How is the group you have studied collectively represented and provided for in the media?

The representation of youth and youth culture in the media is commonly exaggerated, misleading and stereotypical. There is constant conflict between how youth perceive themselves and how others perceive them.

“The media merely reflect identity, they construct it” (Stuart Hall). The media encode messages in certain ways so that society will decode it in certain ways which causes moral panics and constructing youth identities and stereotypes in society. For example, the tabloid, the Daily Mirror had the headline ‘Yob rule’, clearly stating that youths have taken over society, causing moral panics and an uproar in society. This would make society turn against youths.  . The mass media construct collective identities through different forms of media and through Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding media messages, for example, in the film ‘Kidulthood’ which was directed by Noel Clarke, showed society how youths are and that their collective identity is corrupted, through the swearing, sexual conducts, drug taking and carefree life. Noel Clarke encoded and portrayed that this was the kind of youth he had which he represented in the film, however, the society have decoded the representation of youth negatively and this has caused the collective identity of youth to be bad. Comparing the way ‘Kidulthood’ has represented youths to how ‘Rebel without a Cause’ has represented youth, there are vast differences, for example, in ‘Rebel without a Cause’ there was no portrayal of youths taking drugs and conducting sexual activities or going majorly against the law by stealing and being ASBO’s, it was more about being rebellious in a small extend for example, going out late or sneaking out.

Futuristic films such as Shank, directed by Mo Ali, shows how youths can be in the future, as it is presented in the year 2015. It basically shows how society has rejected youths completely that they have to be in gangs to survive and survive on their own. This can be a possibility as youths have been represented negatively for some many years and over the years it has just been getting worse, so in the future society could reject youths.

“Identity is complicated” said David Gauntlett. There has been a dramatic change in the media in recent years including the Internet and how youths have utilised this to construct their identity. By considering Gauntlett's theory, we can see how youths have represent and develop their identities.

Facebook and Twitter, Youtube and other websites that are considered ‘user-centred information sharing sites’, are classed as Web 2.0. This has been used by youths as a form of rebellion against the regulated society created by the media and generally older people. Regulators cannot censor constantly updating websites such as Facebook or Youtube so youths use this to their advantage, to spread their opinions. The Web 2.0 has clearly evolved and we can see this by looking at the comparison between the Brixton Riots 1981 and the London 2011 Riots. Through Web 2.0 youths have started to create, develop and improve their collective identities. Social networking website such as Facebook and Twitter have become more popular within youth. It allows youths to use these websites to develop their collective identity, for example, Richard Jenkins stated that ‘we need to interact in order to form our identity with other people or with the media.’, he believed that partaking in an event in reality or virtually with people whom we feel comfortable with helps us to form our collective identity identification and aspiration. Similarly Henri Jenkins had the same concept as Richard Jenkins did as he said, teens are constantly updating and customising their profiles online to construct and experiment with their identities. To youths social networks can give a sense of belonging as they would be in a distinct ‘in group’ (Henri Tajfel). Enforcing regulations and censorship on Web 2.0 is difficult as it allows users to add photos, songs and postings, therefore, it is hard to censor.

The London 2011 Riots were planned over social networking sites and Blackberry Messenger. The rioters used these tools to communicate with each other and even posted statuses and pictures of themselves with stolen goods as a ‘trophy’. The communication between rioters in London was much quicker which made it harder for regulators to stop them. Twitter was even asked to be shut down because it was being used as a catalyst to plan riots and Blackberry Messenger was taken down for a few days. These things were not around when the Brixton riots happened so it was harder for youths to riot in massive groups.

After the London 2011 Riots, tabloids generated moral panic which created a sense of fear around youths and readers adopted this biased opinion. A negative view of youths had been reinforced to the public because of the London 2011 Riots, and inevitably, the tabloids. By persuading people to believe that youths, as one big collective identity, were destructive, the print media had thus contributed to postmodernism and constructed our reality. They have done this by blurring the boundaries between reality and representation. Youths were grouped in with, and associated with rioting and violent behaviour. As Michael Foucault said, being in a collective identity introduces the creation of stereotypes, and once you are stereotyped, it’s hard to be seen differently from then on. The only time youths are represented positively is when they die, as tabloids state how the youth was a smart student, with the potential to do well in the future etc…

To conclude, youths may be able to relate to films, however, films over exaggerate and try to generalise the negative actions of some youths to all youths, which creates a negative collective identity. Youths can use Web 2.0 to create and construct their collective identities, however, some youths decide to abuse the freedom of social networks and communicate on them to create riots like they did in the London Riots in 2011.

