Social media, friends, communication, keeping in touch, annoying people, begfriends, stalking, fights, relationships, pictures, SLUTS, memories, avoiding work, nosey, judgementalness, bitching, lack of privacy, fraping
Positives -
Keeping in touch with long distance/old friends/relatives
Help young people promote themselves in a positive way - forum to advertise band/photography/web design etc.
Accessible to all no matter about social class/age
Communicate with a lot of people in one go
Negatives -
Bullying/low self-esteem
Allows people to manipulate people (Pedophiles)
Pre-judging before you've met someone
What new forms of social interaction have media technologies enabled?
Globalisation
Sharing of Information
Development of Self-Identity
Self-Realisation
Collective Intelligence
Reshaping media messages and their flow; reshape amd recirculate messages
Increased Voice
Consumer communication with business (greater influence) - mass collaboration
Build Awareness - Bands/Skills
Communication has become interactive dialogue
User Generated Content (UGC)
Self-Representation and Self-Disclosure
Increasingly diversity within cultures
Online media focus on some or all of the 7 functional building blocks - Identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation and groups (Kietzmann et all. 2011)
'Online media are especially suitable to construct and develop several indentities of the self (Turkle, 1998)
'The mobile phone has become a central device in the construction of young peoples individual indentity (Castells, Fernandez-Andrevol, Linchuan Qiu and Sey 2006)
Digital Indentity
A person has not just one a stable homogenous indetity
Identity consists of serveral fragments that permantly change
A life-long developing and new conceptualized patchwork
Identity
"Identity is complicated - everybody thinks they've got one" - David Gauntlett
"A focus on identity requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences of social groups" - David Buckingham
Buckingham -
Classifies identity as an 'ambiguous and slippery' term;
Identity is something unique to each of us, but also implies a realtionship with a broader group;
Identity can change according to our circumstances;
Identity is fluid and is affected by broader changes;
Identity becomes more important us if we it is threatened.
Cultural Imperialism - Other cultures ideas coming into British society - Gloabalisation
Social mobility
Immigration - Becoming a multi-cultural society
Gauntlett -
Identity is complicated, however, everybody feels that they have one;
Religious and national identities are at the heart of major international conflicts
The average teenager can create numerous identities in a short space of time (especially using the internet, social networking sites etc)
We like to think we are unique, but Gauntlett questions whether this is an illusion, and we are all much more similar than we think.
5 Key Themes of Identity
1. Creativity as a process about emotions and experiences
2. Making and sharing to feel alive, to participate, in community
3. Happiness through creativity and community
4. Creativity as social glue - a middle layer between individuals and society
5. Making your mark and making the world your own
Representation - The way reality is 'mediated' or 're-presented' to us.
Collective Identity - The individual's sense of belonging to a group (part of personal identity)
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Representation of 'The Inbetweeners'
The Inbetweeners
Directed by Ben Palmer
Released in 2011
Age
Leaving school age trying to be rebellious or free willed by going on holiday yet the parents are all still paying for them.
Relatively realistic representation
Parents very stereotypical and loving towards the group but especially Will's mum who treats him as if he was still a young boy by calling him embarressing names.
Ethnicity
Only focuses on fully British people within the main group of characters so no different ethnicities represented in the opening sequence to the film.
Not releastic of living in a suburb of London.
Gender
Surface trying to be stereotypical men but underlying emotions
Women objectified as they are shown to be looked down upon by the males
Love life of Simon with Carly having a lot more power over him
Social Class + Status
Middle class
Will wedgied by lower class bully
Neil has a job - parents still pay for holiday - lack of independance
Going on holiday
Subarban neighbourhood complete safety
Lots of traditional parenting and education within the middle class
Social class: Reinforcing Cultural Hegemony/Dominant Ideologies
Working class British youths are generally represented as being violent, brutal, unapologetic, criminals, addictive personalities - Harry Brown, Kidulthood, Quadraphenia, Eden Lake
vs
Middle class British Youths are generally represented as being more law abiding, consciencious citizens - The Inbetweeners
On-top of this the antagonists are always the working class youths and middle class adults are positioned to be the protagonists
Fish Tank
Directed by Andrea Arnold
Released in 2009
Iconic hoody with mum who shows no feelings towards child - lower class
dialogue, mode of address, location, alcohol, smoking
Lack of parenting and education
Challenging male dominance
Represented as the victim - positioned to identify with her
Broken Britain context but more sympathetic towards them
Behaviour of characters is less exagerated/extreme - no torturing and general mayhem
Female protagonist
Handycam - feeling of realism through jolty movements - social realist edge - same as Harry Brown - help you identify with situations
Almost all teenage characters in representations are clearly working class
Main adult characters tend to be more middle class
Representations may be said to reflect middle class anxiety at threat of working class to their hegemonic dominance.
Is one of the functions of these representations to maintain hegemony?
Who produces this representations? Why?
Media Effects
Do media representations of young people effect how they are perceived?
If so how does this effect occur?
Hypodermic Model - Believe everything that the media injects into them.
Cultivation Theory - If you see enough violence/criminal behaviour within British youth in the media the more you are likely to believe it is realistic and occurs in society at that level.
