Media Essay

The media do not construct collective identity; they merely reflect it: discuss

Identity is complex. Therefore the relationship between collective identity and media representation is not and has never been straightforward, in a sense where the media actually constructs a sense of moral panic to its selected audiences or rather it reflects the facts of a certain identity.

David Buckingham believes that, ‘Identity is complicated’ hence in relations to a collective identity for youths today through printed media it can be very hard to reflect or construct it properly. As an adolescence progression is about becoming rather than being, hence the media can have a huge influence on this. 

However in today’s situations we as the public live in a society where the media has become post modernized, we have therefore allowed the media around us such as, newspapers, televisions and the internet to create our reality, shape our view on things because the media does both construct and reflect ideas, which has therefore made it inescapable for us to avoid it, that even if we don’t want it we will still be fed by the media.  However though whether the media constructs or reflects depends fully on the type of media you take in. An example is The Sun (newspaper) and The Guardian (newspaper).

The Sun newspaper is a tabloid which writes most of its articles to a specific audiences, some of its contents include sports, celebrities and music which then becomes soft news in order to attract younger audiences which then creates an audience gratification or a form of escapism or either a winship notion of complexity particular for youths as it is about being prepared in terms of audience gratification, to finally recognise the ideal version of youths in Britain. Now the Sun constructs a collective identity for youths, resulting in a constructed audience. We definitely saw this through the period of the London riots recently one quote from the newspaper states “The brazen facebook user posted a picture of himself with suspected stolen goods” this is a form of post modernism for the sun tabloid as it has created a sense of moral panic which is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order, through its chosen words. ‘Brazen’ this highlight’s to its intended audience a distorted view on young people today that they are no longer govern. This in effect means that youths today are careless, with no sense of direction and this is how the public view will and should view it.

However the Guardian on the other hand is a broadsheet which writes most of its art5icles for aristocrats or from middle to upper class. This broadsheet and like many other, present hard news or rather a reflection which means that they present the facts or the reality and are impartial in their articles in order to reach a wider audience.

As a broadsheet we see that the guardian is presenting a reflection of youths. One of the writers wrote “Just imagine for a moment that you’re a British teenage boy. You’re struggling to grow up, to find out who you really are” this is indeed a fact about today’s youths as many are looking/ finding their identity. The press has also been able to sell their idea for people to actually buy their product. The reason being is that the guardian has been able to not to construct the idea of moral panic but rather has been able to present their idea and the fact together effectively. Hence Stuart halls theory comes on encoding and decoding comes into account as the article is not necessarily fixed or determined by the journalist, neither is the message transparent to its readers but rather despite being realistic and recounting facts the article will also merely distort the intentions of the reader. Hence encoding /decoding will simply portray the media message as common sense/reflection of truth.   

Therefore the media today does both construct and reflect different collective identity depending on the different form you read as tabloids tend to construct a sense of moral panic and a broadsheet reflects the ideas.

A recent report even mentions that 85% of teenage boys said that newspapers portray them in a bad light. Hence they are in fact talking about a reflection on a construction of different type of media newspapers such as the mirror, the daily mail and the sun.

These tabloids have effectively been able to create a stir in society with it’s over exaggeration in its articles to create a moral panic for people in the UK. The daily mail actually states “A sense of glee pervaded these accounts – people were often grinning while describing their experience – a delight that the normal order of things was briefly turned upside down.” Hence constructing and amplifying to its audience a collective identity.