What is collective Identity and how is it mediated?

Social media gives us a sense of belonging as it allows teens to explore and expand their identity. It gives teens a collective identity as the Henry Jenkins theory states that teens constantly update and customize their profiles online and these activities can also allow teens to construct and experiment with their identity.

A collective identity is a sense of ‘one-ness’. It is like a membership in a social group that is collective and has a sense of togetherness. Therefore, social networks such as Facebook and twitter give teens a collective identity as they may be a group of people that like a certain band or artist.

Michael Foucault said that social media is a surveillance in society and is used as a form of social organisation. This therefore, is stating that other is constantly watching teen’s social lives from family to friends. This can also relate back to the London riots as they say that due to social networking many young teenagers got together and decided to riot.

“Identity is complicated – everybody thinks they’ve got one’ this was stated by David Gauntlett, this therefore means that everyone’s identity is complex, however, if someone lives in a communist country, then their identities is said to be the same, as they would have to follow the same rules. For example, China is a communist country as they can only have one child and have to follow certain rules; therefore, they have no identity. This supports the Marxism theory that was started by Karl Marx; it is a communist theory that determines that all members of society will be governed by work and in a class less system. All members of society must follow a governed viewpoint – they must follow the rules, drive the same car, live the same life and we must hold a common perception of each other. Thus, stating that no one would have an identity if they lived like that.

Not only does social media/digital media give us a sense of belonging but it also requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups according to David Buckingham. Therefore, social media requires us to be cautious to what we do, for example, for celebrities, the social media/digital media at times gives them a sense of belonging and collective identity, however, when they do something wrong, then the media turns against them and make them look bad.

Social media/digital media also gives us a sense of a social identity, as the media is all around us.  Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, MSN etc… are all types of social identities as many people use those sites. Henri Tajfel’s social identity theory assumes that individuals strive to improve their self-image by trying to enhance their self-esteem, based on either personal identity or various social identities. Also he argues that there is a distinct ‘in group’ and an ‘out-group’. This is developed in ‘in group’ favouritism and ‘out group’ discrimination. The individuals self – esteem is marinating by being part of the ‘in group’. Therefore, social media gives people a social identity and from there people start to form social groups in which they identify with.

Through social media/digital media subculture and counter cultures are formed, as a social group within a national culture that has distinctive patterns of behaviour and belief are called subcultures. Therefore, people have they own group, which they have identified with, and have a similar identity. A counter culture is a group that runs a counter culture to subvert oppression.

Thus to conclude, social media/ digital media gives us a sense of belonging and a collective identity to a certain extent.

Analyse a chosen product you've created against audience theories.

In my AS production I created a urban film opening, it is about a young youth’s struggle in the lower classed society, with drugs and violence as his environment, it is about what path the youth should choose. The magic bullet theory by Berger 1995, Hoynes (1997) argues that It is a model of communication which an intended message is directly received and accepted by the receiver. They argued that the media's message is a bullet fired from the "media gun" into the viewer's "head". This can relate to our film opening as the target audience can accept our message that youth can choose the right path even when there is many influence around them that lead them into the wrong path.

Audience tend to go see watch our movie to escape everyday problems and routine and they can relate to our film, as they see themselves reflected in their texts. Audiences would go see movies for escapism (escape from everyday problems and routine), personal identity (seeing yourself reflected in texts), personal relationships (finding a connection with someone in a text), surveillance (Keeping up to date with news and current information). The audience gratification theory would relate to our music video as youths can identify with the messages of your film as they might be in the same situation as the main character is.

In our film opening people can give an opinion on how they think the film would be and through that tell others through word of mouth giving them their opinion on the film. Also on our music video, our target audience can watch it and give an opinion about it whether they like it or not or can relate to themselves, and from that they can use word of mouth to tell others. This would be the prime example of the Two Step Flow.

Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding theory can relate to our film opening as it is to do with the way our audience would decode the message/texts within the film and how they may interpret actions within the film.

Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how the skills have been developed over time.

Real media products were used as an example and as a relation to what we wanted our music video and film opening to look like in terms of camera shots and codes and conventions.
To start with, in my AS production I created an urban film opening. I used YouTube to find examples of other urban media product and to analyse the codes and conventions used in the film openings. ‘Kidulthood’ was one of the main examples used as it makes it very clear what type of genre it is through the different shots of the lower class estates, urban backgrounds and through the colliquism. Since we decided to relate Kidulthood to our production, we decided to make the mise en scene very similar, with the isolated roads and background noises of the sirens making it clear that the area was lower classed.

I then analysed the codes and conventions of ‘Shank’ and tended to see that the weather always was dull and cloudy, showing a sense of tension, struggle and sadness. We therefore decided to film on a cloud and dull day to emphasise the rural and lower class area, making people aware of the struggle.

Our main character was very conventional, usually the protagonist. Therefore, we dressed our main character to the conventional urban male, with the tracksuits and hoody. We used a range of basic shots types that made it effective and enigmatic, a shot starting from his feet and slowly revealing the character.

Real media products were used as an example and as a relation to what we wanted our music video to look like in terms of camera shots and codes and conventions. For example, we used Diggy Simmons music video called 'Do it like you' as one of our examples, as the rap video was rather similar to the type of music video we wanted to create, it target a young niche audience and used a range of camera angles showing their unique styles. Also the main artist was able to convey his charms openly to win over the girl, this links with our music video as our production is attempting to portray similarly to Diggy Simmons music video by using a range of camera angles and using charms and charisma to get the girl.

Then decided on our narrative after watching a range of different music videos, most urban/funky music videos have a lot of exhilaration and fun in them with some mixtures of young love. Therefore, we came to the conclusion of creating a skating and rollerblading music video, where a young girl is a 'bad mama jama', this clearly conforms to the lyrics of the song as we are making a young girl a bad mama jama in our music video, which conforms to the codes of the music video.

Since we decided to create a music video based on skating, rollerblading and young love, we started to look at different shot types, urban dress codes and videos that had skating shots in them, for example, the Far East Movement was able to show a model skating in time with the music, it also shows emphasis the urban environment and what people do to express how they feel for example, graffiti art.

The background images of graffiti in our music video empathize and express the urban atmosphere, this conforms to the forms and conventions of real media as a lot of urban landscapes/environments tend to have graffiti around which makes them recognizable and rural.

Our media products show a bit of male dominance, as it shows our main character approaching young women and attempting to woo her. This conforms to conventions of real media as it always tends to be the male figure approaching the young female to try to woo her. On the other hand, our media product subverts and challenges forms and conventions of real media products because we didn't use a conventionally dressed young woman that is provocative.

Close up shots conform to the codes and conventions of real media products, as all music videos have at least some sort of close up shot as they may want to make something recognisable, for example, in our music video we had a vast number of close up shots, this allows the target audience to recognise our main character, show his importance and promote him (Richard Dyers Star Theory), the close up shots also allow the target audience to see the facial expressions to tell what type of song it would be e.g. sad or happy.

Through our editing we challenged and developed our music video, the slow motion added the effect of professionalism and it emphasised on what the music video was partly about (Skating and Rollerblading). One of the transitions we used challenged the way other real media texts have edited their music videos as we had the screen split in half, one side showing our main character skating and the other side showing the him singing. This was very effective as in one shot we summed up the whole narrative and one side was of our main character and the conventional women together rollerblading looking like a couple and on the other side him singing with the background image of graffiti which is empathising on the urban environment.

Our mise-en-scene uses the same types of codes and conventions a real media products, as music videos can be shot anywhere around the world and they tend to conform to the type of genre to make it effective and realistic. Our camera angles do not challenge the conventions of real media products, as all types of camera shots have been used before.

Explain how far your understanding of the conventions of existing media influences the way you created your own media products. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how this understanding developed over time.

