Analysis Generic Theory: Media Notes: All

Generic Theory - 

Definitions:

• Representation: The description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way.
• Hegemony: The values of one social group being enforced upon another.
• Mediation: Intervention in a dispute in order to resolve it.
• Identity: Who a person believes they are.
• Collective Identity: A social group who shares a set of norms and values.
• Structuration:  Structuration is the process in which human agency, people, and social structure, society, are in a constant relationship. The social structure is reproduced by the repetition of acts by individuals which means that society is flexible and can change over time. 

Representation:

The working classes are stereotypically mediated as a group who are on "chavs", have many children with many different people, don't work and live off of the system.

The working class social group have the ability to unite in their collective identity due to shared norms and values around family attitudes, hard work and other such ideologies. 

Mediation:

                                         

The notion of the underclass is that it is working class people without jobs who used the riots as a means to steal, vandalise and behave violently. 

Collective Identity:

                                            

The above text is an example of the supposed "working class" chav subculture collective identity. Representation of working classes in the media may lead to a deviancy amplification spiral in which the identity becomes adopted by the masses of the social group due to the mediation of the subject. The collective identity of the working classes is hugely separate to music genre, clothing style and attitude to authorities etc but the chav subculture is forced upon all working classes as a stereotype by the media. 

Collective Identity Self-Constructions:

Collective identity can also be self-constructed by the social group on social networking sites or in social situations; these identity ideas can be positive or negative.

                                       

For instance, far right liberal social groups have gained a large gathering of support from the working class young collective identity in both America and Britain in support of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. This has even inspired the generation to produce their own examples of parody accounts for important public figures such as the tweets pictured above; these are instances of #corbynfever. 

Structuation:

                                           

"Hairspray" was set in the early 60s and displayed the attitudes surrounding the segregation of black and white citizens in America. The film also follows the human rights movement in which people peacefully rioted against the segregation. 

Important Theories - 

David Buckingham: (1987)

• "A focus on identity requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and heir consequences for social groups."

David Gauntlett: (2002)

• Identity is consciously constructed and the media provides some of the tools needed for this presentation of collective identity. The media coveys messages which encourage a series of messages about appropriate identity and lifestyle choices. Although, the public have their own diverse set off feelings. Neither feeling is more powerful than the other. 

I interpret this as the idea that the media has encoded messages which can be understood and decoded differently by various members of an active audience. The audience are not passive simply accepting their daily dose of the media via hypodermic syringe but are instead able to challenge and conform. Neither is more powerful than the other. 

Stuart Hall: (1980)

• Encoding is the message the producer has given the text.
• Decoding is the way in which the audience can interpret it themselves as an active audience. 

Anthony Giddens: 

• There is a social structure which shapes our lives such as traditions, institutions, moral codes and unwritten social rules but this relies on the system being followed. 
• Structuration is the process in which human agency, people, and social structure, society, are in a constant relationship. The social structure is reproduced by the repetition of acts by individuals which means that society is flexible and can change over time. 
• "Society only has form, and that form only has effects on people, in so far as structure is produced and reproduced in what people do". 

Paul Lazarfelds et al: (1944 and 1955)

• The two step flow theory is a communication model that hypothesises ideas of flow from mass media to opinion leaders, and from them to a wider population.