Section A Question B - Theoretical Evaluation of Production
G325 - Criticla Perspectives in Media
(25 mark) 30 mins to answer


You will choose to evaluate one of your pieces of coursework in relation to a media concept

One of the selected areas will be selected for you to write about:
- genre
- narrative
- representation
- audience
- media language

Need to understand all concepts, including relevant theories
Macro - genre, narrative, representation, audience, media language
Micro - lighting, mise en scene, props, sound, location
Talk about the micro analysis which enables the macro to exist

Genre

Genres are categories or types of media text. genre are recognisable through the repeated use of genreic codes and conventions
- iconographies
- narrative
- representations
- ideologies
Which of the above codes and conventions does your c/w use and how?

Theories for genre
- Steve Neale (1980) - all genres are instances of repetition and difference
- Douglas Pye - films have to conform to audience expectations about narrative
- Tom Ryall - conventions - narrative, themes, characters/stereotypes, iconography

If you are talking about genre then audience links in with this too for example 'my courseowork follows typical conventions which will gain audience enjoyment from 'spotting the conventions' (repetition) and making comparisons with other films of the same genre'. Audience like the anticipation of waiting fot the predictable features.

 however if your coursework challenges conventions you can talk about how it confuses the audience but they enjoy it by seeing rules being broken and trying to work it out.

How did you use genre to offer your audience a framework? Do you think your target audience enjoyed spotting the conventions or seeing the rules broken?

Narrative


Your A2 teaser trailer would suit this question best

Theories for narrative
- Propp - 8 character roles (there are certain characters that appear in every film e.g. hero vs villain, antagonist vs. protaganist, damsel in distress etc)
- Todorov - equilibrium - disequilibrium - new equilibrium (film starts of with equilibrium (reality normality), leads to problem (disequilibrium) then character over comes this disequilibrium (problem solved) - new equilibrium)
- Barthes - 5 codes (action, enigma, cultural, symbolic, semic)
- Levi-Strauss - binary opposites

Verisimilitude - normality, how you constructed normality within your product e.g lighting, location, props, clothing realistic to create verisimiltude.

Representation


- Who or what is being represented?
- How is the representation being created?
- Who has created the representation? (me/partner)
- Why is the representation created in that way?/ What is the intention?
- What is the effect of the representation?

Talk about mode of address, location, gender stereotypes, mise en scene, music, editing, camera work. Did you represent any characters in a certain way to remind your audience of someone/something else?

Intertextuality Versimilitude - refrences to other films/media texts that represents an existing popular text

Audience


Consider: age, gender, demographic profile, socio-economic group, existing/new, lifestyle, values, attitude
- Categories A, B, C1, C2, D, E
- Is your audience mass or niche
- What would the three reactions to your coursework be:
1. a preferred reading (your intended interpretation)
2. An oppositional reading ( someone who didnt like it)
3. A negotiated reading (someone who isnt the target audience but might appreciate it for whatever reason)
(Stuart Hall)
- How did you try and please your audience?
- Were you successful? Did you satisfy audience needs and expectation? (refer to audience feedback)
- At the heart of this is the fact that all media texts are created in order to make money

Media Language


You need to write about:
- Denotations
- Connotations
- Anchorage (to encourage audience in e.g. A picture of someone famous then anchoring audience in with a tag line or 'exclusive')

Genre, Representations, camera, editing, sound (diagetic/non diagetic), lighting, music, mise en scene are all media languages used to communicate with the audience.

Use theories from the other macro elements


Examplar Essay

1b) The media production I am going to write about in relation to genre is my favourite piece from the whole course which is my horror teaser trailer.

The genre of the trailer is obviously ‘horror’ and this in itself allowed us to be creative with narrative etc but limited us because we had to stick to a certain amount of generic conventions in order for it to be recognised by it’s existing target audience. Steve Neal said that ‘genre is a repetition with an underlying pattern of variations’ which meant certain generic features had to be included and repeated which in my case was the use of a creepy location of the woods as well as hand held camera and restricted narration to cause disorientation and suspense within our trailer.

