1. Collective Identity
Prompt Question Four

2. Question
• To what extent is human identity increasingly
‘mediated’?

3. Mediation
• Mediated: How the media shapes your world and
the way you live in it.
• Thomas de Zengotita use of the word for his book
Mediated: The Hidden Effects of the Media on You
and Your World in which he asserts that almost
everything (info, values, news, role models)
comes to us through some media (TV, print,
web, magazines, films) so will undoubtedly
colour/influence our view of life and therefore
our own self-definition.

4. Translation
• How much of someone’s identity can be said to come
about due to a thought process influenced by the
media?
• The process the audiences make in terms of
understanding media representations and relating the
media representations to themselves.
• Also looking at how the media construct
representations (making a conscious selection of what
to include and how to present it) in order to create
identities for individuals or groups of people.

5. Examples
• Identity is constructed and mediated (it goes
through a selection and organisation process).
So how do British Youth use film and TV to
help them organise and select their identity?

6. What collective identity can mean
• Not just representations by mainstream media
• Self construction by users of the media
• Communities formed from shared identity:
age, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity,
cultural identities etc.

7. What collective identity can mean
• Representation: the way reality is ‘mediated’ or
‘re-presented’ to us.
• Collective Identity: the individual’s sense of
belonging to a group (part of personal identity)
• The idea is that through participating in social
activities –in this case, watching films and
television - individuals can gain a sense of
belonging and in essence an ‘identity’ that
transcends the individual. “

8. Theory
• “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” -
David Buckingham.
• Application of Gramsci’s theory of Hegemony – much of
the media is controlled by the dominant group in society
and the viewpoints associated with this group inevitably
become embedded in the products themselves (i.e. via
representation of race, class, gender, sexuality, for
example), even if the promotion of these views isn’t
conscious – dominant views come to be seen as the norm.

9. TASK
• Referring to Buckingham’s theory how do you
think one can use media and technology to
create their identity?
• Referring to Gramsci’s theory what do you
think the dominant views are intwo of the
texts you have watched?

10. Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman
• The mass media serve as a system for
communicating messages and symbols to the
general public. It is their function to amuse,
entertain, and inform, and to instill individuals
with the values, beliefs, and codes of behaviour
that will integrate them into the institutional
structures of the larger society.
• Hegemony is a representational strategy of
power; it involves the uses of representations to
control people.

11. • Can we resist this representation?
• Are audiences passive or active?
• Can audiences be influenced by what they
watch?
• There are a number of theories about this.

12. • The Hypodermic Syringe theoryarguesthat
audiences are passive and absorb what they
see in the media and can be influenced by it.
• Uses and Gratifications suggests audiences
are active viewers and use the media in
various ways to get some kind of gratification
that will depend on the viewer..

13. How is identity formed?
• We assume that people have an inner essence --
qualities beneath the surface which determine
who that person really 'is'.
• Foucault rejected this view. For Foucault, people
do not have a 'real' identity within themselves;
that's just a way of talking about the self.
• An 'identity' is communicated to others in your
interactions with them, but this is not a fixed
thing within a person. It is a shifting, temporary
construction.

14. Theory
• Gammon and Marshment(1998) stress the role of the
audience in the construction of meaning from texts
and suggest there is a range of interpretations offered
by any text.
• Henry Jenkins (1992): ‘Fans actively assert their
mastery over the mass-produced texts which provide
the raw material for their own cultural productions and
the basis for their social interactions.’
• Gary Giddens (1991) claims that mediated experiences
make us reflect upon and rethink our own self-
narrative in relation to others.

15. Summary
• Chomsky and Herman-using representations to
control people/identity
• Foucault –identity changes over time
• Gammon and Marshment- text can be
interpreted in different ways by different people.
• Jenkins –audience as active participants in
constructing and circulating meaning.
• Giddens- audiences compare self identities
through what they consume.

16. Task
• How can you relate the theory to the text?
• Chomsky and Herman Top Boy
• Foucault Quadrophenia + ATB
• Gammon and MarshmentFishTank
• Jenkins E20
• GiddensInbetweeners

17. Gauntlett (2002):
• By thinking about their own identity, attitudes,
behaviour and lifestyle in relation to those of
media figures – Role Models
• The 'role model' remains an important
concept, not someone to copy, instead role
models serve as navigation points as
individuals steer their own personal routes
through life.

18. Reflect or shape?
• Media products provide numerous kinds of 'guidance' - not
necessarily in the obvious form of advice-giving, but in the myriad
suggestions of ways of living which they imply.
• Your life is your project. The media provides some of the tools
which can be used in this work.
• (People find different uses for different materials, too, so one
person's 'bad' tool might be a gift to another.)
• (Gauntlett, 2002) I don't believe that 'experts' can have the final
word about representations, since representations are only
meaningful when processed in the minds of individual audience
members.

19. Reflect or shape?
• It could be argued that Collective Identity exists but
that it seems to difficult measure or ascertain HOW
FAR British TV and film have helped to create a sense
of collective identity.
• Audience response to TV drama, for example, is rich
and varied, but if Giddens and Gauntlett and current
identity theory are correct, then it seems likely that
audiences do, indeed, use these particular media
examples to form a sense of identity, but along with
many other aspects of life too.

20. Reflect or shape?
• As to how much the media reflects collective
identity as opposed to shaping it, It could be
argued that you would need a detailed
breakdown of the intentions of the film-makers,
many of whom could have an agenda, often a
political one driven by a leftish/liberal middle
class view of what representation of working
class life should be like; this political agenda and,
therefore, certain themes, are less likely to be
present in television soap opera which is
attempting to be more ‘commercial’ and appeal
to a larger audience within a set viewing pattern.

21. Conclusion
• The idea of collective identity could be argued
that audiences do draw on various aspects of
their lives, including what they watch on
television and in the cinema.