Explain what is meant by collective identity and the role of the

media in its construction (50)

In this essay I will look at how the collective identity of youths
are represented within the media. I will be using examples of
media texts to help make this connection and to look at the
comparisons between examples like Misfits and Attack The
Block. I will be applying relevant theorists to help back up my
points and to show how this particular representation has
changed over the years.
The representations of youth in recent years has been
overwhelmingly negative. The media tend to show this age
group in a bad light, and this affects how people perceive them
because they believe what they see and read about. An
example of a fairly recent media text that portrays youths in
this negative way is the TV series Misfits. The show follows
five teens who have committed crimes and now have to
undertake community service as a consequence. Youth culture
is presented negatively, particularly with the character Kelly.
She is represented as the chav who wears a lot of jewellery
and makeup, with her hair slicked back in a ponytail. She uses
slang language and speaks in a common accent, using a lot of
swear words. She is doing community service for assaulting
someone, which reinforces her stereotype. Its difficult to see
the characters of this show in a positive light because of how
they are presented as criminals however the show does start to
reinforce better representations by helping the audience to
understand that they are actually good people, they just need
to be given attention.
Another example of youth being negatively portrayed is the
film Attack the Block. The opening sequence of the film
presents the characters in a stereotypical hoodie representation
as they are taking advantage of a female character in order to
steal from her. The film reinforces this representation
throughout with many different aspects that relate to the
stereotype such as knives, aggression, drugs, slang talk and
mugging. The way the characters have been represented in this
film puts them under the working class category as these are
popular associations linked with people of this status. Greg
Philos theory of how hoodie cinema reflects middle class

anxiety about the threat of the working class can be applied to

this text. The theory basically states how anyone under middle
class is put into this hoodie cinema category. This is true for
Attack The Block as the way they have been represented
indicates they are of working class. The use of these kinds of
presentations in media texts like this further reinforce the
publics ideas that youths are bad and do not contribute any
good to society.
Youths are also commonly portrayed in a negative light in the
news, and events such as the London riots reinforce this
perception. Figures show that more than half of stories about
teenage boys in national and regional newspapers in 2009 were
about crime. Words most commonly used in news articles to
describe them include yobs, thugs, sick and feral. The
constant use of negative associations with youths in the news
shows that the best chance of a teenager receiving
sympathetic coverage is if they have died. As a result of this
negative press, adults feel they are becoming warier of
teenagers now more than a few years ago. However, there is
some positive to come from the effects these types of articles
have because as a result many youths have changed their
behaviour by avoiding places teenagers hang around and have
changed who they are seen with.
To conclude, there are various ways in which the media has
influenced the representation of youths in modern society. This
representation has become progressively worse throughout the
years with more and more film, TV and news articles portraying
youth in a negative light. The media does have an impact on
how this age group are treated in the real world as this
representation effects how people view them by reinforcing bad
feelings towards them. However, this view will eventually
change as more positive portrayals of youth will be displayed
throughout the media.