1. What does Gauntlett imply here about identity, young people and music?
How can you link these ideas with the other theorists/ theories you have studied? http://www.slideshare.net/
gdsteacher/identity-conceptstheorists
http://www.theoryhead.com/gender/discuss.htm
1
Role Models – David Gauntlett ‘Media, Gender and Identity’
The idea of ‘role models’ remains a little vague, in academic terms, and psychologists don’t
seem to have found any very clever way of describing the process by which individuals may
employ role models in their self-development. That’s okay, though, as it leaves the way clear
for a straightforward understanding of how role models might work: that as people grow up,
and indeed advance into their twenties and later years, they look for inspiring or comforting
figures who offer positive-looking examples of how life can be lived. These identities are not
‘copied’ in any big or direct sense, but they feed into our ongoing calculations about how we
see life and where we would like to fit into society.
As we construct our narratives of the self… we are able to appropriate (borrow) the positive
bits of other people’s attitudes or lives that we fancy for ourselves. This means that media
stars can be seen as an inspiration for one aspect of their character but not for another –
Britney Spears, for example, can be seen as an icon due to her apparent independence and
success, whilst other aspects of her persona, such as her religious beliefs or provocative
clothing, may be ignored. Because of this selectivity, it is perhaps unnecessary for authority
figures to feel that ‘role models’ should be flawless.

2. 2
'I'm not the way I am because I like them, I like them because they're like me.' (Jo, letter to
the NME,1995:46)
Adolescents seem to be increasingly using media for the purpose of self-socialisation. For some
this involves a wide range of media, but for many it involves one particular figure who comes to
play an interpersonal role in their life. The ever increasing range of media available for
consumption is allowing young people an increased array of viewpoints and ideals to select from,
allowing for more freedom to select role models which may conflict with traditional methods of
socialisation but are close to the adolescent's developing tastes and personality. While socialisers
such as family and school are bound to teach their own values and ideals, for the teenager who
finds they do not believe in these teachings, media icons can provide an alternative source of
socialisation and replace some of their feelings of alienation with affinity.
Richey [Edwards, guitarist from Manic Street Preachers who disappeared in 1994] is clearly very
influential as a mass media icon, the fans themselves readily admit they have sought out books
he read, they dress like him and do things they believe he would like. But they were also drawn to
him in the first place because they share certain characteristics which have made them seek a
role model who suits them and who appeals to their values and aspiration.
This increase in the variety of mass media messages and the 'dislocation' of postmodern society
provides space for the emergence of an increasing range of identities, which can be used and
discarded at will. Through the disintegration of restrictions and expectations which once governed
the self, a myriad of new forms of identity are able to emerge. Fans of Richey who use him in
their construction of their identities are only one example of the ways in which mass media (and
society as a whole) is increasingly presenting opportunities for diversification in the formation and
presentation of identity.