Section A: Theorectical Evaluation of production
Evaluation of one of pieces of coursework in relation to one of the genres

Section 1b

How to approach 1b:
You need to understand all 5 concepts including relevant theories
Learn all the theorys to put into the question.


Macro:

Narrative
Genre
Audience
Representation
Media Language

Whatever the macro you need to analyse the detail. Like a cake



Micro:
What makes the macro: so like:

Mise en scene: e.g costume/props/location
Lighting
Camera Angle
Movement, position
Editing
Sound

Genre:
Are categories or types of texts:

Iconographies
Narrative
Representations
Idealogies


What genre theory would apply to the macro elements:
Get them

Genre and Audience:

Genre offers audiences a structure of framework
Audiences gain enjoyment from spotting the conventions(repetition) and making comparisons with other films of the same genre
If a text deviates from the conventions it can confuse us, but at the same time we can enjoy seeing the rules broken
Audiences like the anticipation of waiting for the predictable features.
Genre is the mold, what different elements did you fill that mould with in order to meet or challenge audience needs?
How did you use genre to offer your audience a framework? Do you think your target audience enjoyed spotting the conventions or seeing the rules broken?
Buzz words: Stereotypes/stereotypical locations

Narrative:

You should aim to apply the narrative theorists whcih can be applied to your C/W:

• Propp-8 character roles-fairy tales, all media roles have function within the narrative
• Todorov-equilibrium, disequilibrium-new equilibrium
• Barthes-5 codes (Action,enigma,cultural,symbolic, semic)
• Levi-Straus-binary opposites.: Good versus evil: villain vs hero/light vs dark, be really specific with your examples.

Buzz word: Verisimilitude.

All media texts tell stories, the structure of these stories is called the narrative.
A story must have verismilitude( appear to be real) in order to engage us-how does your cw have verisimilutude? its reality. How have you created reality within your media text.Create versimilitude withihn the diegesis,( the world in which the characters live)

It might seem more obvious to apply a narrative theory to a film, see next too slides, but if you crated a magazine you need to consider the following: dont use AS music magazine for narrative. definately trailer

Representation

  Everything in the media is a representation-everything we see is being represented, e.g regions/locations, individuals, groups, places, nations, ideas.

Questions we would ask when analysing representations;

Who or what is being represented?
How is the representation created?
Who has created the representation?
Why is the representation created in that way? What is the intention?
What is the effect of the representation?>

Consider the representations in your c/w and answer the above questions in detail.
Gender representation- strong female, young and old.

What macro elements would you refer to for representation.

To maintain a representation of reality, media language eleements such as lighting, music editing,  camera work, and mise en scene are used, How did you use these micro aspects to create representations?

Sometimes representations: intertextual references.

Verisimilitude through characters, how are they real?
 how can audience identiy, clothing mode of adress and colloquial language,

Audience

You need to explian who your audience is and how you targerted them. Male/vs female, how have you created that will target these men in a particular percentage?

Niche market: meet needs of individual

Mass: lots of expectations
Consider: age, gender, demograpic profile, socio-economic group, exising/new, lifestyle, values.

1. What would the three reacrtions to your c/w be?

1. A preffered reading ( your intended interpretation)
2. An occupational reading (someone who didnt like it)
3. A negotiated reading ( someone who isnt the target audience but might it appreciate it for whateever reason)

Those are stuart hall, talk about audience feedback maybe, talk about the dominant audience reading, only pick one.

Other Macro:

Representations for audience, narrative.

Audience, every text is made with a view to pleasing an audience in some way, how did you try to please your audience?

Success is measured by the audiences repsonse to a media text, dont attract dont survivce.

Heart; media texts used to make money.


Did you successful identity who your target audeince where and crated media text that included micro elements that satisfied there needs.

Media Language

Denotations, connotations, anchorage and...

What is the langauge a film might speak to your in or a magazine?

Using sound, characters, narrative, mise en scene, sound effects all the micro elements.

Media language:

Camera

editing

lighting

sound

mise en scene

special effects, visual sound and lighting.

All interlink.

Section A: Question 1A

SECTION A: Breakdown of section A Question 1a:

• Section A, question 1a of the A2 exam is worth 25 marks
• You will be evaluating your AS and A2 coursework in terms of the skills you have developped over the 2 years
• You have 30 mins precisely to answer this question
• Your success will come down to how well you prepare for these questions

Describe and evaluate your skills development over the course of your production work, this can include the preliminary tasks, your actual coursework, ancillary tasks and any other pieces you have created in the past year.

In the exam 1 or more of the following areas will be selected for you to write about:

Digital Technology
Creativity
Research and Planning
Post Production
Using conventions from real media texts
Can also refer to anything produced from outside of college

What is it about?

What did you do
How did you do it
How did your skills develop
All supported with specific examples
In relation to the areas in question

Critical Reflection

Reflective practice is a skill that is much sought after, this goes beyond evaluations of the outcomes, we are not simply thinking about strengths and weaknesses

 G325 Section A: Exemplar Essay

1a)   Describe how you developped research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making

Over the two year media course we had to produce both a foundation portfolio of a school magazine and music magazine as well as an advance portfolio of a horror teaser trailer, film magazine – developing foundation skills further and a poster to advertise our trailer.

In the first year we researched existing music magazines and analysed each one so that we could gain knowledge of particular layouts, fonts and key elements that need to be contained in our production to make it successful. Research and planning allowed us to recognise ‘mastheads’ on magazines as being the most important and therefore the need to focus on a font more detailed to keep continuity with the contents page and double page spread which we also had to create.

