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.
OK - this is much, much better. A clear 'C' grade, but it does end suddenly. The future ideas could be discussed SHANK VS KIDULTHOOD at the beginning and even ADULTHOOD. I would also look at what people said during the release of these films creating binary opposition between class perhaps? You're not waffling here and you have some clear ideas so I am impressed at the significant improvement. Well done.
ReplyDelete