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.