook, updating profiles constantly, a form of experimenting with our identity.
Michael Foullcault- 1)surveillance in society, a source of constant surveillance is internalized, used as a form of social organisation.
2) We are born with a basic identity, develop our collective identity with who we meet. Although we can't break out of our original identity, it is limited. We then develop stereotypes.
David Gauntlett- 'identity is complicated' adolescence is a distinctive stage with a beginning and ending, a gradual progression into adulthood, adolescence about becoming rather than being.
Winship 'the ideal version'- Winship notion of complexity is about being prepared in terms of audience gratification to finally recognise the ideal version of ourselves.
Postmodernism- said to describe the emergence of a social order in which the importance and power of mass media and popular culture means they govern and shape all other forms of social relationships, constructs our reality.
David Buckingham- new modes of regulation, a focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse ways in which media and technology are used in everyday lives and their consequences for both individuals and society groups.
Jacques Lacan- Mirror stage, suggested that a stage where a child begins to develop an identity and recognise themselves, media seen as a mirror reflecting behavior and appearance.
Althusser's Interpellation- the process where a human subject is constructed by a pre-given structure. Imposing ideology, bombarded by messages from the media make us have certain assumptions. Marxist viewpoint.
Audience Gratification theory-
Diversion: escape from everyday problems and routine.
Personal relationships: using the media for emotional and other interactions.
Personal Identity: finding yourself reflected in texts learning behavior and values from text.
Surveillance: information which could be useful for living e.g weather.
The Hypodermic needle model- the idea that the media is like a needle injected drug and the audience are passive and accept these messages.
Two-step flow- Created by Katz and Lazarsfeld. Information is given out by a higher power and is then mediated by the audience who then pass it on to other people.
Encoding Decoding Theory- Developed by Stuart Hall. Argued that the dominant ideology in media texts is an interpreted reading and the audience are active and receive messages, the readings are negotiated.
Maslows heirachy of needs- portrayed in a pyramid of what humans need. Self actualization, esteem, love/belonging, safety and physiological.
Richard Jenkins- we need to interact to form our identity with other people or the media e.g. partaking in social activities/events.
Marxism- Started by Karl Marx, a communist theory which determines that all members of society will be governed by work and in a classless society.
Neo-Marxism- view class divisions under capitalism as more important than gender/sex divisions. Newer form of Marxism.
Merleau Ponti- we have an embodied experience and anything in which we use our bodies to create new things.
Henry Jenkins- teenagers constantly build their identity through the internet for example Facebook, updating profiles constantly, a form of experimenting with our identity.
Michael Foullcault- 1)surveillance in society, a source of constant surveillance is internalized, used as a form of social organisation.
2) We are born with a basic identity, develop our collective identity with who we meet. Although we can't break out of our original identity, it is limited. We then develop stereotypes.
David Gauntlett- 'identity is complicated' adolescence is a distinctive stage with a beginning and ending, a gradual progression into adulthood, adolescence about becoming rather than being.
Winship 'the ideal version'- Winship notion of complexity is about being prepared in terms of audience gratification to finally recognise the ideal version of ourselves.
Postmodernism- said to describe the emergence of a social order in which the importance and power of mass media and popular culture means they govern and shape all other forms of social relationships, constructs our reality.
David Buckingham- new modes of regulation, a focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse ways in which media and technology are used in everyday lives and their consequences for both individuals and society groups.
Jacques Lacan- Mirror stage, suggested that a stage where a child begins to develop an identity and recognise themselves, media seen as a mirror reflecting behavior and appearance.
Althusser's Interpellation- the process where a human subject is constructed by a pre-given structure. Imposing ideology, bombarded by messages from the media make us have certain assumptions. Marxist viewpoint.
Audience Gratification theory-
Diversion: escape from everyday problems and routine.
Personal relationships: using the media for emotional and other interactions.
Personal Identity: finding yourself reflected in texts learning behavior and values from text.
Surveillance: information which could be useful for living e.g weather.
The Hypodermic needle model- the idea that the media is like a needle injected drug and the audience are passive and accept these messages.
Two-step flow- Created by Katz and Lazarsfeld. Information is given out by a higher power and is then mediated by the audience who then pass it on to other people.
Encoding Decoding Theory- Developed by Stuart Hall. Argued that the dominant ideology in media texts is an interpreted reading and the audience are active and receive messages, the readings are negotiated.