Copy Cat Theory - Influenced by what you see to the extent that you do the same.
Moral Panic - Media instills an image into the publics mind and creates a panic within society - newspapers creating articles on violence within British youth.
Youths - Antagonist
Police -Protagonist
Analysis questions...
Whose perspective is dominant in each of the texts?
What do the representations have in common?
How are the representations different?
How are the parental figures represented?
How important is social class?
Contemporary British Social Realism
What do you understand by Contemporary British social realism?
Social realist films attempt to portray issues facing ordinary people in their social situations.
Social realist films try to show that society and the capitalist system leads to exploitation of the poor or dispossessed.
These groups are shown as victims of the system rather then being totally responsible for their own bad behaviour.
'These places represent an everywhere of Britiain, where relationships are broken down and where people have become isolated and disconnected. Their Britishness is their culturally specific address to audiences at home.' (Murray, 2008)
Audience
Social realist films which address social problems in this country offer a very different version of 'collective identity' than British films which are also aimed at an American audience. Films like Notting Hill and Love Actually reach a much bigger audience than the lower budget social realist films.
Social realist films are aimed at a predominantly British audience.
If many more people see the more commercial films, consider which version of our collective indentity is the more powerful or has the most impact.
Analysing Representation of Collective Identity
When comparing how Britishness and our collective identity is represented in films consider the following questions:
Who is being represented?
Who is representing them?
How are they represented?
What seems to be the intentions of the representations?
What is the dominant discourse? (World wide view offered by the film.)
What range of readings are there?
Look for alternative discourses
Collective Identity
The media contributes to our sense of 'collective identity' but there are many different versions that change over time.
Representations can cause problems for the groups being represented because marginalized groups have little control over their representation/stereotyping
The social context in which the film/TV programme is made influences the messages/values/dominant discourse of the film.
Encoding - Decoding (Stuart Hall, 1980): Active Audience Theory
Encoding - Decoding is an active audience theory developed by Stuart Hall which examines the relationship between a text and its audience.
Encoding is the process by which a text is constructed by its producers.
Decoding is the process by which the audience reads, understands and interprets a text.
Hall states that texts are polysemic, meaning they may be read differently by different people, depending on their indentity, cultural knowledge and opinions.
Preferred Reading/Dominant Hegemonic
When an audience interprets the message as it was meant to be understood, they are operating in the dominant code. The position of professional broadcasters and media producers is that messages are already signified within the hegemonic manner to which they are accustomed. Professional codes for the media organisations serve to contribute to this type of industrial psychology. The producers and the audience are in harmony , understanding, communicating and sharing mediated signs in the established mindset of framing.
Negotiated Reading
Not all audiences may understand what media producers take for granted. There may be some acknowledgement of differences in understanding.
Will accept parts but not all of them, yet acknowledge dominant ideologies but do not agree with all of them.
Oppositional Reading/Counter Hegemonic
When media consumers understand the dominant ideologies yet will still disagree with the text entirely, for example - The Guardian will not buy The Sun - disagress what it stands for and the way it represents the news.
Any Representation is a Mixture of -
1. The thing itself.
2. The opinions of the people doing the representations.
3. The reaction of the individual to the representations.
4. The contexts of the society in which the representation is taking place.
Stereotyping
Why do we stereotype?
To categorize people and put them into boxes so we can understand and indentify types of people easier. Simplistic representations with different characters traits in which we find connections to make it more believable.
Implicit Personality Theory
We rely on experiences on the past more than the way the person is behaving in reality.
We have each a system of rules that tells us which characteristics go with other characteristics.
We categorise people into types to simplify the task of person perception.
If we encounter someone in reality or in the media who seems to fit neatly into stereotype, we feel reassured. It confirms our prototype view - we do not need to think further.
Once a few of the traits seems to fit our prototype, we will immediately bundle onto the person the rest of the traits from the prototype even if we do now know they fit them in reality.
It is almost as if we conspire with the media to misunderstand the world.
Directed by Ben Palmer
Released in 2011
Age
Leaving school age trying to be rebellious or free willed by going on holiday yet the parents are all still paying for them.
Relatively realistic representation
Parents very stereotypical and loving towards the group but especially Will's mum who treats him as if he was still a young boy by calling him embarressing names.
Ethnicity
Only focuses on fully British people within the main group of characters so no different ethnicities represented in the opening sequence to the film.
Not releastic of living in a suburb of London.
