Lesson 1, introduction to Youth Culture and Collective Id

1. Collective
Identity
What is it?
How does the media influence it?

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

3. The exam – G325
Section B:
• One hour.
• Long essay.
• Choice of two questions – answer one only.

4. G325 Section B
• Contemporary Media issues.
• We will be looking at Media and Collective
Identity.
• The group we will be looking at is: youth.

5. Big Questions
• How are teenagers and young people in
the media portrayed?
• 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?

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

7. 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.

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

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

10. Article on pop tribes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2
010/feb/25/emo-pop-tribes-mods-
punks

11. 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?

12. A Brief History of the
Teenager

13. 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’

14. 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

15. 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?

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