Personally I researched ‘Rock’ magazines such as Kerrang, NME and others because I had chosen after carrying out a questionnaire to use Rock music as my theme. The real life media texts allowed me to visualise my favourite parts from each magazine – wripped sticker graphics and broken font on my own work which I then attempted to recreate within Photoshop CS4. In year one we were limited to what we could research because magazines were the only theme however, in the second year I was able to develop my ability to research real life media texts much further because we had a range of products we needed to create all under the ‘horror’ genre this time. I was able to research teaser trailers analysing my favourite and least favourite parts allowing me to plan with a mood board which I produced from a range of stills from previous horror films my ideas for my own trailer which helped me to develop my production of my products in relation to real life media texts and techniques such as restricted narration and handheld camera found in the ‘Blair Witch Project’ trailer which inspired my trailer ‘Laquem’ which is also set in the woods. Research into film documentaries like the ‘American Nightmare’ inspired me to create a product which reinforced fear and went against usual horror conventions to make it more interesting. Over the second year research became so important to achieving a product which was realistic and is now like my own distributed on on youtube as a real life media text of its own.

Real life media texts like advertising film posters were able to help me develop my Photoshop skills further because I was able to push myself with the ‘colour burn’ filters and want to create the scary atmosphere of my trailer from just an image and text which I found really fun.

Research into film magazines allowed me to develop my work from AS level so much further because I was able to produce a high standard piece of work in two weeks this year when the magazines took over 3 months last year which shows how much my skills have improves just by being able to constantly refer back to real life media texts for inspiration and even colour schemes that work well together such as black and red which in the first year I just found experimenting with. Research into horror trailers allowed me to recognise different styles of film and how we like Alfred Hitchcock could be an auteur creating new angles and ideas using generic conventions as well as unconventional representations that I have picked upon when watching films and analysing certain techniques which I have then attempted to do in Final Cut Pro when editing certain shots together to create collision cutting and changes in pace which my trailer does extremely well. I was inspired initially by the hand held camera in the

trailer REC and the fact I want as an auteur to change the stereotyped representations to be able use a female psycho killer.

Research also allowed me to produce text and intertitles that shook in order to capture my audience but narrating the story slightly so the shots when together made sense. Research into types of camera movements needed were really helpful and allowed me to completely change the pace with tracking shots and handheld camera which I noticed was used in Silent Hill and American Werewolf in London which I analysed and placed on my blog for reference as some pieces of footage I wanted to recreate including the final girl representations.

Over the two year media course we had to produce both a foundation portfolio of a school magazine and music magazine as well as an advance portfolio of a horror teaser trailer, film magazine – developing foundation skills further and a poster to advertise our trailer.

In the first year we researched existing music magazines and analysed each one so that we could gain knowledge of particular layouts, fonts and key elements that need to be contained in our production to make it successful. Research and planning allowed us to recognise ‘mastheads’ on magazines as being the most important and therefore the need to focus on a font more detailed to keep continuity with the contents page and double page spread which we also had to create.

Personally I researched ‘Rock’ magazines such as Kerrang, NME and others because I had chosen after carrying out a questionnaire to use Rock music as my theme. The real life media texts allowed me to visualise my favourite parts from each magazine – wripped sticker graphics and broken font on my own work which I then attempted to recreate within Photoshop CS4. In year one we were limited to what we could research because magazines were the only theme however, in the second year I was able to develop my ability to research real life media texts much further because we had a range of products we needed to create all under the ‘horror’ genre this time. I was able to research teaser trailers analysing my favourite and least favourite parts allowing me to plan with a mood board which I produced from a range of stills from previous horror films my ideas for my own trailer which helped me to develop my production of my products in relation to real life media texts and techniques such as restricted narration and handheld camera found in the ‘Blair Witch Project’ trailer which inspired my trailer ‘Laquem’ which is also set in the woods. Research into film documentaries like the ‘American Nightmare’ inspired me to create a product which reinforced fear and went against usual horror conventions to make it more interesting. Over the second year research became so important to achieving a product which was realistic and is now like my own distributed on on youtube as a real life media text of its own.

Real life media texts like advertising film posters were able to help me develop my Photoshop skills further because I was able to push myself with the ‘colour burn’ filters and want to create the scary atmosphere of my trailer from just an image and text which I found really fun.

Research into film magazines allowed me to develop my work from AS level so much further because I was able to produce a high standard piece of work in two weeks this year when the magazines took over 3 months last year which shows how much my skills have improves just by being able to constantly refer back to real life media texts for inspiration and even colour schemes that work well together such as black and red which in the first year I just found experimenting with. Research into horror trailers allowed me to recognise different styles of film and how we like Alfred Hitchcock could be an auteur creating new angles and ideas using generic conventions as well as unconventional representations that I have picked upon when watching films and analysing certain techniques which I have then attempted to do in Final Cut Pro when editing certain shots together to create collision cutting and changes in pace which my trailer does extremely well. I was inspired initially by the hand held camera in the

trailer REC and the fact I want as an auteur to change the stereotyped representations to be able use a female psycho killer.

Research also allowed me to produce text and intertitles that shook in order to capture my audience but narrating the story slightly so the shots when together made sense. Research into types of camera movements needed were really helpful and allowed me to completely change the pace with tracking shots and handheld camera which I noticed was used in Silent Hill and American Werewolf in London which I analysed and placed on my blog for reference as some pieces of footage I wanted to recreate including the final girl representations.