However, the pattern of variation Neal describes also links to my horror teaser trailer because we were able to creatively push the boundaries by twisting some generic features in order to make the trailer interesting and therefore cause the audience to want to watch the full movie. For this my group chose use a female psycho killer I order to subvert the stereotypical male dominated role. This female identification through point of view shots etc captured our female audience because were providing them with power and this is unusual for the horror genre although it is known for its forward thinking approach as it often attempts to focus on sub-cultural views instead of targeting the mainstream. Genre encompasses many parts and the trailer links to it in more ways than one. Its use of enclosed location and the fact the woods attempts to reinforce our society’s fear of loneliness and isolation which the woods creates when the three friends get lost. In these sections of the trailer we used a lot of heavy cross cutting between the female victim who is running anxiously through the woods in order to find her friends and get home safely. We also used the Kuleshov and collision cutting methods as the pace began slow as the friends head our in the car unaware of the danger before them and once they are in the woods we deliberately quickened the pace of editing to cause tension and to show that something is not right, keeping the audience on the edge of their seats.

Editing and mise-en-scene is really important to genre and reflects very quickly certain moods and atmospheres. Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes argued that the horror genre like many others used ‘binary oppositions’ in order to show the contrast between good and evil in order to force the audience to be constantly questioning the trailer for example; in my trailer I used light and dark to connote their happiness and carefree attitude in the daytime and the darkness to emphasise their fear and reliance on their senses. This is particularly important to the horror genre as characters are often shown in high angle shots to appear vulnerable and therefore under threat.

Gore or ‘body horror’ is also a common generic convention used by most horror films that we studied including Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero who used it to make the audience feel sick by forcing them to see extreme violence. In my own trailer we were inspired to use gore differently by showing a hanging scene in slow motion to create tension and the centring in on the face and neck which had been broken and this was shown by the rope burn we had made from latex and the blood pouring down her chest. This shot moves clockwise and slowly zooms in to force the audience to see what the hang (woman) has done. In our final two shots we finish the trailer with the male anti hero being lifted off the ground with blood pouring out of his mouth which causes the audience to assume no one survives because the final girl is stabbed by her friend accidentally which quickens the pace and adds tension but she is the survivor who as Carol Clover suggests will be terrorised throughout the film and finally overcome the monster. This plays with the audiences emotions and links back to the horror genre well by creating our own style of horror. Andrew Sarris argues because it encompasses so much and is key to explaining a film. Genre is the ideas that collectively make a particular recognisable style that draws in its existing target audience. My horror trailer had expressionist camera angles as the female victim desperately trips over the camera and we see her running above it as well as close ups of her facial expression that causes us to identify with her fear and therefore makes us scared. This meant the audience also were forced to objectify the female victim from the high angle camera shot down her top in which we can see her breasts slightly after watching other Hitchcock movies which use the male gaze theory by Laura Mulvey to force us to take a male’s viewpoint.

In my trailer we also used an iconic symbol of the noose because obviously as a hang woman she needed the prop but also as a female the circular shape suggested female power and this is something the horror genre often does but for male characters using guns etc as phallic symbols which we also used as the male anti hero takes out a knife and stabs his friend frantically when she walks up behind him. The horror trailer was made much darker in Final Cut Pro using the brightness and contrast menu and also dragged the saturated colours towards the blue in order to create a dark, dusky night time atmosphere a generic convention of horror trailers.

The generic conventions we chose to use were all important to the success of our product and since distributing it on YouTube we have over 4000 which I am really pleased with and gives me the confidence that we obviously stuck to the genre enough to capture our intended target audience but were creative enough to make people want to keep watching the trailer and virally sharing it with others.

Genre places a media text into a grouping giving it an identity which can be recognised by the mainstream society and I believe my product is successfully fitted to the horror genre using the narrative that Todorov argued was important to the horror genre by following an equilibrium at the beginning then a problem which in our case was the male anti hero playing a joke on the soon to be female victim making jump running after him causing their separation then a pathway to resolution – as they attempt to find each other and then a new equilibrium at the end which we deliberately left as an open ending to capture our audience effectively.



EAA 10/10

EG 10/10

Term 5/5

(24/25)

Macro

Micro

Theory

Example

Exemplar Section A

 G325 Section A: Exemplar Essay

1a) Describe how you have developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

Over the two year media course we had to produce both a foundation portfolio of a school magazine and music magazine as well as an advance portfolio of a horror teaser trailer, film magazine – developing foundation skills further and a poster to advertise our trailer.

