Performativity is an interdisciplinary term often used to name the capacity of speech and language in particular, as well as other non-verbal forms of expressive action, to perform a type of being. It is a forum, a performative act, a ritual, a social action that is omnipresent and without restriction; it extends socially, beyond constraints of system or structure. It is the construction of identity or position through active expression. The term derives from the work in speech act theory originated by the analytic philosopher J. L. Austin, who did not use the word "performativity," but did give the name performative utterances to situations where saying something was doing something, rather than simply reporting on or describing reality. A "performative utterance," Austin argued in How to Do Things With Words, cannot be said to be either true or false, as a constative utterance might be. It can only be judged either "happy" or "infelicitous" depending upon whether the conditions required for it to succeed have been met. In this sense performativity can be said to investigate the pragmatics of language. Judith Butler, as mentioned above, has done much research and writing on performance theory, and has focused much of this work on gender performativity. Butler sees gender as an act that has been rehearsed, much like a script, and we, as the actors make this script a reality over and over again by performing these actions. “For Butler, the distinction between the personal and the political or between private and public is itself a fiction designed to support an oppressive status quo: our most personal acts are, in fact, continually being scripted by hegemonic social conventions and ideologies.”
Collective consciousness was a term coined in Psychology by the French sociologist Emile Durkheimcollective conscience as a superior translation of Durkheim's concept, in part due to the busy association of the word "consciousness" with both Marxist and Freudian thought, but also as "a conscience for Durkheim is pre-eminently the organ of sentiments and representations; it is not the rational organ that the term conciousness would imply." The term collective consciousness refers to the condition of the subject within the whole of society and how any given indivdual comes to view herself as a part of any given group.
Footballers... Teenagers... Old People... Chavs... Ethnic Minorities... - these are all examples of collective identities. In fact, the list is endless.
Media and collective identity means how the media interprets different groups of people But what is Human identity? It's the set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group.
Identities are represented through contemporary media in a number of ways, whether it be through TV, Radio, Press, Film or Internet. The most topical representation at the moment is of British youths. With the rise of Teen dramas such as Skins, Misfits and The Inbetweeners, teenagers are constantly being represented negatively and positively. We have to also consider the coverage of the London riots, which sparked a huge negative representation of these adolescents. Newspapers had pages full of rampaging teens, creating explosions and battering police cars, aswell as bold headlines to create a massive negative representation of the specific group. Obviously the representation was subsequently generalized throughout the whole of the collective.
So where did this representation come from? The British TV Drama Skins hit TV was screened in 2007 and created a stir amongst critics, parents and young people themselves. The show, which is written with help of youths, focus' on controversial story-lines such as drug abuse, mental illness, sexuality and death. The program highlights what youths get up to when at Sixth Form College and many viewers find the representation very realistic and believable. For example one show started with scenes of clubs full of underage teens drinking heavily and taking class A drugs - the result was a death of a girl on ecstasy. This instantly gave teenagers a negative representation just from this scene. Throughout the episode it was also made apparent that characters skipped lessons, got into fights and slept around. One scene showed a couple having sex in a hospital - was this showing the collective group as irresponsible and inconsiderate. Skins did have its positives too. The end of the episode showed a character bonding with his family after using his religion to understand his feelings and thoughts. This representation seems to show that teenagers are just curious and will eventually come to their senses.
But the nature of the show isn't the first of its kind. 80's BBC drama Grange Hill was primarily a tamed version of Skins. Relationships, sexuality and drug abuse was spotlighted throughout series' and at one point the show was asked to be "toned" down due to such controversial publicity.
Newspapers also represent teenagers negatively, particularly during the London riots in 2011. We observed that the majority of the negative representation was coming from 'Redtops' (e.g The Sun, Daily Mirror and Daily Star). We noticed that the more sophisticated newspapers (e.g The Guardian, The Times and Daily Telegraph) focussed on the incident itself rather than targeting the groups responsible. The 'Redtops' headlines' purpose was to shock the reader, for example: "Rioters aged 7" and "Olympics girl, 18 'Trashed Cop Car'. whereas the more sophisticated newspapers purpose was more intended to inform, rather than to make judgements, for example, "The Anarchy Spreads". The more intellectual newspapers accepted the incident and tried to figure out why it had happened. Emile Durkheim tries to explain crime by arguing that when collective conscious and values are unclear it can cause 'anomie'. Anomie is defined as a state of norm-lessness - where society doesn't understand or share the same clear goals anymore. Emile Durkheim's arguments can be clearly seen within the riots, society didn't feel they shared the same goal as the government.