Yellow- Explanation/analysis/ arguement

Red- Use of examples

Blue- Use of terminology

There is some sense of progresssion and use of technical language to illustrate skill. Mostly relevant and reasonable range of examples of digital technology in relation to creative decisions and outcomes. The answer makes use of some good media terminology with research planning and production. To improve candidate needs to think deep as to how they progressed and give more examples with better explanation.

What are the 5 area can be used this question:

Digital technology
Creativity
Research and Planning
Post Production
Using conventions from real texts

8/10
8/10
4/5

TOTAL: 20/25

Exam Advice: Section B

Four sign posts have to include:

 Advice: Answer B first

How Do Contemporary Media Represent different collective groups in different ways?

L:O1: To start to link all the work together: drawing in theory and media texts

This must be the main focus of your essay!

Diverse representations including fiction, non fiction and self representation:

Harry Brown, Fish Tank, The inbetweeners, Attack the Blockm, The London riots news coverage, The Internet and Self mediation.

Hows does contemporary media representations compare with that of the past?

Examples needed for similarity and difference

Examples from the past- Quadrophenia-the film, and the representation of Mods and Rockers< Can use plato quote

Have they changed-Plato Quote?

Media producers are pushing the boundaires more as they need to shock us with representation, want to challenge us more.

What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?

Stereotyping: What its impact?

What power does the audience have to resist?

Propaganda, Moral Panic, Youth as empty categories, cultural hegemony, Stuart Hall and reading the texts and their messages.

Statistics on results of these representations of attidudes and beliefs vs the reality of the issues

Sensationalized.

To what extent is human identity increasingly mediated?

Increasing Media=increasing mediation?

Re-presentation by others/by selves (Facebook/Youtube) (YouthTube)

Be critical of who is offering the representations and for what purpose

Mediated: How the media shapes your world and the way you live it

Guidance:

Add your own personal opinion

What, in your opinion is the future of representations and what are you basing this on?

Connections must be made between the examples/contrasts are discussed

You must embed the theory into what you are saying, high level answers link the ideas together

YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST REFER TO MORE THAN ONE DIFFERENT TYPE OF MEDIA< E.G. FILM AND NEWSPAPERS AND FILM AND INTERNET OR ALL THREE.

Examiner Advice Structure:

1.      Introduction-Start with a quote, paraphrase it, and link to the issues of identity, representation and the media.  State your focus (social groups and texts)

2.      Historical Example: Quadrophenia

3.      Contemporary Examples

4.      Connect examples together

5.      Conclusion-Return to Start, Prediction for the future, embed own personal opinion

Talk about a wider context, how they actually came about e.g. Quadrophenia, after the war rebelling against society for example. Thinking outside the box

Examiner Advice

1, Use referencing- name and year of publication given after first mention e.g. (Giroux, 1997)

2. Quote-paraphrase- critique

3. One text older than 5 years

4. Other texts should be within last 5 years

5. Make a prediction for the future

Argue with it/agree with it. If e.g. hyperdermic needle theory just need to apply it not explain what it is.

Exam Style Questions:

What are the social implications of the ways in which different media represent social groups?

o   Historical Representations:

·         Example-Significance-Theory-Critique

Contemporary Examples-Newspapers

·         Example-Significance-Theory-Critique

·         Contemporary Examples-Film

·         1.Example-significance-theory-critique

Contempory Examples-Television

§  Example-Significance-Theory Critique

§  Connections/Effects

ConclusionL

Return to the start

Summarize key idea

Prediction for the future

Mass media construct representations of youth from a middle class, adult perspective, for the idealogical purpose of maintaining hegemony

Impact of new media technologies/internet-more potential for self representation, limited impact compared to mass media.

Representation of young people

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders; they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?"   Plato 4th Century


Has british youth always been thought in a negative manner? Have representations changed at all?

Stereotypes

Stereotypes are social constructs

• They originate in and reflect the power relations in society because they are part of a cultures ideology.
• They foster values that reinforce group and individual subordination
• They marginalize people, treating them as the other
• They categorize people into groups who's members supposedly share inevitable characteristics, most typically negative ones

Characteristics of Stereotypes

• Stereotypes are categorical and general, suggesting the traits apply to all group members
• They are inflexible or rigid, thus not easily corrected
• They are simplistic
• They are prejudgments not based on experience(They could be reinforced by negative personal experience)
• Can be conscious or unconscious

Time magazine: Is this the face of British Teenagers?

Guardian: 

9.7 %  Said crime and gang culture an issue

12.3 % Binge drinking and drug misuse

4.5% Teenage pregnancy and sexual health

9.1% Exam pressure

16.9 % Lack of jobs

27.3% Negative Stereotyping

20.1% Lack of things to do and places to hang out

Hegemony in News Representation of Youth/Teen/Teenagers

• Media industries operate within a structure that produces and reinforces the dominant ideology via a consensual world view
• This world view is produced predominantly by white middle class, middle aged, heterosexual men
• It is their ideas and values that infiltrate media texts and ensure that other voices do not get heard.

According to Nacro, the penal reform charity< youth crime actually fell between 1993 and 2001, while Britain has one of the lowest crime rates amoung children in the whole of Europe

Propaganda 

Is A Form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position.

The end result: MORAL PANIC

What is happening at the moment?

In News: Violent criminals with a lack of morals
To Me: Youths are in a world who have to fight against hegemonic values and the policies of the government, e.g. university fees.

