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.