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.