1. Learning Objectives:
• Gain an overview of the exam.
• Begin to understand what youth collective
identity means.

2. Big Questions
• How are teenagers and young people in
the media portrayed? Find egs online, tv,
film, advertising, music videos
• Are these portrayals accurate?
• How does the intended audience influence
the messages sent about youth in the
media?
• How do young people create their own
representations? How are these different
to those created and aimed at adults?

3. Starter Discussion
• Who is your favourite young person in the
media? (real or fictional)
• Why do you like them?

4. Hebdige (1979)
• Studied sub- cultures in 1970s.
• Subcultures allow youth to express
opposition to society and challenge
hegemony.
• Style is key aspect of subculture – attempt
to resist hegemony.
• Representations tend to be limited: Youth
as fun or youth as trouble.

5. Who are
you?
Fashion:
Clothing, hairstyle
Music, art
Lifestyle/
practices
Subculture
Opposition/ resistance
To dominant culture
counterculture
Dialect/ slang
Place, gender, class, race
Who aren’t
you?

6. Subculture
•
•
•
•
•
Bands
Writers
Magazines
Artists
Fashion
What subculture are you? What
social groups are you a part of?
• These groups have a ‘collective identity’.

7. Article on pop tribes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2
010/feb/25/emo-pop-tribes-modspunks

8. Jacques Lacan
• Mirror stage – child begins to develop their identity
– recognise themselves in a mirror at around 6
months, helps to develop sense of self.
Just like the recognition of the mirror, images
on screen offer:
• Identification
• Aspiration
• What are potential issues with this?

9. A Brief History of the
Teenager

10. 1945-60: Birth of the Teen
• 1940s – WWII = demand for labour = young people with
disposable income
• Economic potential is obvious – market of the future
• But also the first negative stereotypes
• Youth simultaneously represented “a prosperous and
liberated future” and “a culture of moral decline”
• First sign of adult culture’s dichotomous image of
teenagers
• Film example: ‘The Wild One’

11. Generation gap
• Hegemony = a dominant social group
keeps an oppressed group in their
subservient position by making them feel
this position is ‘normal’ or desirable.
• Adult mainstream exploited the image of
the ‘rebel teen’
• Sold to teenagers as aspiration
• Sold to adults as a fear

12. James Dean – an accurate
portrayal of youth?
• First celebrity to capture the
dissonance of youth;
• ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ –
lots of delinquent behaviour.
Conforms to adult fears.
• But: Dean’s character isn’t a
‘bad boy’ – confused,
sensitive, frustrated… and
very handsome.
• ‘Live fast, die young’ = the
start of adults fetishising
youth?

13. Each pair will be assigned a decade.
You need to use the internet to complete your row of this chart:
Decade
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
Movement (s)
Films
Event
Media

14. • Select a media representation of youth of your
choice. Choose some images and paste.
• Research and give examples of the positive and
negative audience reactions and interpretations to
this media representation. Variety of sources.
Remember Lacan and Hedige – What did they say?