In the first year we researched existing music magazines and analysed each one so that we could gain knowledge of particular layouts, fonts and key elements that need to be contained in our production to make it successful. Research and planning allowed us to recognise ‘mastheads’ on magazines as being the most important and therefore the need to focus on a font more detailed to keep continuity with the contents page and double page spread which we also had to create.

Personally I researched ‘Rock’ magazines such as Kerrang, NME and others because I had chosen after carrying out a questionnaire to use Rock music as my theme. The real life media texts allowed me to visualise my favourite parts from each magazine – wripped sticker graphics and broken font on my own work which I then attempted to recreate within Photoshop CS4. In year one we were limited to what we could research because magazines were the only theme however, in the second year I was able to develop my ability to research real life media texts much further because we had a range of products we needed to create all under the ‘horror’ genre this time. I was able to research teaser trailers analysing my favourite and least favourite parts allowing me to plan with a mood board which I produced from a range of stills from previous horror films my ideas for my own trailer which helped me to develop my production of my products in relation to real life media texts and techniques such as restricted narration and handheld camera found in the ‘Blair Witch Project’ trailer which inspired my trailer ‘Laquem’ which is also set in the woods. Research into film documentaries like the ‘American Nightmare’ inspired me to create a product which reinforced fear and went against usual horror conventions to make it more interesting. Over the second year research became so important to achieving a product which was realistic and is now like my own distributed on on youtube as a real life media text of its own.

Real life media texts like advertising film posters were able to help me develop my Photoshop skills further because I was able to push myself with the ‘colour burn’ filters and want to create the scary atmosphere of my trailer from just an image and text which I found really fun.

Research into film magazines allowed me to develop my work from AS level so much further because I was able to produce a high standard piece of work in two weeks this year when the magazines took over 3 months last year which shows how much my skills have improves just by being able to constantly refer back to real life media texts for inspiration and even colour schemes that work well together such as black and red which in the first year I just found experimenting with. Research into horror trailers allowed me to recognise different styles of film and how we like Alfred Hitchcock could be an auteur creating new angles and ideas using generic conventions as well as unconventional representations that I have picked upon when watching films and analysing certain techniques which I have then attempted to do in Final Cut Pro when editing certain shots together to create collision cutting and changes in pace which my trailer does extremely well. I was inspired initially by the hand held camera in the

trailer REC and the fact I want as an auteur to change the stereotyped representations to be able use a female psycho killer.

Research also allowed me to produce text and intertitles that shook in order to capture my audience but narrating the story slightly so the shots when together made sense. Research into types of camera movements needed were really helpful and allowed me to completely change the pace with tracking shots and handheld camera which I noticed was used in Silent Hill and American Werewolf in London which I analysed and placed on my blog for reference as some pieces of footage I wanted to recreate including the final girl representations.

Explanation: 8/10
Examples: 8/10
Terminology: 4/5
Overall: 20/25

Good use of specific examples e.g. 'colour burn'
Limited amount of terminology

Analyse the ways in which the media represent one group of people that you have studied

Analysie the ways in which the media represent one group of people that you have studied

Exam Essay Structure

Your answer can include fiction (films), non-fiction (news papers), self-representation (facebook, youtube, twitter) YOU HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT AT LEAST TWO OF THESE TYPES OF MEDIA.

Remember Harry Brown, Fish Tank, The Inbetweeners, Attack the Block, The London Riots news coverage, The Internet and self mediation.

Examples of past representations of youths and compare them two how youths are represented now, Similarities and differences. Have they changed? Plato Quote. Do you think the representations have changed or are they still similar?

You can talk about how Mods and Rockers evolved over time after the WW2 because they were rebelling against society. Before there was just children and adults nothing in between.

What is the impact of stereotyping. What power does the audience have to believe or disbelieve this?
Talk about all theories e.g Moral Panic, youth as an empty category, cultural hegemony, Stuart hall and reading the texts and their messages. Statistics on result of these representations on attitudes and beliefs VS the reality of the issues.

Increasing media = increasing mediation? Representation by others/ by selves (facebook/youtube/youthtube). Be critical of who is offering the representations and for what purpose.