Gender
Surface trying to be stereotypical men but underlying emotions
Women objectified as they are shown to be looked down upon by the males
Love life of Simon with Carly having a lot more power over him
Social Class + Status
Middle class
Will wedgied by lower class bully
Neil has a job - parents still pay for holiday - lack of independance
Going on holiday
Subarban neighbourhood complete safety
Lots of traditional parenting and education within the middle class
Social class: Reinforcing Cultural Hegemony/Dominant Ideologies
Working class British youths are generally represented as being violent, brutal, unapologetic, criminals, addictive personalities - Harry Brown, Kidulthood, Quadraphenia, Eden Lake
vs
Middle class British Youths are generally represented as being more law abiding, consciencious citizens - The Inbetweeners
On-top of this the antagonists are always the working class youths and middle class adults are positioned to be the protagonists
Fish Tank
Directed by Andrea Arnold
Released in 2009
Iconic hoody with mum who shows no feelings towards child - lower class
dialogue, mode of address, location, alcohol, smoking
Lack of parenting and education
Challenging male dominance
Represented as the victim - positioned to identify with her
Broken Britain context but more sympathetic towards them
Behaviour of characters is less exagerated/extreme - no torturing and general mayhem
Female protagonist
Handycam - feeling of realism through jolty movements - social realist edge - same as Harry Brown - help you identify with situations
Almost all teenage characters in representations are clearly working class
Main adult characters tend to be more middle class
Representations may be said to reflect middle class anxiety at threat of working class to their hegemonic dominance.
Is one of the functions of these representations to maintain hegemony?
Who produces this representations? Why?
Media Effects
Do media representations of young people effect how they are perceived?
If so how does this effect occur?
Hypodermic Model - Believe everything that the media injects into them.
Cultivation Theory - If you see enough violence/criminal behaviour within British youth in the media the more you are likely to believe it is realistic and occurs in society at that level.
Copy Cat Theory - Influenced by what you see to the extent that you do the same.
Moral Panic - Media instills an image into the publics mind and creates a panic within society - newspapers creating articles on violence within British youth.
Youths - Antagonist
Police -Protagonist
Analysis questions...
Whose perspective is dominant in each of the texts?
What do the representations have in common?
How are the representations different?
How are the parental figures represented?
How important is social class?
Contemporary British Social Realism
What do you understand by Contemporary British social realism?
Social realist films attempt to portray issues facing ordinary people in their social situations.
Social realist films try to show that society and the capitalist system leads to exploitation of the poor or dispossessed.
These groups are shown as victims of the system rather then being totally responsible for their own bad behaviour.
'These places represent an everywhere of Britiain, where relationships are broken down and where people have become isolated and disconnected. Their Britishness is their culturally specific address to audiences at home.' (Murray, 2008)
Audience
Social realist films which address social problems in this country offer a very different version of 'collective identity' than British films which are also aimed at an American audience. Films like Notting Hill and Love Actually reach a much bigger audience than the lower budget social realist films.
Social realist films are aimed at a predominantly British audience.
If many more people see the more commercial films, consider which version of our collective indentity is the more powerful or has the most impact.
Analysing Representation of Collective Identity
When comparing how Britishness and our collective identity is represented in films consider the following questions:
Who is being represented?
Who is representing them?
How are they represented?
What seems to be the intentions of the representations?
What is the dominant discourse? (World wide view offered by the film.)
What range of readings are there?
Look for alternative discourses
Collective Identity
The media contributes to our sense of 'collective identity' but there are many different versions that change over time.
Representations can cause problems for the groups being represented because marginalized groups have little control over their representation/stereotyping
The social context in which the film/TV programme is made influences the messages/values/dominant discourse of the film.
Encoding - Decoding (Stuart Hall, 1980): Active Audience Theory
Encoding - Decoding is an active audience theory developed by Stuart Hall which examines the relationship between a text and its audience.
Encoding is the process by which a text is constructed by its producers.
Decoding is the process by which the audience reads, understands and interprets a text.
Hall states that texts are polysemic, meaning they may be read differently by different people, depending on their indentity, cultural knowledge and opinions.
Preferred Reading/Dominant Hegemonic
When an audience interprets the message as it was meant to be understood, they are operating in the dominant code. The position of professional broadcasters and media producers is that messages are already signified within the hegemonic manner to which they are accustomed. Professional codes for the media organisations serve to contribute to this type of industrial psychology. The producers and the audience are in harmony , understanding, communicating and sharing mediated signs in the established mindset of framing.
Negotiated Reading
Not all audiences may understand what media producers take for granted. There may be some acknowledgement of differences in understanding.
Will accept parts but not all of them, yet acknowledge dominant ideologies but do not agree with all of them.
Oppositional Reading/Counter Hegemonic
When media consumers understand the dominant ideologies yet will still disagree with the text entirely, for example - The Guardian will not buy The Sun - disagress what it stands for and the way it represents the news.
Any Representation is a Mixture of -
1. The thing itself.
2. The opinions of the people doing the representations.
3. The reaction of the individual to the representations.
4. The contexts of the society in which the representation is taking place.
Stereotyping
Why do we stereotype?
To categorize people and put them into boxes so we can understand and indentify types of people easier. Simplistic representations with different characters traits in which we find connections to make it more believable.
Implicit Personality Theory
We rely on experiences on the past more than the way the person is behaving in reality.
We have each a system of rules that tells us which characteristics go with other characteristics.
We categorise people into types to simplify the task of person perception.
If we encounter someone in reality or in the media who seems to fit neatly into stereotype, we feel reassured. It confirms our prototype view - we do not need to think further.
Once a few of the traits seems to fit our prototype, we will immediately bundle onto the person the rest of the traits from the prototype even if we do now know they fit them in reality.
It is almost as if we conspire with the media to misunderstand the world.
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