Collective Identity Theories

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY THEORIES Theorist	Theory
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 behaviour 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.