Mediated: How the media shapes your world and the way you live in it

YOU MUST INCLUDE YOUR OWN PERSONAL OPINIONS this may fit nicely in your last paragraph talking about your opinion of what future representations of youths will be and what you are basing this on. connections must be made between examples of opinions and theories that apply to your opinion.

Structure:
- Intro - choose a quote you like. And then rewrite it/summarise it in your own words. link to issues of identity, representations, and the media. state your focus (social group and texts) Say you are looking at representations of youth in newspapers, facebook, films

- historical example (Quadrophenia)
- Contemporary examples
- connect examples together
- conclusion (return to start) prediction of the future.

Remember to reference your examples (director, date, the film, name of newspaper and date) you will get more marks if you do this.

Paragraph structure: quote - paraphrase - critique
one text older than 5 years old (Quadropenia)
other texts with last 5 years (all other things we have looked at (films, newspaper articles, youtube, facebook)

Essay Structure/paragraph structure:

Intro

Historical representations
-example - significance - quote - critique

Contemporary examples
-example - significance - quote - critiqueContemporary examples
-example - significance - quote - critiqueContemporary examples
-example - significance - quote - critiqueConnections/effects

Conclusion
- return to start
- summarise key idea
- prediction of the future

Section A
Section B
(exam: 2 hours long)

Representations of young people

Teens are 10 times more likely to do voluntary work.
Exams are getting harder.

Propaganda is a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a communication toward some cause or position

Words thart describe British youth culture:
- rebels
- yobs
- scum
- hoodies
- reckless
- lazy
- druggies
- binge drinkers
- junkies
- dogs
- ferels

Words of how I view the elderly:
- grumpy
- friendly
- snobby
- narrow minded
- old fashioned
- fragile
- ignorant
- rude
- racist
- curly hair
- disrespectful

Young people and old people arent that disimilar, how much of this is down to your own personal experience or the media.

'The Youth of Today' video:
journalist thinks newspapers are fair to young people (I strongly disagree)
45% of young people volunteer which saves the government 300 million pounds

Case STudy

'How have British youth been represented through different media in the London Riots?'‘

Consider: 

What role did new media technologies, particularly social networking sites play in the London riots?

Do media cause riots or revolutions?

Technology and surveillance: mobile phones, CCTV, 24-hour news….

Quote from the daily mail article: British youths are 'the most unpleasant and violent in the world', August 2011

"...it was now 'quite literally' difficult to 'distinguish the sound of people enjoying themselves from that of someone being murdered.'"

Quote from the guardian: London riots: how BlackBerry Messenger played a key role. August 2011

"One BBM broadcast sent on Sunday, which has been shown to the Guardian by multiple sources, calls on "everyone from all sides of London" to vandalise shops on Oxford street.
It said: "Everyone from all sides of London meet up at the heart of London (central) OXFORD CIRCUS!!, Bare SHOPS are gonna get smashed up so come get some (free stuff!!!) fuck the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! >:O Dead the ends and colour war for now so if you see a brother... SALUT! if you see a fed... SHOOT!""

Quote from Herald Sun article: 'Man shot during London riots dies' August 2011

 ' "It is quite clear that we need more, much more, police on our streets and we need even more robust police action," he said'

Quote from BBC news article: London riots: Metropolitan Police raid 100 homes, December 2011

"We have a huge team of dedicated officers working on this investigation and we will find you."Quote from BBC news article: London riots: Met Police launch major investigation, August 2011

"Throughout the day we have been monitoring social networking sites and I'd like to say right from the outset, we're conscious of some really ill-informed speculation on those sites relating to potential further problems."

Quote from Mirror article:  London riots: Celebrities unite on Twitter to condemn riots, August 2011.

'Tweeted by Lord SUgar: "Feeling very depressed there seems there is nothing we can do about these thugs even if they are caught they will be out within hours."'

'TV and radio personality Dermot O'Leary had a positive message to share: "Out and about this morning. Already seeing strangers being more considerate/friendly to each other. Makes me proud. #londonwillprevail"

Quote from Jessie J: August 2011

Leading the pack, Jessie J tweeted: " These riots are not cool. Frustrates me that I cant do anything, no one can. Anger being taken out on innocent."

Quote from Lily Allen: August 2011 “Are we on the brink of civil war or something ?”