Real media products were used as an example and as a relation to what we wanted our music video to look like in terms of camera shots and codes and conventions. For example, we used Diggy Simmons music video called 'Do it like you' as one of our examples, as the rap video was rather similar to the type of music video we wanted to create, it target a young niche audience and used a range of camera angles showing their unique styles. Also the main artist was able to convey his charms openly to win over the girl, this links with our music video as our production is attempting to portray similarly to Diggy Simmons music video by using a range of camera angles and using charms and charisma to get the girl. 

We then decided on our narrative after watching a range of different music videos, most urban/funky music videos have a lot of exhilaration and fun in them with some mixtures of young love. Therefore, we came to the conclusion of creating a skating and rollerblading music video, where a young girl is a 'bad mama jama', this clearly conforms to the lyrics of the song as we are making a young girl a bad mama jama in our music video, which conforms to the codes of the music video.

Since we decided to create a music video based on skating, rollerblading and young love, we started to look at different shot types, urban dress codes and videos that had skating shots in them, for example, the Far East Movement was able to show a model skating in time with the music, it also shows emphasis the urban environment and what people do to express how they feel for example, graffiti art. 

The background images of graffiti in our music video empathize and express the urban atmosphere, this conforms to the forms and conventions of real media as a lot of urban landscapes/environments tend to have graffiti around which makes them recognizable and rural.

Our media products show a bit of male dominance, as it shows our main character approaching young women and attempting to woo her. This conforms to conventions of real media as it always tends to be the male figure approaching the young female to try to woo her. On the other hand, our media product subverts and challenges forms and conventions of real media products because we didn't use a conventionally dressed young woman that is provocative.

Close up shots conform to the codes and conventions of real media products, as all music videos have at least some sort of close up shot as they may want to make something recognisable, for example, in our music video we had a vast number of close up shots, this allows the target audience to recognise our main character,  show his importance and promote him (Richard Dyers Star Theory), the close up shots also allow the target audience to see the facial expressions to tell what type of song it would be e.g. sad or happy.

Through our editing we challenged and developed our music video, the slow motion added the effect of professionalism and it emphasised on what the music video was partly about (Skating and Rollerblading). One of the transitions we used challenged the way other real media texts have edited their music videos as we had the screen split in half, one side showing our main character skating and the other side showing the him singing. This was very effective as in one shot we summed up the whole narrative and one side was of our main character and the conventional women together rollerblading looking like a couple and on the other side him singing with the background image of graffiti which is empathising on the urban environment.

Our mise-en-scene uses the same types of codes and conventions a real media products, as music videos can be shot anywhere around the world and they tend to conform to the type of genre to make it effective and realistic. Our camera angles do not challenge the conventions of real media products, as all types of camera shots have been used before.

I believe as a whole our music video conforms to the forms and conventions of a real media product as it has a recognizable urban look to it and a funky atmosphere to it. Nevertheless, it conforms to the postmodern genre; however, the way it subverts from the actual code and conventions is through the use of having a clear story line, in which our music video continually creates. Therefore, it subverts to postmodernism because it postmodernism doesn’t follow the

Artists get very creative in terms of codes and conventions on a website, as they need to make it as attractive as they can so that the target audience would engage init.
By using pre-existing websites of other artists and using them as an example, we made our website very easy to access and understanding for viewers, however, we made it attractive by the colours, which we kept consistent with our digi pack, as soon as someone enters the website our music starts playing, this develops the codes and conventions of real media texts because the websites we viewed didn’t have that, therefore, we decided to put it on, this makes it recognisable to our target audience and plays them the main song that our artist has, which basically promotes our artists song. Within our website we have a page for our artist ‘Alex Jones’, for our production company ‘Cloudkickers’, a gallery full of pictures and a contact section. We made our website conventional.

Our album cover didn’t really challenge codes and conventions real media texts, however, it used and developed them. We used adobe Photoshop to edit our pictures for the album cover to make it look sharper and to change the colour to make it look more professional and attractive. Many artists album covers had their pictures at the front to make them recognisable, therefore, we done the same by putting our main character at the front of our album cover. However, at the back we have a close up shot of rollerblades, this would make the audience aware that rollerblades is our symbol.

Looking at two media, describe the ways in which a particular group of people (youth) are collectively represented or provided for, using specific examples to support your response.

