Collective Identity

David Gauntlett
identity is now consciously constructed, and the media provides some of the tools to help us construct our identities. the media contains a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable life styles
at the same time the public have their own diverse set of feelings. The media and media consumers are engaged in a dialogue in which neither overpowers the others

homework

Gender

This image represents gender in a very negative way, this is because of the comparison between the two images is very polar. For example, Lana Del Rey is not wearing clothes within her image and her body language is not very confident, trying to cover her body however Tinie Tempah is fully clothed and his body language is very confident and standing very proud. This shows the representation of gender because both of these images are on the front cover of GQ magazine and both for winning an award however the photos are so very different and it shows a very strong stereotype and you would not expect to see Tinie Tempah stood there without clothes on however people are not shocked to see a woman doing this. 

This image again represents gender because of the contrast between the two gendered models. David Beckham is stood very casually in every day clothing looking rather confident however the female model is standing very shyly, showing very little of her face or body. The colouring of the two magazine covers is also very different in the retrospect that David Beckhams is green and yellow whereas hers is very red which has connotations of love which may link to the fact that she is being sexualised. The contrast between these two magazine covers represents gender because of the different ways a male and a female are shown on the front covers, this fits into Laura Mulveys theory of the male gaze as this is showing what a male would generally want to see. This also represents gender because the female model has been willing to do this whereas perhaps the male model has refused to remove his clothes and will retain his dignity. This could tell us that their view of themselves is different as the women does not seem bothered about standing there without clothes on to model for the front cover of a magazine.

Media Language

Media Language - The way you construct the meaning 

Meaning - what you did when you made your video, you did it to make it say something, you did things so that the audience would have a sense of what you wanted to say, of what you wanted to communicate. how did you do that? by using a series of signs and symbols, such as colour, clothing, camera shots and angles, mise-en-scéne

Preferred reading - the audience gets the idea that the producer intended them to, for example someone sees a knife and assumes that something bad has happened and this was involved in violence 

Semiotics - this is the study of signs and symbols. there is a sign, an object that is called a signifier. The meaning that is given to that is called the signified, this is not fixed and can change with time or the society or culture that is viewed in. And here we have denotation and connotation.

Denotation - what you see
Connotation - the meaning that you give to what you see 

Codes and Convention - there is so much that happens at an unconscious level, or even conscious level that you are already aware of in your work such as genre conventions, narrative conventions, codes about camera angles, dark lighting etc. It is not just about you going through those and saying how you used them, when you denoted (the signifier) to create meaning, the connotation that you hope your audience will attribute to them.

Theorists -

Fiske (1982) - 'denotation is hwat is filmed, connotation is how its filmed'
Saussure (1983) - Audience can look at a media text from a syntactic point of view, just describing what they see, or from a representational or symbolic point of view where they attribute meaning to what they see.
Barthes (1967) - an audiences' understanding of media texts come from their understanding and knowledge of frequently told myths or stories. He argues that the organisation of signs encodes particular messages and ideologies
Chandler (2005) - says that semiotics is important because it helps us not take 'reality' for granted as something that can exist without human interpretation
Stuart Hall - argued that meaning is not fixed by the producer, and the audience is not passive, gave us different readings, the preferred reading is where the audience reads it the way that you wanted them to

Answer plan 

The media language you use is trying to construct a meaning that you wish the audience to read, and if you are talking about this years work, the language should be consistent across all three products so there to be a sense of branding and one campaign.

Using the four micro elements, miss-en-scéne, camerawork, editing and sound, pick three examples for each where this helps you create meaning and construct the whole representation thing.

You can also talk about the micro elements, genre, narrative, representation and use them as a source of theorists, as they are all relevant

Quadrophenia - 1979

Mods and Rockers
Mods dress smart, wearing suits, combed hair, pay off their suits weekly, ride Lambrettas, parker coats, take drugs, drink and party however act reasonably tame and can be gentlemen, listen to bands such as the who
Rockers dress in leather, ride motorbikes, come across slightly more agressive

Two groups are seen as rivals however certain people from different groups will get along when alone however when around fellow people from group they act as if they don't know each other

Rivalry between some people from two groups i.e. mod getting beaten up and then mods going after some rockers

They don't go after particular people from the groups, they go after anyone who is seen as in the same group, whether it was then who have done wrong or not

This is England - 2006

Skin head group - not as typical of skin heads due to being less confrontational and having a laugh, they be-friend a kid and invite him into their 'gang', this is unusual as usually skin head groups are represented in a very aggressive manor and are also very racist which contrasts with Milky being part of their 'gang'.