Old People:

Angry: Busy: No time for anyone: 45% Young people help through voluntary work

Youth Press Representation: Teen Trouble 2007

There is a widubg gap between teenagers and older generation: 12% commit youth crime.: Offenders
Adults reckon we are single biggest threat to society
Teenagers are closer to understanding and accurate statistics

News of the World: Ian Kirby

Good Story:

1. Kids out of control more dramatic: In business of relfectiing insighting, there to entertain.
Demand, public concern, newspapers are more interactive
Older generation: presumes all teenagers bad.
News of the world: Not said all bad< but reporter believes drip fed> "What readers believe before reading paper; not responsible for increase fear"
Exaggeration overall scale of problem

2.Luton
Media portray image of hoodies which create fear< people then call police. 95% Time no problem: Adults forget youths are part of that community. Problem: Tide of paranoid adults: Out of propertion

3. Swindon Estate "Afraid to go out after dark"
Misquito and dispersal order: Punished for small groups behaviour> Park North relfects all teenagers are suffering because of the minority that breaks the law
Dispersal order: Break up youths 2 teenagers and if back in 24 hours arrested
4. Newcastle: ASBO girl Queen

Corner of Street and Street she was bammed. Evening Chronicle: Foul mouthed and teen terror chav scum

5. Brighton: Veteran Mod
Cses were press have paid teenagers to fight to write something interesting to write.
Crucial moment: Death james boldey: Killed cctv killed 10 year olds. Crucial moment which changed the perspectives of teenagers and the change of teenagers.
Consequences
1. Age criminal responsibilty
2. Increase in surveillance society: now have 4.2 million cctv in country. Caught on camera now when youths behave badly: Can turn on tv actually makes it more fearful. not calmer.

More fearful more loose sense perspective.E.g Knife Crime:  Knife attack only 102 people.
Higher others. Media have to take responsibilty for growing asbo society. Have to change it.

crimes small minority used to demonise  a whole generation: there is hope if adults and teenagers try to communicate better.


Class Points:

12% done by youths
A negative story gets bigger reception than a positive one
Rupert Murdocks Agenda changes society: government changes: therefore cementing hegemonic gaps.

responsibility newspapers creates moral panic: seasonalist

Cultivation theory: Amount of profileration of press coverage causes people more likely to believe that it is more likely to happening in real life which in turn creates moral panic, but even before talking about these two theories
Hyperdermic theory: we believe everything we see in the media and adults are injected against the youths. Highly disputed theory: but because of moral panic created this theorys still exists. Adults are passive consumers of these texts

Youth: Self forfilling theory: More criminality we see the more desentitisated we become by it and we respond violently: self forlling profiency: London riots direct response

Generation Asbo: Responsibilty of the newspaper of the government and the ownership

Press creatred a divide: newspapers arent trying to promote and market just respond to demand> living in blame culture:  Chicken and egg what came first:

We are an ageing society: amount old increasing young decreasing, so newspapers have bigger impact on them as their is more on them

Reading The Riot Acts 1st March 2012

L:O: To develop understanding of how "BY" were represented in the London Riots

Representing Youth

IPSOS Mori Survey 2005:  40% of articles focus on violence, crime, anti social behaviour, 71% are negative

Brunel University 2007: TV News: violent crime or celebrities, young people are only 1% of sources

Woman in Journalism 2008: 72% of articles were negative: 3.4 % Positive
75% about crime, drugs and police
Boys: Yobs, thugs, sick, feral, hoodies, louts, scum.

Only positive stories are about the boys who died young.

TV News Broadcasts:

When Tv was covering the riots on a round the clock basis, it seemed as always with rolling news that they were desperately trying to keep talking about it all the time too. An endless search for experts (anyone with an opinion)

What role did new media technologies, particularly social networking sites play in the London riots?

Do media cause riots or revolutions?


Technology or surveillance: mobile phones, cctv, 24 hour news


Guardian: Article

'Broken Britain' rhetoric fuels fears about state schools

Tories must stop linking poverty to bad behaviour, leftwing thinktank warns

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• Jessica Shepherd, education correspondent
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 September 2010 07.02 BST
• Article history

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  'Broken Britain' rhetoric fuels fears about state schools

  This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 07.02 BST on Wednesday 8 September 2010. It was last modified at 10.30 BST on Wednesday 8 September 2010.

Tories are playing to stereotypes of state school pupils, says report. Photograph: Alex Segre/Rex Features

