"Collective Identity and representing ourselves" Blog Tasks

 1) Read the article and summarise each section in one sentence, starting with the section 'Who are you?'

We're all involved in constructing an image to communicate our identity.

How we perceived ourselves and how we presented ourselves was based on the social constructs that defined the interpersonal relationships within the groups we found ourselves in. Our identity would have been based around aspects of our lives that were constructed outside of our selves; class, religion, gender and thepredetermined roles that were part of the accident of the family we were born into.

There was a deliberate move to encourage people to adopt an identity that Edward Bernays said was based not on behaving as ‘active citizens but as passive consumers’. This consumer boom was based on convincing people that it was no longer enough simply to buy what you needed to survive. Advertising and marketing was persuading people to consider what they wanted. Consumer goods were about creating and then satisfying desires.

By the late 1960s and 1970s, the notion of individualism began to take hold, reacting against what can be seen to be the more conformist values of the past. During the second half of the 20th century, people began defining themselves as individuals, and so wanted to express their ‘difference’ and ‘uniqueness’; they were empowered by being encouraged to ‘be themselves’.

Branding is the association of a ‘personality’ with a product. Advertisers sell the personality rather than the product, so that people will choose products that match their own self-image.

Through the anonymity of the internet and particularly the possibilities afforded by the creation of avatars, we have more control over our public image now than ever before.

2) List three brands you are happy to be associated with and explain how they reflect your sense of identity.

Apple: I've had an iPhone or a long time, and think that it helps reflect who I am, because people will automatically like me because I use Apple instead of Android.

Netflix: I binge-watch shows like Breaking Bad, and enjoy watching movies whenever I can, and is therefore something I like to talk about which represents who I am.

Amigos App: mmmm burger

3) Do you agree with the view that modern media is all about 'style over substance'? What does this expression mean?

I strongly agree that cultures now value style over substance, because people are always following trends and buying new tech without dedicating time to research, and know whether the product is of good quality or not. 

4) Explain Baudrillard's theory of 'media saturation' in one paragraph. You may need to research it online to find out more.

Baudrillard calls ‘media saturation’ results in high cultural value being placed on external factors such as physical beauty and fashion sense over internal traits such as intelligence or compassion.

Jean Baudrillard has been referred to as "the high priest of postmodernism."  Baudrillard's key ideas include two that are often used in discussing postmodernism in the arts:  "simulation" and "the hyperreal." The hyperreal is "more real than real": something fake and artificial comes to be more definitive of the real than reality itself. A "simulation" is a copy or imitation that substitutes for reality.

One of the important elements which Baudrillard deals with it is the sign value. No matter how much valuable the item is or what material is used to produce it, sign value is attached to as a matter of prestige in a capitalist society. 

5) Is your presence on social media an accurate reflection of who you are? Have you ever added or removed a picture from a social media site purely because of what it says about the type of person you are?

I personally feel like my social media reflects accurately who I am, I have about 55k photos/videos on my phone. This helps people know that I am "chronically online."

6) What is your opinion on 'data mining'? Are you happy for companies to sell you products based on your social media presence and online search terms? Is this an invasion of privacy?

50/50. On one hand you can be recommended pretty good products based on your search history or whatnot, but on the other hand you can have congestion build up, consisting of spam emails and other things. 

Task 2: Media Magazine cartoon

Now read the cartoon in MM62 (p36) that summarises David Gauntlett’s theories of identity. Write five simple bullet points summarising what you have learned from the cartoon about Gauntlett's theories of identity.

• He promotes the view that audiences use the media to help construct their own identities.

• Audiences actively process the messages put across by media tests regarding lifestyle and self identity.

• Gauntlett uses the backdrop of critical theory to suggest that "Identity is today seen as more fluid and transformable than ever before."

• Alternate ideas and images have created some space for a greater diversity of identities.

• Gauntlett questions the popular idea that masculinity is in crisis and concludes that whilst women are told by mainstream media that they can be anything they want to be, "Identities promoted to men are relatively constrained. 

Task 3: Representation & Identity: Factsheet blog task
 Media Factsheet #72 on Collective Identity. 

1) What is collective identity? Write your own definition in as close to 50 words as possible.

Collective identity is when an individual has the shared sense of belonging in a group, and shares interests and views about certain things that others agree on. In addition,  individuals recognize that they share certain orientations in common and on that basis decide to act together. 

2) Complete the task on the factsheet (page 1) - write a list of as many things as you can think of that represent Britain. What do they have in common? Have you represented the whole of Britain or just one aspect/viewpoint?

The Royal Family, Royal Guards, Fish and Chips, Roast Beef, Tea, St Edward's Crown, Double Decker Bus, London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace,  White Cliffs of Dover, belief in democracy and freedom.

Most representations are tourist locations, and aspects that deal with the royal family. 

3) How does James May's Top Toys offer a nostalgic representation of Britain?

His toys are targeted to an older demographic, and being targeted to a slightly older audience means the toys also become metaphors for the sense of Britishness that May explores, that of ‘nostalgia’ or a feeling / longing for the past where life was perceived to be simpler. This can be also described as a mythic England that resides in the mind of many older people in this country: warm beer, cricket on the green and cups of tea. 

4) How has new technology changed collective identity?

The nostalgia dwells on what Britain has lost in the modern world, such as a community spirit, and the subtle indication is that today’s modern computer games, and people’s apparent failure to use toys as a source of individual imagination, are to blame.

5) What phrase does David Gauntlett (2008) use to describe this new focus on identity? 

‘Identity is complicated; everyone thinks they have got one.’ 

6) How does the Shaun of the Dead Facebook group provide an example of Henry Jenkins' theory of interpretive communities online?

The creation of this group conforms to the following ‘repeated’ view from Henry Jenkins: ‘fan genres grew out of openings or excesses within the text that were built on and stretched, and that it was not as if fans and texts were autonomous from each another; fans created their own, new texts, but elements within the originating text defined, to some degree, what they could do’.