2. David Buckingham
• Institute of Education, University of London,
Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and
Media
• Well respected authority on Digital Media and
Identity
3. “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
4. David Buckingham
• “our identity is something we uniquely
possess: it is what distinguishes us from other
people. Yet on the other hand, identity also
implies a relationship with a broader collective
or social group of some kind. When we talk
about national identity, cultural identity, or
gender identity, for example, we imply that
our identity is partly a matter of what we
share with other people.” (Buckingham, 2008)
5. What do audience groups use to
construct an identity?
• Social media to interact with friends,
celebrities, opinion leaders and strangers
• Clothing (physical or images of)
• Your environment and the people in it
• Music videos
• Blogs/vlogs
• Magazines
• TV shows
Date 5
6. Why do young people create
similar identities?
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 6
7. Why do young people create
similar identities?
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 7
8. Self-Identity and Social Identity
• Self-identity refers to how we define ourselves. Self-identity forms
the basis of our self-esteem. In adolescence, the way we see
ourselves changes in response to peers, family, and school, among
other social environments. Our self-identities shape our
perceptions of belonging.
• Social identity is constructed by others, and may differ from self-
identity. Typically, people categorize individuals according to broad,
socially-defined labels. For example, if you have dark skin, you may
be labelled "black" by others even though you may not have
adopted that identity for yourself.
How do audiences use media platforms to create self and social
identities?
9. In your group, you will be given an identity
theory.
Can you-
• Translate it and make sense of it
• Can you think of an example of where this
could be applied or challenged?
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 9
10. Tafjal & Turner
Concept
Social Identity Theory
Explanation
• In the Social Identity Theory, a person has not one, “personal self”,
but rather several selves that correspond to widening circles of group
membership. Different social contexts may trigger an individual to
think, feel and act on basis of his personal, family or national “level of
self”
• Apart from the “level of self”, an individual has multiple “social
identities”. Social identity is the individual’s self-concept derived from
perceived membership of social groups
How could this be applied to youth identity and
in particular, ‘Cyberbully’?
1
11. Tafjal & Turner
• Social identity theory
You adapt and change your identity as you
move between different social groups.
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 11
12. Identity Construction Quotes
• Sheldon Stryker We interact with others to create an identity, this
is called identity negotiation. This develops a consistent set of
behaviours that reinforce the identity of the person or group. This
behaviour then become social expectations. This is particularly
relevant for collective identities (especially sub-cultures) that
develop a specific way of relating to each other (attitude, language,
ideas) that goes some way to helping construct our identity.
• Mikhail Bakhtin The Russian philosopher Bakhtin believed that
individual people cannot be finalized, completely understood,
known or labeled. He saw identity as the unfinalised self meaning a
person is never fully revealed or known. This ties in with the idea
that identity is a fluid concept, a life-long project that is never
complete.
2 & 3
13. • Sheldon Stryker
• How you interact with your social group
changes your identity. You adopt language and
behaviour techniques that are specific to you.
• Mikhail Bakhtin
Identity Construction Quotes
14. Identity Construction Quotes
• Sheldon Stryker
How you interact with your social group changes
your identity. You adopt language and
behaviour techniques that are specific to you.
Microcosm
• Mikhail Bakhtin
• People cannot be pigeon holed or labeled. Our
identity is constantly evolving
15. Henry Giroux
Concepts
• Youth as empty category
• Quote
“Youth as a complex, shifting, and contradictory category is rarely
narrated in the dominant public sphere through the diverse voices of
the young. Prohibited from speaking as moral and political agents,
youth become an empty category inhabited by the desires, fantasies,
and interests of the adult world. This is not to suggest that youth don't
speak, they are simply restricted from speaking in those spheres where
public conversation shapes social policy and refused the power to make
knowledge consequential with respect to their own individual and
collective needs.” (Giroux, 1998)
4
16. Henry Giroux
Concepts
Youth as empty category
• Explanation
Giroux's theory addresses the media's influence
on youths. He believes that youths act as a sort
of vessel open to influences of adult culture and
how the media chooses to represent them,
therefore shaping the youths cultural contexts.