Split in two groups with Combo's speech, Shaun and Gadget stick with Combo

Tensions between the two groups

Combo's group believes in national front and believes that immigration was the reason for all of the issues with the country, for example unemployment and that the Falklands war was a waste of time and people who took place in it were wasting their lives.

Combo taught Shaun agression and he was willing to act this way - shop scene with the knife

Shaun and Gadget became very racist however towards the end he befriends Milky and again, becomes racist after taking drugs and becoming very aggressive again

Combo becomes aggressive when Milky is talking about his family and the way he lives his life and we can make the link between when he previously asks if Milky is British or Jamaican and then when Milky is talking about their foods etc, this may have been what provoked the attack

Collective Identity

Spectatorial

Participatorial

Laura Mulvey - male gaze in media (camera positions in the view of a heterosexual male)

representation of women as objects (objectification)

Music video parodies can contrast between spectatorial and participatorial - 2 examples of Sia -Chandelier music video

The first video shows 3 characters, imitating the dance, 2 characters are male, video cuts between the 3 characters and the original music video

The second video shows one girl imitating the dance, this is a more serious imitation and the girl is doing this as we can assume she is a dancer and is testing her personal ability

Identity - can be argued to be something unique to each of us that we assume is more or less consistent over time. Our identity is something we uniquely possess; it is what distinguishes us from others.

David Buckingham (2008) argues identity is complicated and complex

Collective identity - the individuals sense of belonging to a group of whom we share a set of traditions and values, (part of personal identity)
Representation - any consideration of a 'collective identity' must take into account the role that representation play within the construction of a media text

David Buckingham - a focus on identity requires up to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups

Genre

"Genre isn't fixed but is dynamic and changing over time"

Steve Neale - 'Genres are instances of repetition and difference' (1980, 45)
                    - 'Difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre' (1980)

Tzvetan Todorov - 'Any instances of a genre will be necessarily different' (1985, 60)

Lacey - 'Repertoire is elements' that work together to suggest genre and that these are a useful                                              framework to use for analysis'

Gledhill - 'There are no rigid rules of inclusion and exclusion' (1985)
              - 'Genre… are not discrete systems, consisting of a fixed number of listable items' (1985)

Chandler - 'It is difficult to make clear cut distinctions between one genre and another; genres overlap, and there are 'mixed genres' such as comedy thrillers' (2000)

Burton - 'each text is given genre shares particular key elements to make up the generic formula, these include; Protagonists, Stock Characters, Plots and Stock Situations, Icons, Background and Décor Themes'

Rick Altman - 'there are two ways to look at genre, the semantic approach and the syntactic approach. The sematnic is casing that here are certain signifiers that suggest genre, such as the with conventions of characters, location,  props, shooting style, music and other signifiers. The syntactic approach is about the realties between these elements and also narrative structure'

Baudrillade - hyperreality and mediation

Henry Jenkins - participatorial and spectatorial

Stan Cohen - moral panics (everybody has got involved in a smaller situation), deviance amplification (one deviant act triggers more deviant acts due to other people feeling that because one person is able to do it, they are also able to do so),  folk devils (certain groups of people can be dangerous and damaging towards the rest of the people)

Gerbner - mean world syndrome/cultivation theory (people that watch a lot of TV over estimate the amount of crime in the real world, so by consuming media, people will over estimate how mean the world is)

David Gauntlett - 'Identities are not 'given' but are constructed and negotiated'

David Buckingham - 'A focus on identity requires us to pay close attention to the diverse ways in which media and technologies are uses in everyday life, and their consequences for both individuals and for social groups'

Gramsky - Society is run by the ruling elite (very small group of people) to make sure they keep their position. Therefore the media is run by a very small group of people who wish to maintain their status and position. Hegemony (Gramsky's theory)

Steve Anderson - 'younger people are becoming a lot more empowered because of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and blogging' - power is transferring away from older people in charge of producing media, to the audience itself (through social media).
1b answer 
Attempt to identify genre by referring to the following; Setting, Character, Narrative, Iconography, Style

Genre can be identified in a variety of different ways, for example by setting, character, narrative, iconography and style 

Narrative theory - meaning, structure, character and conflict and resolution

Meaning - Roland Barthes - texts may be 'open' (i.e. unravelled in a lot of different ways) or 'closed' (i.e. there is only one obvious thread to pull on") Barthes also decided that the threads that you pull on to try and unravel meaning are called narrative codes. 
Structure - Tvzetan Todorov - texts are constructed around the basic scaffolding of equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium.
Character - Vladimir Propp - produced a character typography of characters and their actions.