The media has replaced family, society and religion as the main source of collective identity.

In a highly media saturated environment, the mass media has become a dominant power which governs the construction of collective identity; I believe it is easy to see how the media may have replaced traditional values such as family and religion as the main source of identity construction. When you consider how the key components of popular culture: music texts, film, advertisements and magazines form an image of youth culture or 'urban tribe' that young people mediate in the construction of their identity. Carl Rogers said that " magazine texts and adverts are encoded specifically to represent an aspirational lifestyle, offering audiences images of an ideal self and ideal partner” what this theory suggests is that it is not that young people are now forming their identities from representations in the media but that the mass media is specifically encoding certain images and ideologies about sub-culture, social class, acceptable behaviours, appearance etc. to construct collective identity. 

David Buckingham said that "adolescence is about becoming rather then being" and as it is a developmental stage in the construction of our identity's young people are vulnerable subsequently it has become obvious that young people are most susceptible to the messages from the media. A good example of this is the popularity of celebrity culture which portrays glamour, fame and material goods as essential, compared to traditional ideologies of hard work, morality, and good behaviour constructed by family values and religion an article by the Guardian said that "The Big Brother and X Factor generation has grown up not only with the tantalising prospect of acquiring ever more desirable accessories, bling and technology, but also with the mistaken expectation that they too can be celebrities, be rich, be famous, with little effort or talent required."  This demonstrates that the ideals of working hard and having good behaviour enforced by family and religion to achieve success which are often associated with post war golden eras like the 60's are not relevant to the youth of today, and by using recent and very popular examples like Big Brother and The X Factor which has viewing numbers of 12.6 million it shows that these are the dominant ideologies. 

In the past the ideals of family values and religion acted as a control measure for young people and often imposed many restrictions, regulating the construction of youth identity using Marxist methodology in that they only expressed one way of living. The media however is the binary opposition of this idea and the emergence of web 2.0 and social media have given young people a new avenue to express themselves and the freedom to develop their collective identities. In the London riots young people were using social networking sites such as Facebook as well as Blackberry messenger to rally others and forming groups. A Guardian article on the London riots commented that "the benefit of smartphones and messaging is they can mobilise a sufficient mob to make it possible to help themselves with little difficulty and little fear of any consequences." The online media could be thought of as the postmodern media because it has created a social order in which the importance and power of the media is so strong it can govern all the other social relationships, during the riots young people used social networking sites to ignore the rules of society and form groups and gather members to go rioting it is apparent that the influence of these tools such as online media had become dominant as the press had labelled the government as "floundering with a lack of grip". Also with the use of social networking sites young people can escape the normal rules of society and social interaction because of the anonymity of the online world they feel liberated and people who may have low self-esteem in reality may now be able to interact socially with a huge number of people Henry Jenkins said “Teens are constantly updating and customising their profile online, adding photos and song posting on each other’s virtual walls” by sharing music and interests online young people are using web 2.0 to join sub groups and form collective identity more easily then in society and even in a contemporary example like the London riots young people “ are the centre of attention and stars in their own drama; no wonder any sense of reality or acceptable behaviour seems to have vanished. And they are filming themselves – mobile phone videos of their latest exploits are being shared and admired between the protagonists as if they are immersed in their own Xbox version of Mortal Kombat or Grand Theft Auto- The Guardian”. In some cases young people are taking this sense of freedom from the online and projecting it into reality and this can be seen in cases like the London riots where they are fighting against social order.

It is true that the media has become a crucial element in the lives of everybody and it is always affecting us, however even if we are surrounded by media messages it is up to the individual. David Gauntlett said that “audiences have their own opinions but the media’s repeated messages have a subtle effect even if they don’t overpower it” this shows that even if the media does have an effect on the collective identity of young people it is more up to ourselves to decode and mediate these broadcasts and not let them overpower us especially as for many the teachings from family and religion come earlier in our lives then the messages from the media and are very important in conclusion the media has become a power that can rival society and religion but can never truly erase them.

Media does not construct collective Identity they merely reflect it.

We live in a highly media saturated society and as a result the media has a huge influence on the ideology of those exposed to it. The statement that 'media does not construct collective identity they merely reflect it' is suggesting that the messages broadcasted by the mass media are all factual representations of real social groups and that all representations either positive or negative are accurate reflections. However I disagree with this statement and would argue that the media constructs the majority of its messages especially on collective identity controlling various socio-economic factors; where the media uses Marxist methodology to circulate and reinforce dominant ideologies.

This is very true of the way that Postmodernism works as it is the emergence of social order where the importance of the power of mass media and pop culture governs and shapes all forms of social relationships, it is evident from this that the mass media has profound influence on the way people think. Tim O'sullivan's theory on ideology says that says that "media produces a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality."  this can be seen clearly looking at contemporary case studies, during the London riots the media portrayed youth negatively one article from the Mirror said that "What word other than “feral” better describes the swarms of hooligans abandoned to their own devices by slattern mothers and absentee “babyfathers”? " By continually referring to young people as 'feral' or 'hooligans' they construct an image of violence and brutality that may not be truthful to the reality of youth yet by doing so they create and superimpose on young people a collective identity based on these negative images. The repetition of these negative connotations creates moral panic and then people begin to fear certain social groups; also it means that these ideas eventually come to be 'common sense' and become naturalised meaning that even if this idea was merely constructed by the media it becomes reality in the minds of the public.

However it is arguable that the media is only reflecting how the youths really are because in recent years there has been a rise in the amount of violent behaviour committed by youths in an article from the telegraph it is said that the "number of under-18s convicted or cautioned over violent offences rose from 17,590 to 24,102 - an increase of 37 per cent." these statistics are factual and an accurate representation of youth behaviour although the result of an older person looking at these statistics may be the same as them reading a sensationalised tabloid newspaper article about 'yobs' and 'hooligans' the collective identity portrayed here is a reflection of real people and this is often the case with broadsheet newspapers; whereas tabloids tends to over exaggerate any story in order to sell more copies.

In an article written in the Guardian entitled "Young people don't like us. Who can blame them? The author fairly represents the often hidden voice of young people he considers what many others in the media do not consider the circumstances of the young people he writes about. He shows that the stereotypes that have been created by the media are traps that are made to be very easy to fall into especially for those who for example live in a deprived area. He refers to other news articles as “spiteful, biased, inaccurate factoid journalism that portrays youths as a hateful, terrifying, anti-social and a petty criminal that society would be better without”.

For this opinion to come from somebody within the media it is apparent they do not 'merely reflect' collective identity although the type or extreme of representation by the media seems to vary from the different institutions, those that are more profit and gossip driven like tabloid sources are more likely to sensationalise the stories where more formal news sources will reflect the real image of youths; although this may change according to the political orientation of the institute. In conclusion the media is just a tool of the institutes that control them and so is the choice to represent certain groups in a specific way and whether it reflects the collective identity or constructs it usually depends on whether it will benefit that institute.

Youth Identity Constructions

Youth identity constructions

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