Can you think of any examples of this?
17. Henry Giroux
Concepts
• Youth as empty category
• Explanation
The media chooses the way they represent race, class, gender,
ethnicity, sexuality, occupation, age and so on, therefore leaving an
influence on the youths that are not necessarily true. The media acts
upon what it's audience wants. When appealing to a adult audience,
the media will reflect fears and anxieties that adults may find
entertaining, therefore giving an unrealistic view on youths.
Giroux suggests that the media influences them in a certain way as
youths are so impressionable, for example, if they
are represented as loud and abusive in films, they
will act on this because they are being told to act
in such a way.
Does this remind you of any other theories?
Hegemony – The bourgeoisie
reinforcing their own dominant
ideologies on audiences and
not being challenged.
Suggests that audiences are
passive? Cultivation theory or
hypodermic needle theory?
20. Subcultures
Date Term ?, Lesson ? 20
• Road men/ Gangster (?!) Predominately male/black/young. Puffa jackets. Grime/hip
hop
•Ravers – drum n bass music, drug culture, 90’s influenced
•Chavs – tracksuit, large jewellery, RnB chart/house
•Indie/alternative /Hipster– avoids mainstream music, sense of entitlement! Likes
vintage clothes, old technology, dock, bright socks and rolled up trousers! Live gigs and
festivals.
•Tumblr- bloggers, like provocative topics, American Apparel, sushi? Subverts chav
culture.
21. Subcultures
“Subcultures try to compensate for the failure
of the larger culture to provide adequate
status, acceptance and identity. In the youth
subculture, youth find their age-related needs
met.”
(Tittley, p.2).
22. Subculutres
• Youth are no longer children but they are also not yet adults,
i.e. they are too old to sit in with Mum and Dad on a Saturday
night watching Casualty, but they are not old enough to get
into bars, pubs and clubs etc. They do not have a fixed identity
at this point so they form these subcultures to forge their own
as a collective.
23. Subcultures
• Thrasher (1927) studied gangs in the jails and on the streets of
Chicago. He found various reasons for young people joining gangs,
including:
1. A sense of family – mostly from broken homes so desired a group
of people to feel part of.
2. Guidance – again, because of lack of family guidance they seek
someone to teach them and to help structure their belief system.
3. Solidarity – giving them the self-esteem and security that they
longed for.
• Gangs were forming in Chicago as a result of urban neglect. These
young people represented the “inner cracks of identity that occur
in the turbulent years of adolescence”.
24. Subcultures
• Jordaan & Jordaan (1993) gathered information
from lots of other studies of youth subcultures
and found, among other things, the following
special characteristics which the collection of
people share, including:
– An awareness of membership/a sense of belonging,
i.e. shared interests etc.
– A reason for being in the group/an internal motive,
i.e. hippies spreading the message of peace and love
and punks spreading anarchy.
– Pressure to conform, i.e. Jimmy not wanting to talk
to his old friend who is now a rocker.
25. Subcultures
• A group of people within a larger culture who differentiate themselves from that culture.
• Ken Gelder’s provides 6 key ways to identify a Subculture:
1. often negative relations to work (as 'idle', 'parasitic', at play or at leisure, etc.);
2. negative or ambivalent relation to class (since subcultures are not 'class-conscious' and don't
conform to traditional class definitions);
3. association with territory (the 'street', the 'hood', the club, etc.), rather than property;
4. movement out of the home and into non-domestic forms of belonging (i.e. social groups other
than the family);
5. stylistic ties to excess and exaggeration (with some exceptions);
6. refusal of the banalities of ordinary life and massification
26. Subcultures
• In pairs you are going to research a Subculture
• Try and find;
– What differentiates that Subculture
– History of the Subculture
– Examples of the Subculture in different Media
