The document discusses how black British people have been represented in media over time. Historically, films portrayed them as problems or threats to society, but music allowed both black and white people to find shared meaning. In the 1960s-70s, black culture had a large influence and created a youth subculture where race was less defined. Today, films like Adulthood and Shank and genres like UK hip hop and grime still reflect this shared culture between black and white Britons.

1. How do the contemporary media represent collective groups of
people in different ways?
‘Stuart Hall proposes that the media, as a principal form of ideological
dissemination, produces representations of the social world via images and
portrayals’1. In addition it can be said that “…media representations of ‘race’ and
ethnicity are constructed in accordance with dominant ideological positionings
which serve to shape and control how individuals understand others’, and their
own, identities.”2
In this essay I shall be referring to the ways in which black British people are
represented via contemporary media as a collective group of people. By
referencing historically how black British people have been represented, it is my
hope to present an argument that discusses how this has evolved to the current
way that black British people have been represented through the media.
When initially beginning this research the definition of black British that I was
working with was people with specifically Sub-Saharan African ancestral origins,
who self-identify, or who are identified, as "Black", African or Afro-Caribbean. I
have come to realise that through contemporary films and music this definition of
black British has evolved and changed to encompass much more and include
‘others’ who share a sense of ‘oneness’ with those whose cultural heritage is
firmly grounded within African ancestral origins, to some extent ‘Black British’ has
now come to collectively represent a youth sub-culture.
As briefly mentioned before I have been looking at how black British people have
been represented as a collective group through the mediums of film and music.
The main difference in how they have been represented via these mediums is
that historically through film black British people were represented as a problem
to the British society and a threat to the British way of life, films that presented
these issues were films such as Sapphire (Basil Dearden, 1959) and Flame in
the Streets (Roy Ward Baker, 1962) these films have become to be known as
social problem films3. The opposite of this is true for the way that black British
people have been represented through music, through film black British people
were represented as ‘the other’, but through music “whites are able to discover
meaning in black histories, style and language”4 Through music there seemed to
be and now seems to be a sense of ‘oneness’.
“the cultural resources of the Afro-Caribbean communities provide a space
in which whites are able to discover meaning in black histories, style and
language, but also where a shared culture, overdetermined5 by its context
of the urban crisis, mediates that relationship between the different ethnic
groups that together comprise black Britain.”
(Gilroy)6

2. What I understand from what Gilroy has said is that British people both black and
white shared a sense of collective identity due to the similar situations that they
were in within and urban context. What Gilroy also states in his book is that
”black styles, musics, dress dance, fashion and languages [in the 1960s
and 70s] became a determining force shaping the style, music, dress,
fashion and language of urban Britain as a whole… the cultural institutions
of the white working class were hosting an historic encounter between
young black and white people… [and] the creation of a youth sub-culture
in which black style and expertise were absolutely central.”
(Gilroy)7
Gilroy was writing about the British cultural landscape of the 1960s and 70s, but I
would say that his statement still holds true and that this is reflected in
contemporary media in films such as Adulthood and Shank, and through UK hip-
hop and Grime music via artists such as Skinny Man, Dizzee Rascal and N-
Dubz.
1
Fatimah Awan, Young People, Identity and the Media, PhD Research Project, 2008
http://www.artlab.org.uk/fatimah-awan-phd.htm
2
Fatimah Awan, Young People, Identity and the Media, PhD Research Project, 2008
http://www.artlab.org.uk/fatimah-awan-phd.htm
3
John Hill, ‘The British ‘Social Problem’ film: ‘Violent Playground’ and ‘Sapphire’, Screen Vol. 26, No1
4
There ain’t no Black in the Union Jack, Paul Gilroy, Routledge, 1987 (ed2002)
5
Overdetermination, the idea that a single observed effect is determined by multiple causes at
once (any one of which alone might be enough to account for the effect),
6
There ain’t no Black in the Union Jack, Paul Gilroy, Routledge, 1987 (ed2002)
7
There ain’t no Black in the Union Jack, Paul Gilroy, Routledge, 1987 (ed2002)