Maslows heirachy of needs- portrayed in a pyramid of what humans need. Self actualization, esteem, love/belonging, safety and physiological.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
"The media has replaced family, society and religion as the main source of collective identity" Discuss
A focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse ways in which media and technologies used in everday life and their consequences both for individuals and social groups- David Buckingham
With the introduction of new media into our lives, Facebook and Twitter has slowly dominated our lives replacing somewhat human interaction especially when it comes to the family especially children. The Times headline in April 2011 read "Almost half of UK children break Facebook under age limit" which suggests that children are wanting more and more to join Facebook because it is a growing trend but also going behind their families backs to create an account. This gives us a sense of the collective idenity of youth as they want to keep up with modern trends even at a very young age. In relation to the question this shows a breakdown in 'old fashioned' communication in the fact we want to speak to our family and friends online through chat rather than talking face to face. On social networking sites such as Facebook we can also build our own family tree but add who we like not just our family, for example you could add your best friend but as your sister. The idea of having our immediate family listed is no longer perhaps desired but to think of our friends as family also showing that anyone can be our family on these sites. This relates somewhat to the idea of Ponti, having an embodied experience when adding your friends to your family tree as you feel a sense of happiness as if you are actually building your own family of choice. The idea of youth creating a collective identity through using the internet is this exact reason in the fact we can create our idea of a family and express ourselves through our profile.
Religion has always been an important factor in people’s lives, determining how they act and what they do. Although the internet has had a profound affect on religion. An article in The Guardian dated 17 April 2011 read “Online, God has been released from traditional doctrine to become everything to everybody”. This suggests the idea that instead of God been solely in the bible and for religious followers to go to church and pray in a traditional manner you can now find out everything you need online. There is access to online bibles and you can even write prayers and receive them through email! This takes away the tradition values of religion somewhat as we can now sit on our computer and find everything we need. Also through search engines there is so much information on different religions and many people are reading up on these and consequently joining and following these religions which there are no restriction on. George Barna who is an American religion researcher stated that he believes young people who attend church regularly would leave their congregation and rely on the internet for their spiritual needs. Youth and their collective identity could be created as they could leave their churches and join online chat forums or prayer groups via email instead of physically going to church, emphasising how the modern day technologies have had an effect on religion and its practises.
Society had been affected enormously by the media. The media can influence people’s opinions and views on any topic through newspapers, television and the internet. We have access to many forms of media and all with different and conflicting information. The theory of post modernism can be related to how new media has affected our daily lives as we now are bombarded with different messages and the media becomes our reality. Social networking allows us to communicate with our family and friends without having to pick up the phone; the online press allows us to read about what we are interested in and base our decisions on this. For example the recent London Riots and the Medias portrayal of it, The Sun headline read “British youths are the most unpleasant and violent in the world” dated in August 2011. The words used in this headline are damming and to an older generation this would frighten them greatly as they have seen on the news, this would only add to their fears. When reading these headlines or watching the news a Marxist view would see us as being a passive audience accepting all the messages we receive which reflects the impact modern day media is having on our lives. All these means allow us to create a collective identity by reading the same things, having the same opinions or using social networking to form an identity with others.
The media has a had a profound affect on our family life, society and religion in the view we have to it compared to in the past, the way we act towards it now and the amount of access we have to things in relation to it.
With the introduction of new media into our lives, Facebook and Twitter has slowly dominated our lives replacing somewhat human interaction especially when it comes to the family especially children. The Times headline in April 2011 read "Almost half of UK children break Facebook under age limit" which suggests that children are wanting more and more to join Facebook because it is a growing trend but also going behind their families backs to create an account. This gives us a sense of the collective idenity of youth as they want to keep up with modern trends even at a very young age. In relation to the question this shows a breakdown in 'old fashioned' communication in the fact we want to speak to our family and friends online through chat rather than talking face to face. On social networking sites such as Facebook we can also build our own family tree but add who we like not just our family, for example you could add your best friend but as your sister. The idea of having our immediate family listed is no longer perhaps desired but to think of our friends as family also showing that anyone can be our family on these sites. This relates somewhat to the idea of Ponti, having an embodied experience when adding your friends to your family tree as you feel a sense of happiness as if you are actually building your own family of choice. The idea of youth creating a collective identity through using the internet is this exact reason in the fact we can create our idea of a family and express ourselves through our profile.
Religion has always been an important factor in people’s lives, determining how they act and what they do. Although the internet has had a profound affect on religion. An article in The Guardian dated 17 April 2011 read “Online, God has been released from traditional doctrine to become everything to everybody”. This suggests the idea that instead of God been solely in the bible and for religious followers to go to church and pray in a traditional manner you can now find out everything you need online. There is access to online bibles and you can even write prayers and receive them through email! This takes away the tradition values of religion somewhat as we can now sit on our computer and find everything we need. Also through search engines there is so much information on different religions and many people are reading up on these and consequently joining and following these religions which there are no restriction on. George Barna who is an American religion researcher stated that he believes young people who attend church regularly would leave their congregation and rely on the internet for their spiritual needs. Youth and their collective identity could be created as they could leave their churches and join online chat forums or prayer groups via email instead of physically going to church, emphasising how the modern day technologies have had an effect on religion and its practises.