Tory "broken Britain" rhetoric has fuelled middle-class anxieties about state schools, an influential thinktank warns today.
The left-leaning Fabian Society says the Conservatives have "massively exaggerated the problems in state schools", linking poor families with educational failure and anti-social behaviour.
In their report – What's fair? Applying the fair test to education – the Fabians accuse the Conservatives of playing to middle-class fears and invoking "a moral panic" about education.
While thousands of pupils come from low-income families and attend schools in deprived neighbourhoods, just a small number behave anti-socially or commit crimes, the report argues. Too often, Tory MPs and ministers group poverty and bad behaviour together under a banner such as "broken Britain" – and risk entrenching class divisions in education even more deeply.
And while some of the coalition's policies, such as the pupil premium – a fixed financial incentive for schools to take pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds – are "laudable", they are unlikely to make much difference.
Others, such as the flagship free schools policy that allows parents, teachers and charities to set up new schools, will further segregate rich pupils from their poor peers, the report argues. The expansion of academies, another key coalition reform, will benefit many more schools in wealthy areas than in deprived neighbourhoods.
"It has always suited the Conservatives to play to middle-class fears and moral panics around education," Tim Horton, one of the report's authors and the research director of the Fabian Society, said.
"They link together issues such as bad discipline, falling standards, crime, and 'feral children' with educational standards in disadvantaged schools. In so doing, they end up encouraging a massively exaggerated view of problems like crime and drugs, and stigmatise schools in disadvantaged areas."
David Cameron's comment in July that he was "terrified" by the prospect of sending his children to a local state secondary school is proof of this, said Horton.
"Stirring up this middle-class anxiety only makes it more likely that our education system will become increasingly socially segregated. We need a new narrative that doesn't stigmatise disadvantaged kids and make middle-class households scared of mixing with them."
The Tories have "admirable intentions" to transform the chances of disadvantaged pupils, the Fabians argue, but some of their policies work against these aims.
It is unlikely that the pupil premium will compensate for the increased segregation brought about by other government reforms, the report says.
Horton added: "There is absolutely no guarantee that schools will spend [the pupil premium] on activities that narrow the gap in attainment. At the moment, it is hard to see what difference it will make."
The free schools policy will "ultimately make the education system more socially divided", the report argues. "The whole ethos of free schools is one of trying to incentivise families to exit local authority schools, rather than focusing on improving them.
"Putting more weight on parental choice risks increasing inequality, since different parents have very different capabilities to make informed choices, and those who are more capable will be able to get a better deal. There is a real concern that introducing these reforms into a system that is already highly unequal will only exacerbate inequalities."
The proposal to turn schools rated outstanding into academies – if they request it – will be "bound to benefit a far greater proportion of less disadvantaged schools, since only a small proportion of schools recently judged as outstanding can be categorised as having a disadvantaged intake".
The report also blames Labour for not doing enough to narrow the gap between the achievements of poor and better-off children. Labour failed to reduce the number of teenagers not in education, employment or training – Neets – and should have provided more one-to-one tuition for children who fall behind in school, the Fabians argue.
A DfE spokesman said: "Ministers have been crystal clear that addressing the attainment gap is a top priority of the coalition government. And as part of its radical agenda of reforms, the government is implementing a pupil premium to ensure that extra funding is targeted at those deprived pupils that most need it."

Questions:

1. How can you link cultural hegemony to this article?

The middle/upper society are trying to dominate the lower classes with thier values. The conservatives have exaggerated the problems in state schools, linking poor families with educational failure and anti social behaviour. The fabians accuse the conservatives of playing to middle class fears and invoking a moral panic about education.

Tory MPS and ministers group poverty and bad behaviour together under a banner such as broken britian and risk entrenching class divisions in education even more deeply. Moral panic is created to maintain cultural hegemony

2. How does the article suggest moral panic is being caused? 

The article suggests moral panic is happening because the media is outlining problems of a small number of pupils from state schools, and then expanding upon it giving all children from those state schools the same branding or label.

3. Can you link in McRobbies Symbolic violence theory? How?

4. How far do you agree with this article that governments decisions and policies are continuing to create a divide between the middle and working class? Discuss

5. Between 6 and 10 August 2011, several London boroughs and districts of cities and towns across England suffered widespread rioting, looting and arson.

Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters

By Max Hastings

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A few weeks after the U.S. city of Detroit was ravaged by 1967 race riots in which 43 people died, I was shown around the wrecked areas by a black  reporter named Joe Strickland.
He said: ‘Don’t you believe all that stuff people here are giving media folk about how sorry they are about what happened. When they talk to each other, they say: “It was a great fire, man!” ’
I am sure that is what many of the young rioters, black and white, who have burned and looted in England through the past few shocking nights think today.

Rich pickings: Hooded looters laden with clothes run from a Manchester shopping centre

It was fun. It made life interesting. It got people to notice them. As a girl looter told a BBC reporter, it showed ‘the rich’ and the police that ‘we can do what we like’.

 

More...

• PHILIP JOHNSTON (Telegraph): The long retreat of order
• SIMON JENKINS: (Guardian): In this crisis, our cities need local leaders with real power
• MICHAEL MCCARTHY (Independent): No shame, no limits: Has the behaviour of the mob destroyed the idea of British civility for ever?
• RICHARD WILLIAMS (Guardian): Could disorder erupt again and threaten the Olympics?

If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.
Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped.

   

More from Max Hastings...

•   I've not changed my mind: our banks are brutish institutions run by brutes 16/02/12
•   An army under fire from elf'n'safety and a busybody culture making babies of us all 07/02/12
•   Moldovan squatters and a week that showed how good citizens suffer while parasites flourish 18/01/12
•   The film may be historically questionable, but it's right to weep over War Horse 15/01/12
•   MAX HASTINGS: The seriously rich regard tax as something only silly folk get stung for 10/01/12
•   Tony Blair's tiny tax bill and the foul stench of fat-cat greed 09/01/12
•   2012 offers Britain great hope 02/01/12
•   MAX HASTINGS: Clegg in a sulk. The Commons at its most infantile. And Europe led by pygmies. What a way to face a crisis! 12/12/11
•   Why the euro liars must stop deceiving us - and themselves 05/12/11
•   VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

 

They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries.
They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong.
They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.
Their behaviour on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which attacked a Norwegian tourist camp last week. They were doing what came naturally and, unlike the bear, no one even shot them for it.
A former London police chief spoke a few years ago about the ‘feral children’ on his patch — another way of describing the same reality.
The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist.
Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community. They do not watch royal weddings or notice Test matches or take pride in being Londoners or Scousers or Brummies.
Not only do they know nothing of Britain’s past, they care nothing for its present.
They have their being only in video games and street-fights, casual drug use and crime, sometimes petty, sometimes serious.
The notions of doing a nine-to-five job, marrying and sticking with a wife and kids, taking up DIY or learning to read properly, are beyond their imaginations.

