Looking at two types of Media, describe the ways in which a particular group of people are collectively represented or provided for, using specific examples to support your response.

As time goes on it seems youths are being portrayed as more and more dangerous to society through media such as press and films.

Althusser’s interpellation theory says that “We become bombarded with messages and become a subject rather than an individual as soon as we engage them, they control us (post modernism)”. The mass media does use this to their advantage to sway the opinions of others. Messages can not only be in text by also in film. Watching Kidulthood, directed by Noel Clarke, it is easy to adopt the message that youths, as a collective identity are bad. Noel Clarke even said he was trying to give an accurate representation of youths in London and that he grew up like this. People may think that Noel Clarke portrays a more accurate experience of youths because if we look at the London 2011 Riots, youths were represented as violent and uncontrollable. So it is not surprising that people would believe this to be an accurate portrayal and therefore start to believe further information relating negativity to youth. Even looking back at older films such as 1950s Rebel Without A Cause, although not as explicitly violent as Kidulthood, there is still a representation as rebellious.

Some ways in which youths attempt to create and develop their collective identities is through the Web 2.0; social networking websites, such as Facebook and Twitter. With the ability to share information, pictures and update statuses, youths tend to use these features to begin to develop their collective identities. As Henri Jenkins said, teens are constantly updating and customising their profiles online to construct and experiment with their identities. Using these social networking sites also gives us a sense of belonging (Merlau Ponty). However, adults and people who don’t understand how these things work attempt to restrict youths by enforcing regulation and censorship on the things they do and use. It’s harder to do this on the Web 2.0 because it allows users to create and share content fast and easily so it is hard to censor. Now because youths have been using these websites, they have been labelled potentially dangerous to those who don’t know much about them.

During the London Riots, some riots were planned over social networking sites and Blackberry Messenger. The rioters used these tools to communicate with each other and even posted statuses and pictures of themselves with stolen goods as a ‘trophy’. The communication between rioters in London was much quicker which made it harder for regulators to stop them. Twitter was even asked to be shut down because it was being used as a catalyst to plan riots and Blackberry Messenger was taken down for a few days. These things were not around when the Brixton riots happened so it was harder for youths to riot in massive groups.

The press have a large hand in the view of youths, especially tabloids, which encode their own messages within the media texts for us, as an audience, to decode and deconstruct in our own way according to our own lives and situations. This supports Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding theory. Tabloids such as The Sun deliberately show youths in a negative light and exaggerate to generate moral panic amongst their readers because they know it sells and they can make a profit. Using buzz words and degrading words that stand out such as “yobs” and “thieves” in the articles just contribute to the hegemonic view that youths need to be avoided or heavily controlled or they’ll run riot. By grouping youths as one collective identity this overshadows youths having their individual identities. This will only aggravate youths further as they have no say in what the press prints and may provoke youths to react, some appropriately but some violently. On the other hand, broadsheets are representing youths more accurately by not exaggerating statistics and providing more realistic information in relation to youths.

As for the future of the view on the collective identity of youths, it may take a turn for the worse. Youths are already seen as dangerous, rebellious and uncontrollable and the room for youths having their say in society is becoming smaller and smaller to the point where youths are being ostracised because they have been grouped as one, with negative connotations. A film called Shank, directed by Mo Ali, is set in 2015 and shows youths left by society to fight amongst themselves for food and territory. Society may not get that far but youths will get worse if their voices are left unheard.

In conclusion, youths may use the Web 2.0  to create their collective identities and other ways but eventually they could be potentially labelled as bad by the mass media and until youths are not represented in the most part as negative, they will continue to rebel in any ways they can. We are supposed to be living in a democratic society but if youths are going to be ignored because they are ‘young’ and seen as inexperienced then it’s possible we may see some sort of repeat of the London 2011 Riots.