Society had been affected enormously by the media. The media can influence people’s opinions and views on any topic through newspapers, television and the internet. We have access to many forms of media and all with different and conflicting information. The theory of post modernism can be related to how new media has affected our daily lives as we now are bombarded with different messages and the media becomes our reality. Social networking allows us to communicate with our family and friends without having to pick up the phone; the online press allows us to read about what we are interested in and base our decisions on this. For example the recent London Riots and the Medias portrayal of it, The Sun headline read “British youths are the most unpleasant and violent in the world” dated in August 2011. The words used in this headline are damming and to an older generation this would frighten them greatly as they have seen on the news, this would only add to their fears. When reading these headlines or watching the news a Marxist view would see us as being a passive audience accepting all the messages we receive which reflects the impact modern day media is having on our lives. All these means allow us to create a collective identity by reading the same things, having the same opinions or using social networking to form an identity with others.
The media has a had a profound affect on our family life, society and religion in the view we have to it compared to in the past, the way we act towards it now and the amount of access we have to things in relation to it.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
"The media do not construct collective identity; they merely reflect it" Discuss.
The idea of reflecting collective identity suggests the media give us, as the audience the 'bare facts' which in most cases especially when it comes to the representation of Youth is not being seen. The modern view on youth is that of 'thuggish, animalistic and violent' because of the media 'reflecting' their collective identity?
Reflecting also known as 'bare facts' and Construction can be seen as exaggerating the truth. When it comes to youth representation the media do not reflect yet construct their idea of what the youth of today are. Tabloid papers are famous for their headlines, in the recent London Riots headlines such as 'Riot yobs can't hide' shows they are constructing what they think and therefore want us to think. In broadsheets they are seen to reflect the news more than tabloids, there headlines are less extreme such as they will simply say what is happening , in the telegraph a headline on the news of the tuition fees was ‘Students protest over tuition fees’ and they tend to focus on what has happened in the articles.
Although, in all its different forms whether it being a tabloid newspaper or a broadsheet their job is too sell news and bad news sells. The idea of media constructing collective identity relates to the idea of moral panics. The media are said to create a moral panic, which is defined as a feeling expressed in a population about an issue reported by news which threatens society. A recent example of the media creating a moral panic about youth was the recent London Riots where the newspapers had headlines such as “British youths are the most unpleasant and violent in the world” the use of the words and the phrase ‘in the world’ is an exaggeration as they are talking in global terms, with the images alongside the headlines used of shops on fire and being looted by hooded youths further emphasis this message of ‘yobs and thugs’ therefore creating a moral panic as people reading and seeing these images especially of an older generation will feel scared and worry that all teenagers are involved in the riots and are violent when this isn’t the case. In a majority of the articles about the riots no other groups were mentioned expect youth or if they were it was brief which suggests that the sole focus was on the negative representation.
The Postmodernist theory can be related to the construction of collective identity because the idea of the emergence of new media and its connection with youth. Throughout the riots black berry messenger and Facebook were used constantly to relay messages to other rioters and pictures of stolen goods and the damage caused were posted. The idea of a social order being the media governs our society and by it creating these moral panics and relaying news to us 24/7 we will believe what they tell us. They create a construction of reality which we live in and accept. The media is inescapable and to an older generation reading about these ‘yobs’ and ‘thugs’ it would scare them and their overall view would be that of youth. This is also similar to the Marxist view on the media as they believe it is the hegemony and what the media tells us we believe because it is the dominant force in society.
Although there is the idea that we as an audience aren’t passive but active and interpret what the media say and make our own minds up. This relates to Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding theory, he believes that the message is not transparent and the audience are not a passive participant. We can make up our own minds about what we think. For example with the recent tuition fee’s protests people certain footage and words in headlines were chosen for effect and to sell but as an active audience we could determine whether we believed all youths were like this and able to see past it.
In conclusion, the media does not reflect a constructive identity of youth in any form it merely constructs it for the purpose to sell. The words chosen in headlines and the images are to portray the dominant ideology in society of a negative portrayal of youth in today’s society and to create a sense of fear and moral panics to make society feel threatened. The hegemony is that of a negative image of youth, whether it is a tabloid paper or a broadsheet there purpose is too sell and bad news sells. Although also to be taken into consideration not all members of an audience are passive, many are active and will interpret messages for themselves. The media is inescapable and creates a sense of reality which we accept and live in. Everything in news is constructed because it has to be considered newsworthy and chosen which further emphasises the idea of the media constructing a collective identity.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
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