Youth have been represented negatively towards society for years and as the media have portrayed youths more dangerously over time, which has caused a lot of moral panic towards society.

Stuart Hall argued that the media appear to reflect reality whilst in fact they construct it. The mass media construct collective identities through different forms of media and through Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding media messages, for example, in the film ‘Kidulthood’ which was directed by Noel Clarke, showed society how youths are and that their collective identity is corrupted, through the swearing, sexual conducts, drug taking and carefree life. Noel Clarke encoded and portrayed that this was the kind of youth he had which he represented in the film, however, the society have decoded the representation of youth negatively and this has caused the collective identity of youth to be bad. Comparing the way ‘Kidulthood’ has represented youths to how ‘Rebel without a Cause’ has represented youth, there are vast differences, for example, in ‘Rebel without a Cause’ there was no portrayal of youths taking drugs and conducting sexual activities or going majorly against the law by stealing and being ASBO’s, it was more about being rebellious in a small extend for example, going out late or sneaking out.

Through Web 2.0 youths have started to create, develop and improve their collective identities. Social networking website such as Facebook and Twitter have become more popular within youth. It allows youths to use these websites to develop their collective identity, for example, Richard Jenkins stated that ‘we need to interact in order to form our identity with other people or with the media.’, he believed that partaking in an event in reality or virtually with people whom we feel comfortable with helps us to form our collective identity identification and aspiration. Similarly Henri Jenkins had the same concept as Richard Jenkins did as he said, teens are constantly updating and customising their profiles online to construct and experiment with their identities. To youths social networks can give a sense of belonging as they would be in a distinct ‘in group’ (Henri Tajfel). Enforcing regulations and censorship on Web 2.0 is difficult as it allows users to add photos, songs and postings, therefore, it is hard to censor.

One type of media is very important and recognisable to society and this is the way the media mainly create moral panic and construct collective identities and stereotypes. This is through the newspapers and news. The London Riots caused a huge moral panic and uproar in society giving a negative representation for youth’s collective identities and making them more stereotypical, as youths were represented to me uncontrollable, violent and carefree, as they burned down cars and shops, robbed stores etc… The rioters used social networking sites to communicate and plan riots; they used Blackberry Messenger, Twitter and Facebook. It was difficult for regulators to stop this from occurring as rioters where quick to communicate with others, Twitter even got told to shut down during the riots and so did BlackBerry Messenger. Communication was not around in the times of the Brixton Riots, so it was harder for youths to riot in huge groups.

The press encode their own messages to society and make the society decode and deconstruct these messages negatively. The newspapers use buzz words such as ‘thugs’ and ‘yobs’ in big bold letters so that it makes the society recognise and attracts them to read. Tabloids such as The Sun deliberately exaggerate the representations of youths, they look too much into the negativity of the youths than the positive side of the youths for example, education, sports, charity etc… these articles that over exaggerate the negative representations of youths collective identity give an hegemonic view towards to society, making society have stereotypical views of youths and makes them dislike them. The press groups youths in gangs and gives society a stereotypical view of them, this gives youths one main collective identity instead of individual collective identities. By the press doing things like this would only provoke youths to just live up to their stereotypes as they have no say in these situations as it is too late, therefore, it would only aggravate them, for example, many youths said that the London Riots was due to how the newspapers and the society view youths as and how they are rejected by society and adults.

Futuristic films such as Shank, directed by Mo Ali, shows how youths can be in the future, as it is presented in the year 2015. It basically shows how society has rejected youths completely that they have to be in gangs to survive and survive on their own. This can be a possibility as youths have been represented negatively for some many years and over the years it has just been getting worse, so in the future society could reject youths.

To conclude, youths may be able to relate to films, however, films over exaggerate and try to generalise the negative actions of some youths to all youths, which creates a negative collective identity. Youths can use Web 2.0 to create and construct their collective identities, however, some youths decide to abuse the freedom of social networks and communicate on them to create riots like they did in the London Riots in 2011.

Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making

In Year 12, I created an urban film opening for my AS production. In Year 13, I created a music video, website and album cover for my A2 production. To begin with my production I had to research pre-existing products that I could use as an example and to relate to the codes and conventions in order to use them on my production.