Undercover police officers arrest looters in the Swarovski Crystal shop in Manchester. One rioter lies injured and blood can be seen on the wall

Last week, I met a charity worker who is trying to help a teenage girl in East London to get a life for herself. There is a difficulty, however: ‘Her mother wants her to go on the game.’ My friend explained: ‘It’s the money, you know.’
An underclass has existed throughout history, which once endured appalling privation. Its spasmodic outbreaks of violence, especially in the early 19th century, frightened the ruling classes.
Its frustrations and passions were kept at bay by force and draconian legal sanctions, foremost among them capital punishment and transportation to the colonies.
Today, those at the bottom of society behave no better than their forebears, but the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want.
When social surveys speak of ‘deprivation’ and ‘poverty’, this is entirely relative. Meanwhile, sanctions for wrongdoing have largely vanished.
When Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith recently urged employers to take on more British workers and fewer migrants, he was greeted with a hoarse laugh.

Mindless: People wearing masks swig alcohol next to a burning car in Birmingham city centre last night

Every firm in the land knows that an East European — for instance — will, first, bother to turn up; second, work harder; and third, be better-educated than his or her British counterpart.Who do we blame for this state of affairs?
Ken Livingstone, contemptible as ever, declares the riots to be a result of the Government’s spending cuts. This recalls the remarks of the then leader of Lambeth Council, ‘Red Ted’ Knight, who said after the 1981 Brixton riots that the police in his borough ‘amounted to an army of occupation’.
But it will not do for a moment to claim the rioters’ behaviour reflects deprived circumstances or police persecution.
Of course it is true that few have jobs, learn anything useful at school, live in decent homes, eat meals at regular hours or feel loyalty to anything beyond their local gang.
This is not, however, because they are victims of mistreatment or neglect.
It is because it is fantastically hard to help such people, young or old, without imposing a measure of compulsion  which modern society finds  unacceptable. These kids are what they are because nobody makes them be anything  different or better.

Rampage: We are told that youths roaming the streets are doing so because they are angry at unemployment, but a quick look at an apprenticeship website yields 2,228 vacancies in London

A key factor in delinquency is lack of effective sanctions to deter it. From an early stage, feral children discover that they can bully fellow pupils at school, shout abuse at people in the streets, urinate outside pubs, hurl litter from car windows, play car radios at deafening volumes, and, indeed, commit casual assaults with only a negligible prospect of facing rebuke, far less retribution.
John Stuart Mill wrote in his great 1859 essay On Liberty: ‘The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.’
Yet every day up and down the land, this vital principle of civilised societies is breached with impunity.
Anyone who reproaches a child, far less an adult, for discarding rubbish, making a racket, committing vandalism or driving unsociably will receive in return a torrent of obscenities, if not violence.
So who is to blame? The breakdown of families, the pernicious promotion of single motherhood as a desirable state, the decline of domestic life so that even shared meals are a rarity, have all contributed importantly to the condition of the young underclass.
The social engineering industry unites to claim that the conventional template of family life is no longer valid.

Protection: Asian shopkeepers stand outside their store in Hackney that was battered by the looters. This time, though, they're ready to take them on

And what of the schools? I  do not think they can be blamed for the creation of a grotesquely self-indulgent, non-judgmental culture.
This has ultimately been sanctioned by Parliament, which refuses to accept, for instance, that children are more likely to prosper with two parents than with one, and that the dependency culture is a tragedy for those who receive something for nothing.
The judiciary colludes with social services and infinitely ingenious lawyers to assert the primacy of the rights of the criminal and aggressor over those of law-abiding citizens, especially if a young offender is involved.
The police, in recent years, have developed a reputation for ignoring yobbery and bullying, or even for taking the yobs’ side against complainants.
‘The problem,’ said Bill Pitt, the former head of Manchester’s Nuisance Strategy Unit, ‘is that the law appears to be there to protect the rights of the perpetrator, and does not support the victim.’
Police regularly arrest householders who are deemed to have taken ‘disproportionate’ action to protect themselves and their property from burglars or intruders. The message goes out that criminals have little to fear from ‘the feds’.

Do rioters, pictured looting a shop in Hackney, have lower levels of a brain chemical that helps keep behaviour under control? Scientists think so

Figures published earlier this month show that a majority of ‘lesser’ crimes — which include burglary and car theft, and which cause acute distress to their victims — are never investigated, because forces think it so unlikely they will catch the perpetrators.
How do you inculcate values in a child whose only role model is footballer Wayne Rooney — a man who is bereft of the most meagre human graces?
How do you persuade children to renounce bad language when they hear little else from stars on the BBC?
A teacher, Francis Gilbert, wrote five years ago in his book Yob Nation: ‘The public feels it no longer has the right to interfere.’
Discussing the difficulties of imposing sanctions for misbehaviour or idleness at school, he described the case of a girl pupil he scolded for missing all her homework deadlines.
The youngster’s mother, a social worker, telephoned him and said: ‘Threatening to throw my daughter off the A-level course because she hasn’t done some work is tantamount to psychological abuse, and there is legislation which prevents these sorts of threats.
‘I believe you are trying to harm my child’s mental well-being, and may well take steps . . . if you are not careful.’
That story rings horribly true. It reflects a society in which teachers have been deprived of their traditional right to arbitrate pupils’ behaviour. Denied power, most find it hard to sustain respect, never mind control.

