in-complete essay

“The media do not construct collective identity; they merely reflect it” Discuss

In today’s current age youth are often portrayed in a negative light through statistics on the news and in other TV programmes. The media often portray youth as anti-social yobs that cause problems in society and have no moral or respect for authority this was evident in the London Riots as many youths came together holding similar cultural views in order to loot and cause fear in society. They used web 2.0 effectively to share their thoughts and to raise awareness of what was happening. In the programme Misfits as characters are all asbo’s who drink and have sexual encounters thoughtlessly in this programme it is clear that the media propose an identity for youths as they purposely project youths as beings that should be feared due to their great sense of empowerment and rise against the hegemonic ruling class.

Many adults protest ‘children are our future’ and that they are being misrepresented this is a significant issue as you rarely see positive representations of teenagers in the media instead there are statistics that highlight the rise of teenage pregnancies and also teenagers killing one another. Recently a TV Drama was created on channel 4 called ‘Top Boy’ this involved gangs of black male youths involved in violence and selling drugs. This TV Drama included some horrific and vile scenes that were just a mere reflection of the activities that male youths are involved in nowadays. The reference to of gang culture was crucial in ‘Topboy’ as the media reflected an ideology of youths having an embodied experience in order to form their identity, Merleau Pontys theory could be applied further to this.

The Media governs our reality and act as an element of mind control which is inescapable. This is evident in the London Riots as newspapers such as the sun use media saturation to construct identity. The Article ‘I Predict a rioter’ from the Sun gave a bad representation of youths in particular ‘black youths’ were labelled with statics as being ‘previous criminals’ which suggested that they were dangerous beings in society. They use horrific pictures of buildings burning and male youth holding lethal weapons gave a sense of fear in society and created moral panic. The internet shows a difference in web 2.0 and how it gave rioters freedom as they were able to spread views and share information to cause a rise in the rebellious action.  However after the riots Marxist views came into action as Blackberry shut their entire network down in order to put regulations into place. Young people choose to use Blackberry and Facebook during the London Riots 2011 as it was cheap and an easy way of getting themselves heard. This was clearly different to the Brixton Riots in the 1980’s as there was no web 2.0 so youth had less sense of power as regulations and authority could rule and control them.

The power of the modern electronic net is remarkable as the media are able to construct and develop youth identity through online social networks. Facebook is used by 96% of youths in the UK, they use it on a daily basis in the Daily Telegraph Nicolas Carr explained how his brain was “hungry” and “it was demanding to be fed the way the net fed it “this explanation suggests how the media control youths minds.