In my AS production, for my film opening, I used the Internet to search for different videos that I could relate to and use as an example for my own film opening that I was trying to create. Before deciding what genre to use for our film opening, we decided on a specific target audience which was teenagers and then we decided to make a survey to find out what type of genre teenagers could relate to the best and the specific types of codes and conventions they like in a film. We made the survey on a website called www.surveymonkey.com which was a quick and effective way of creating a survey and getting the statistics of the results. I used the Internet search engine Google to search for different website that can help me find the different synopsis of film openings to get a rough idea of what I would like my product to be like. I used YouTube to find openings of other films, which I could view and see what types of codes and conventions the film has, the different camera angles used to make the film opening affective and attractive for the target audience and the different editing used to make it more professional and attractive. I found that many film openings or trailers were enigmatic which would insure that the target audience would be interested, attracted and engaged to the film as they would want to find out what happens in the film.  I used examples such as Kidulthood and Shank as examples and relation to our music video, the openings had a sense of action and the theme of fighting. We decided to conform to the stereotypical urban opening, with a young teenager coming out a council estate, with the weather being dull and gloomy, with police sirens in the background and quite roads. We also added an enigmatic ending to our film opening trailer to make it more affective and attractive. We used a HD camera to film our film opening and used Final Cut Pro to edit it. We learnt how to use Final Cut Pro on a basic level to sharpen our film opening.

In my A2 production, for my music video, yet again I used YouTube to find different music videos that I could use as examples and relate to for my music video. My group and I collectively decided a specific genre after searching on youtube for different music videos and we decided to go for the urban/funk genre back in the 80’s, making it unique and retrospective. By researching other music videos we also decided what type of codes and conventions we wanted to specifically use for example, skateboards and rollerblades. So I started to research different music videos with skateboards and rollerblades and also videos that had different shot types of skateboarders and rollerblades since we decided that our singer would be on skates. By researching on different types of skateboarding/rollerblading videos and shot types we found a few that we wanted to imitate for our music video, as we found that there was loads of close ups of the main singer to see the different expressions, slow edits to make it effective and close ups of the skates to show it as a symbol for the music videos. Far East Movement’s song “Fly” had certain shows that we wanted to imitate for example, when the guy was on a skateboard and the way they filmed him from the side whilst he was moving fast and the background of people’s graffiti and have a skater atmosphere to show how it was symbolised. We used HD camera again, however, this time we used fish eye camera which allowed us to get footage of what the person sees for example, the viewers would be seeing what the main artist sees. We used Final Cut Pro again to edit our music video, however, this time it was to an advanced level, as we had to sync our lyrics so that it is in time with our main singers lip syncing. We used different colour fading techniques to make the video more retrospective as it would be like in the 80’s. We slowed down a specific shot so that it was in slow motion adding effective to our music video making it more professional.

With creating the website, I used a website called Wix, which was an easy and affective way of creating a website that could appeal to our target audience. On our website as soon as someone would go onto it, we would have our music automatically playing which is good because the person viewing the website would be able to hear the type of song we made our music video to. I didn’t make the website too complicated because it would make it difficult for the audience to use; therefore, I made it easy to use for the target audience. I made the background colour of the website to the colour of what our artist was wearing to make it consistent. However, before creating my website, I looked at other artist’s website to get examples on the way it was represented for the target audience.

For the album cover and digi pack, we got different examples from other artists, for example, for Far East Movement’s album cover they had all their pictures at the front with big bold attracting title making them recognisable, they use a star as a symbol which is effective as it makes their target audience recognise them. For our album cover we used consistent colours which matched our website and also put an advisory logo which many artists have on their album cover to state that people buying it need to be a certain age, this made it more professional and legit. The font used was urban writing which was effective as it makes it recognisable for the audience about what type of genre the music is. We used the front cover as our singer to make him recognisable to the audience.

Throughout my course, through AS to A2 my skills have developed from researching to filming to editing. I believe my editing skills has developed as I didn’t do much editing and didn’t know what to do whilst editing, however, I can now create transitions to make it look effective, use slow motion and change the colours to make it more attractive and professional. I believe that my knowledge of media has also developed in terms of different camera angles, making the production look more attractive and professional.