Quotes from Russell Brand: August 2011

"These young people have no sense of community because they haven’t been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron’s mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there’s no such thing."

"I feel proud to be English, proud to be a Londoner (alright an Essex boy) never more so than since being in exile and I naturally began to wonder what would make young people destroy their communities."

Print Representations

Channel 4 Teen Trouble (November 2007)

Journalist: If any other group was treated the way teens are it would probably be against the law.

Public adults have a distorted view of the truth. they think that the amount of crime  in Britain is extremely high(around 85% on average) caused by teens, when in fact only 12% of crime is commited by youths.

Despite the debates around the Hyperdermic seringe needle (theory) that people believe what they read in the newspapers, I would argue that through the proliferation of negative press that actually this theory does exist, particularly in adults.

Newspaper denies that they increase the overall fear of young people.

Police: agree media increases fear of youths, the views arent realistic. Tide of paranoid adults that think teens are no good.

Local shop owners getting moscittos (high pitch noises outside of shop) to stop youths from hanging around their shop, adults cannot hear it.

Teen 'asbo queen' got more publicity than what murderes, rapists did. Treated over the top?

Always been a minority of misbehaving teens

50 years ago people were paying teens to fight to give them something to write about in their newspaper. Journalists may still get people to do things to give them something to write about.

4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK people are now caught doing crimes, more crimes are shown on TV making people more fearful. The more fearful we become the more we lose our sense of percpective linking with the cultivation theory, the more you see it the more likely you are to believe it is happening in real life. 
You are 6 times more likely to fall down a flight of stairs and die than you are to be a victim of a knife attack.

The small minority of crimes caused by teens is being demonated and putting a bad image on the whole generation.

Because of the demonised views of teens created by the media youths feel they need to fight to show they are not like this yet doing this they end up behaving in the way the media represents them because they get angered by it, responding to the way the media want youths to behave so they can write about it.

We are active consumers, we don't take responsibilty for our own actions we have to blame somebody e.g MacDonalds made me fat therefore I have to sue them, when in fact you are responsible for your own diet. Reflecting youths saying the media made me behave in this antisocial way when in fact you can decide how you behave.

Representing youth
IPSOS MORI Survey 2005:

• 40% of articles on violence, crime anti-social behaviour, 71 % are negative

Brunel University 2007:

• TV news violent crime or celebrities, young people are only 1% of sources.

Women in journalism 2008:

• 72% pf articles were negative, 3.4% were positive

Case Study

1. What role did the new media technologies, particularly social netwrokign sites play in the London riots?
2. Do media cause riots or revolutions? (think about globalisation, technology and surveillance: mobile phoned, CCTV, 24-hour news...)



http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/sep/08/broken-britain-rhetoric-fuels-fear

How can you link cultural hegemony to this article?

"massively exaggerated view of problems like crime and drugs, and stigmatise schools in disadvantaged areas."

How does the article suggest moral panic is being caused?

Can you link in McRobbies (symbolising youths as being violent e.g. through the hoody) symbolic violence theory? How?

How far do you agree with this article that governments decisions and policies are continuing to create a divide between the middle and working class? Discuss

Between 6 and 10 August 2011, several London boroughs and districts of cities and towns across England suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson.

Online Media

Connotations of the facebook logo:

- socialising
- friends
- sharing photos
- finding out news
- representations of yourself and others
- identity
- status updates
- advertising
- sharing info
- being nosey
- judgemental
- event invitations/information

Impact of facebook on British youth and youth culture:

Positive:
- Represents youths as social people
- Youths are shown seen in worth while campaigns
- Youths can market themselves e.g. bands, photography - free advertising
- Allows people to express themselves
- Portable - you can access it from anywhere
- never really needed to advertsise because they have esculated by word of mouth

Negative:
- Makes us look like binge drinkers through image and status updates about drunken nights out
- Cyber bullying
- Shown as uneducated when privacy isnt high
- Facebook and Blackberry played a strong role in informing people about riots and getting youths involved.
- May find it harder to socialise face to face

What new forms of social interaction have media technologies enabled?
- Development of self-identity
- Reshaping media messages and their flow - we can verbalise our opinions whether we agree or disagree about an idea the media has creates (goes against hyperdermic theory that the media inject information into us and we take it in and believe it all with no argument)
- Online media focus on some or all of the 7 functionmal building block - identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, repuation and groups (Kietzman 2011)

Online media are especially suitable to construct and develop several identities of the self (Turkle, 1998)

Two levels of representation on facebook:
1. Personal events through own specific language
2. Constructing own images - profile images

If facebook were a country it would be the third biggest country in the world.