Mob: A crowd of people rush into a fashion store in Peckham

I never enjoyed school, but, like most children until very recent times, did the work because I knew I would be punished if I did not. It would never have occurred to my parents not to uphold my  teachers’ authority. This might have been unfair to some pupils, but it was the way schools functioned for centuries, until the advent of crazy ‘pupil rights’.
I recently received a letter from a teacher who worked in a county’s pupil referral unit, describing appalling difficulties in enforcing discipline. Her only weapon, she said, was the right to mark a disciplinary cross against a child’s name for misbehaviour.
Having repeatedly and vainly asked a 15-year-old to stop using obscene language, she said: ‘Fred, if you use language like that again, I’ll give you a cross.’
He replied: ‘Give me an effing cross, then!’ Eventually, she said: ‘Fred, you have three crosses now. You must miss your next break.’
He answered: ‘I’m not missing my break, I’m going for an effing fag!’ When she appealed to her manager, he said: ‘Well, the boy’s got a lot going on at home at  the moment. Don’t be too hard  on him.’
This is a story repeated daily in schools up and down the land.

Making a run for it: These four looters dash from the Blue Inc store in Peckham with plundered goods

A century ago, no child would have dared to use obscene language in class. Today, some use little else. It symbolises their contempt for manners and decency, and is often a foretaste of delinquency.
If a child lacks sufficient respect to address authority figures politely, and faces no penalty for failing to do so, then other forms of abuse — of property and person — come naturally.
So there we have it: a large, amoral, brutalised sub-culture of young British people who lack education because they have no will to learn, and skills which might make them employable. They are too idle to accept work waitressing or doing domestic labour, which is why almost all such jobs are filled by immigrants.
They have no code of values to dissuade them from behaving anti-socially or, indeed, criminally, and small chance of being punished if they do so.
They have no sense of responsibility for themselves, far less towards others, and look to no future beyond the next meal, sexual encounter or TV football game.

Behind bins: Rioters in Hackney stand in front of a makeshift barricade

They are an absolute deadweight upon society, because they contribute nothing yet cost the taxpayer billions. Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential.
Most of us would say this is nonsense. Rather, they are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline — tough love — which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live.
Only education — together with politicians, judges, policemen and teachers with the courage to force feral humans to obey rules the rest of us have accepted all our lives — can provide a way forward and a way out for these people.
They are products of a culture which gives them so much unconditionally that they are let off learning how to become human beings. My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham.
Unless or until those who run Britain introduce incentives for decency and impose penalties for bestiality which are today entirely lacking, there will never be a shortage of young rioters and looters such as those of the past four nights, for whom their monstrous


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024284/UK-riots-2011-Liberal-dogma-spawned-generation-brutalised-youths.html#ixzz1nyS1etej

The Online Media

Lesson Outcome:
To begin to consider how technological developments have impacted on British Youth and Youth Culture as well as self identity.

• Facebook: Connotations: Communicating with freinds: Profile Pictures: Time Wasting: Nosey
• Impact: Negative

1. Arguments between individuals,
2. Easier Risks of Bullying
3. Children can suffer from broken homes: Parents Divorce
4. Dangerous: Unknown

Impact Positive:

1. British Youths can keep in touch with old freinds
2. Helps young people to promote themselves
3. Youths can be invited to events
4. Everyone is accessible to everyone no matter what class and status.

What new forms of social interaction have media technologies enabled?
1. Globalization
2.Sharing of Information
3.Development of self identity
4.Self realization
5. Collective Intelligence
6.Reshaping media messages and their flow; reshape and recirculate messages
7.Increased Voice
8. Consumer communcation with business (greater influence)-mass collaboration.
9.Awareness-Band/Skills
10.Communication has become interactive dialogue
11. User generated content
12. Self presentation and Self disclosure
13. Increasing diversity within cultures sub cultures
14. Online media focus on some or all of the 7 functional building blocks-identity,conversations,sharing,presence,relationships,reputation, and groups (Kietzmann et al) 2011.

"Online media are especially suitable to construct and develop several identities of the self" Turkle 1998

"The mobile phone has become a central device in the constructiion of young peoples individual identity" Castells,Fernandez-Ardevol,Linchuan Qui and Sey 2006


The Modern Identity Concept

1. Personal Identity: Sense of being a unique individual
2. Social Identity: Results from being a member of a group
                           In former times, nationality, race, gender,occupation,sport club
3. Mediatization of the self
                          

Digital Identity

• A person has not just one a stable and homogeneous identity

• Identity consists of several fragments that permantently change

• Multiple, but coharent (Turkle, 1998)

• A live long developing and new conceptualized patchwork(Doring 1999)

23/02/12

"Identity is complicated everyone thinks theyve got one" Gauntlett 2007



Forming collective identity: Debates:

Katherine Hamley

Buckingham

David Gauntlett

Media Use in Identity Construction

Katherine Hamley

Highlight ke points/quotes that you think are important and then answer these questions when reading this text:

•      Young people are surrounded by influential imagery – popular media (Examples?)

•      The use of programs such as Inbetweeners and Skins is where viewers can extract their own forms of identity by watching the characters. Other musicians which could be classed as influential imagery are singers such as Nicki Minaj, teenage girls may adopt the same style and therefore adjusting how they look and therefore their identity.