The modern identity concept:
- personal identity
   - a sense of being unique
- social identity
   - results from being a member of a group
   - in former times: nationality, gender, race, occupation, sport club
- mediatization of the self
   - diversity of interset groups in online networks
   - easy transition between those communities

Digital identity:
- person has not just one stable and homogenous identity
- Identity consists of several fragments that permanently change
- multiple, but coharent (Turkle 1998)
- a live-long developing and new conceptualized patchwork

Media Use in Identity Construction

Katherine Hamley (done research into how online media has effected us)

Highlight ke points/quotes that you think are important and then answer these questions when reading this text:

•      Young people are surrounded by influential imagery – popular media (Examples?)

•      It is no longer possible for an identity to just be constructed in a small community and influenced by a family (Discuss)

•      Everything concerning our lives is ‘media saturated’ (What does this mean?)

In society today the construction of a personal identity can be seen to be somewhat problematic and difficult. Young people are surrounded by influential imagery, especially that of popular media. It is no longer possible for an identity to be constructed merely in a small community and only be influenced by family. Nowadays, arguably everything concerning our lives is seen to be ‘media-saturated’. Therefore, it is obvious that in constructing an identity young people would make use of imagery derived from the popular media.
However, it is fair to say that in some instances the freedom of exploring the web could be limited depending on the choice of the parents or teachers. So, if young people have such frequent access and an interest in the media, it is fair to say that their behaviour and their sense of ‘self’ will be influenced to some degree by what they see, read, hear or discover for themselves. Such an influence may include a particular way of behaving or dressing to the kind of music a person chooses to listen to. These are all aspects which go towards constructing a person’s own personal identity.
Firstly, it is important to establish what constitutes an identity, especially in young people. The dictionary definition states the following:

“State of being a specified person or thing: individuality or personality…” (Collins Gem English Dictionary. 1991).

The mass media provide a wide-ranging source of cultural opinions and standards to young people as well as differing examples of identity. Young people would be able to look at these and decide which they found most favourable and also to what they would like to aspire to be. The meanings that are gathered from the media do not have to be final but are open to reshaping and refashioning to suit an individual’s personal needs and consequently, identity. It is said that young people:

“…use media and the cultural insights provided by them to see both who they might be and how others have constructed or reconstructed themselves… individual adolescents…struggle with the dilemma of living out all the "possible selves" (Markus & Nurius, 1986), they can imagine.” (Brown et al. 1994, 814).

When considering how much time adolescents are in contact with the popular media, be it television, magazines, advertising, music or the Internet, it is clear to see that it is bound to have a marked effect on an individual’s construction of their identity. This is especially the case when the medium itself is concerned with the idea of identity and the self; self-preservation, self-understanding and self-celebration.

 “With a simple flip of the television channel or radio station, or a turn of the newspaper or magazine page, we have at our disposal an enormous array of possible identity models.” (Grodin & Lindlof 1996)

I believe the Internet is an especially interesting medium for young people to use in order to construct their identities. Not only can they make use of the imagery derived from the Internet, but also it provides a perfect backdrop for the presentation of the self, notably with personal home pages. By surfing the World Wide Web adolescents are able to gain information from the limitless sites which may interest them but they can also create sites for themselves, specifically home pages. Constructing a home page can enable someone to put all the imagery they have derived from the popular media into practice. For example:

“…constructing a personal home page can be seen as shaping not only the materials but also (in part through manipulating the various materials) one’s identity.” (Chandler 1998)