•      It is no longer possible for an identity to just be constructed in a small community and influenced by a family (Discuss)

•      As we are constantly surrounded by the media young people no longer completely rely on their immediate surrondings in order to form an image of themselves. The media opens gateways for youths to find out who they rely are, and who they  aspire to look like. They discover it for themselves

•      Everything concerning our lives is ‘media saturated’ (What does this mean?) The media is all around, a

In society today the construction of a personal identity can be seen to be somewhat problematic and difficult. Young people are surrounded by influential imagery, especially that of popular media. It is no longer possible for an identity to be constructed merely in a small community and only be influenced by family. Nowadays, arguably everything concerning our lives is seen to be ‘media-saturated’. Therefore, it is obvious that in constructing an identity young people would make use of imagery derived from the popular media.
However, it is fair to say that in some instances the freedom of exploring the web could be limited depending on the choice of the parents or teachers. So, if young people have such frequent access and an interest in the media, it is fair to say that their behaviour and their sense of ‘self’ will be influenced to some degree by what they see, read, hear or discover for themselves. Such an influence may include a particular way of behaving or dressing to the kind of music a person chooses to listen to. These are all aspects which go towards constructing a person’s own personal identity.
Firstly, it is important to establish what constitutes an identity, especially in young people. The dictionary definition states the following:

“State of being a specified person or thing: individuality or personality…” (Collins Gem English Dictionary. 1991).

The mass media provide a wide-ranging source of cultural opinions and standards to young people as well as differing examples of identity. Young people would be able to look at these and decide which they found most favourable and also to what they would like to aspire to be. The meanings that are gathered from the media do not have to be final but are open to reshaping and refashioning to suit an individual’s personal needs and consequently, identity. It is said that young people:

“…use media and the cultural insights provided by them to see both who they might be and how others have constructed or reconstructed themselves… individual adolescents…struggle with the dilemma of living out all the "possible selves" (Markus & Nurius, 1986), they can imagine.” (Brown et al. 1994, 814).

When considering how much time adolescents are in contact with the popular media, be it television, magazines, advertising, music or the Internet, it is clear to see that it is bound to have a marked effect on an individual’s construction of their identity. This is especially the case when the medium itself is concerned with the idea of identity and the self; self-preservation, self-understanding and self-celebration.

 “With a simple flip of the television channel or radio station, or a turn of the newspaper or magazine page, we have at our disposal an enormous array of possible identity models.” (Grodin & Lindlof 1996)

I believe the Internet is an especially interesting medium for young people to use in order to construct their identities. Not only can they make use of the imagery derived from the Internet, but also it provides a perfect backdrop for the presentation of the self, notably with personal home pages. By surfing the World Wide Web adolescents are able to gain information from the limitless sites which may interest them but they can also create sites for themselves, specifically home pages. Constructing a home page can enable someone to put all the imagery they have derived from the popular media into practice. For example:

“…constructing a personal home page can be seen as shaping not only the materials but also (in part through manipulating the various materials) one’s identity.” (Chandler 1998)

This is particularly important as not only are young people able to access such an interesting and wide ranging medium, but they are also able to utilise it to construct their own identity. In doing this, people are able to interact with others on the Internet just as they could present their identities in real life and interact with others on a day to day basis.
In conclusion it can be seen that the popular media permeates everything that we do. Consequently, the imagery in the media is bound to infiltrate into young people’s lives. This is especially the case when young people are in the process of constructing their identities. Through television, magazines, advertising, music and the Internet adolescents have a great deal of resources available to them in order for them to choose how they would like to present their ‘selves’. However, just as web pages are constantly seen to be 'under construction’, so can the identities of young people. These will change as their tastes in media change and develop. There is no such thing as one fixed identity; it is negotiable and is sometimes possible to have multiple identities. The self we present to our friends and family could be somewhat different from the self we would present on the Internet, for example. By using certain imagery portrayed in the media, be it slim fashion models, a character in a television drama or a lyric from a popular song, young people and even adults are able to construct an identity for themselves. This identity will allow them to fit in with the pressures placed on us by society, yet allow them to still be fundamentally different from the next person.

Media and Collective Identity: KEY QUOTES:

"Identity is complicated-everybody thinks that theyve got one" : David Gauntlett

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

David Buckingham:

He classifies identity an an ambiguous and slippery term:

• Identity is something unique to each of us, but also implies a relationship with the broader group
• Identity can change according to our circumstances
• Identity is fluid and is affected by broader changes:How can you relate this to britishness?:Like a running river
• Identity becomes more important to us if we feel threatened.

 Changes to Identity: Cultural Imperialism: Britain injected by American society: Links in with globalisation: Mobility:Immigration:Becoming a multi culture society:penetrating our culture

David Gauntlett

Identity is complicated: however everybody feels that they have one
Religious and national identites are at the heart of major international conflicts
The average teenager can create numerous identites in a short space of time(especially using the internet, social networkign sites etc)
We like to think we are unique, but Gauntlett questions whether this is an illusion, and we are all much more similar than we think

1. Creativity as a process: about emotions and experiences: creates identity
2.Making and Sharing: To feel alive, to participate in community: Key to youth representation and youth sub cultures: Being Accepted: FB and Youtube
3. Happiness through Creativity and Community: Social Sciences: Create and part community you enable yourself to be happy.
4. Creativity as social glue: A middle layer between individuals and society
5. Making your mark : And Making the world your own.

Representation is the way reality is mediated or represented to us.

Collective Identity: The individuals sense of belonging to a group (Part of personal identity)