This is particularly important as not only are young people able to access such an interesting and wide ranging medium, but they are also able to utilise it to construct their own identity. In doing this, people are able to interact with others on the Internet just as they could present their identities in real life and interact with others on a day to day basis.
In conclusion it can be seen that the popular media permeates everything that we do. Consequently, the imagery in the media is bound to infiltrate into young people’s lives. This is especially the case when young people are in the process of constructing their identities. Through television, magazines, advertising, music and the Internet adolescents have a great deal of resources available to them in order for them to choose how they would like to present their ‘selves’. However, just as web pages are constantly seen to be 'under construction’, so can the identities of young people. These will change as their tastes in media change and develop. There is no such thing as one fixed identity; it is negotiable and is sometimes possible to have multiple identities. The self we present to our friends and family could be somewhat different from the self we would present on the Internet, for example. By using certain imagery portrayed in the media, be it slim fashion models, a character in a television drama or a lyric from a popular song, young people and even adults are able to construct an identity for themselves. This identity will allow them to fit in with the pressures placed on us by society, yet allow them to still be fundamentally different from the next person.

1. young people are surrounded by influential imagery on the internet, television, magazine, advertising, music this influences them because images of skinny models, opinions of others, fashion trends are shown in all of these mediums, for example lady gaga and her fashion trends, making them have an opinion of right and wrong and therefore influencing them to behave or dress in a certain way to what they believe in or think looks good. Social networking sites like facebook enable young people to create an identity and be influenced by their peers pages in order to build up their own identity.


2. 'It is no longer possible for an identity to just be constructed in a small community and influenced by a family' this is because the media has become more and more world wide we can speak to people in different countries and news can travel very quickly therefore fashion trends are kept up to date between different communities because we have more access to different cultures trends and beliefs. we have a massive range of technology enabling people to communicate with each other where ever you are in the world this influences peoples identity because they have a much wider imagination and understanding of what is going on in the world around them.


3. Everything concerning our lives is ‘media saturated’ means that everywhere we go has the media involved we are constantly updated with news on facebook, twitter, email, text, magazines, websites, television therefore we cannot escape the media we are constantly updated or judged by the media, we consume so many different media messages which will influence us.

David Gauntlett "Identity is complicated - everybody thinks they've got 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 in the Internet, social networking sites, etc.)

- We like to think we are unique, but Gauntlett questions whether this is just an illusion, and we are all much more similar than we think.

Main themes

- Creativity as a process - about emotion and experiences

- Making and sharing - to feel alive, to participate, in community (facebook)

- Happiness - through creativity and community

- Creativity as a social glue - a middle layer between individuals and society (the connection between me and society)

- Making your mark - and making the world your own

-

David Buckingham "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 for social groups"

- classifies identity as 'ambiguous and slippery'
   - identity unique to each of us, implies relationship with a broader group
   - identity can change in different circumstances
   - identity is fluid and affected by broader changes
       - how can you relate this to britishness? - government (political aspects), immigration (taking away britishness people feel threatened by the loss of britishness therefore identity becomes more important), where you live, cultural imperialism (the influence of one cultiure onto another e.g. British have always been massively influenced by American culture)
   - identity becomes more important as we feel threatened

Celebrities that have occured through their youtube videos

- Justin Bieber
- Rebecca Black
- Charlie bit me
- Jessie J

A new word that has come out because of the internet and youtube:
Memes - a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the internet.

An Anthropological Introduction to Youtube

Michael Wesch

Whilst watching the video answer these question

1.       When was Youtube first released?

•       February 2005, launched in April 2005

1.       According to Michael Wesch what does Web 2.0 allow people to do?

•       Equivilant of 385 always on tv channels

•       88% new and original content

•       People showing everyone their feelings

•       Gves people a stronger voice

•       Sense of community/ a connection between people all over the world

•       A celebration of new and unimaginable ability

•       Linking people in ways we’ve never been linked before and in ways we cant predict because its changing every 6 months or so.

•      

1.       When media changes what else changes?

•       Human relationships change

1.       What influenced the loss of community? And what has now filled this void?

•       Women have jobs

•       Super markets as opposed to groceries

•       Tv, mobile phones – makes you isolated

1.       How are communities connected?

•       Webcams and screens

•      

1.       Explain what he means by voyeuristic capabilities?

•       Speaking to a camera knowing that no one is listening at the time but eventually the world may watch this

•       Being able to watch a video and experience the human being and stare which would not be ‘normal’ in any other circumstance.

1.       Write 3 points about what he refers when he discusses playing with identity

•      

1.       What does the ‘Free hugs phenomenon’ suggest about people?