You could argue that teen TV drama's has had an affect on the on the way that young people learn the values of society, and are partly responsible for anti-social behaviour within teens. For example: in the pilot of the hit teen TV drama, Misfits, aggression is a constant theme throughout the episode, particularly against their probation worker. From the start of the episode the main characters are seen not listening to and swearing at their probation worker, implementing an anti-authority value into the audience. Judith Butler argues that people take on different forms of their personality whilst around different types of people - she calls this Performativity. For example: people act cocky and aim to impress when around their friends, but around authority people act sensible and try hard not to offend. However, when the values of acting in an acceptable way around authority (e.g police) break down when influenced by shows such as Misfits - which follow a group of young offenders - and Skins. A video which was highlighted in the Press, shows how this transfers into real life. You can see a group of police officers attempting to fight off a number of youths in London, before a whole mob comes out of nowhere and attacks them. This could be used as an example of how teenagers are influenced by these shows and also how the press used performativity to show the riots.
To conclude it seems very obvious that the representation of teenagers throughout the press and television is usually negative - with violence, sex and drugs always being associated with the collective identity. Obviously this is partly because it makes great television and draws in customers, yet it does not seem right that media business' should do this at all teenager's expense. So where next? It seems that constant negative coverage across the media will only make things worse. Teenagers will probably adhere to the negative things associated with them because of the stereotype being created. It seems simple, but the only way out of this situation is to give teenagers some good representation and a voice to disprove the stereotype. The likes of the British Youth Council and UK Youth Parliament are attempting to help, but without the aid of TV and Press, it is unlikely anything will change. Perhaps in the future we will see a variety of positive representations of the teenage collective in all media forms, which should remove the likelihood of more violence and improve the stereotype of youths all together.
Friday, 27 January 2012
These couple of videos show the live coverage of riots and the implications of the riots and press coverage. The Question Time video brings up very interesting points about the reasons for the outbreak of riots and unrest of British Youths. It seems that some feel that its not the medias fault for the riots, but the way that parenting has changed and many lack respect for their parents and in consequence the police. Obviously the reasons behind teenagers showing no respect could come from the TV shows we looked at such as Skins or Misfits. You see characters ignoring parents, leaving home and arguing with them, which could transfer over into real life. Misfits makes the audience seem like the characters are not interested paying back to the community through community service, and it may stereotype british youth as not caring about law or the police.
The other video shows the a different side to the implications of the London Riots coverage and TV dramas about youths. You can see that many "older" people stereotype any British youth that they are causing trouble even if they are justing taking the bus to college. This has probably come from constant media attention of the small amount of trouble makers throughout the country.
A great phrase used in a video watched was "Teenagers are like a plane, you only hear about them when they crash".
DAVID GAUNTLET Professor of Media and Communications at University of Westminster
Gauntlet is a theorist who believes that you can't just generally show identities generally for a community of people. He basically feels that there are a lot of different implications that create someone's identity - obviously this is probably mainly through the media, however others around you, how you were brought up etc have an impact too.
He researched into different people expressing their identites using Lego, as he felt it was a more creative way of showing an identity and people would possibly think more in depth when using this method. They would have to use metaphors to show parts of their identity, EG a fence would show they we protective of their belongings or a window would show that feelings are very obvious and can be seen by others easily.
There were many findings from the variety of people used. Some include the fact that people want to have an individual identity, but also want to feel part of a collective. The fact that identities are very complex is also notified, although this might seem obvious, it seems that the media may generalise identities rather than show the complexity. It was also touched upon that people don't think they are influenced by the media, however the media helps people think about their identity because it gives them stories and ideas to relate to.
The findings are interesting and definitely can be related to our investigation into the collective media identity issue.
One example that I can think of is the Skins episode we watched. The character was shown having a complex identity, with the idea that he was grouped with a perhaps bad group of people at college and was torn between them and his religious family. This definitely does show the complexity of identities as well as feelings, however it could be said that the collective identity of teenagers in it is generalised throughout the series.
The episode we watched revolved around Thomas, who was a character who was torn religion/family and social life/girlfriend. The show obviously showed stereotypical things that young adults are pretty much renown for, such as: taking drugs, underage drinking/getting drunk, sleeping around and bunking lessons. Which were all apparent in the very first episode of the series. At the begining of the episode a lot of the main characters were at a club where it was 200 people over capacity, the club allowed anyone entry and drugs were dealt within the club. A stereotypical setting for teenagers to hang out.
Differently to other teen dramas we have watched and seen on TV, the show also focuses on more serious views and ideas in the episode.
The story of Thomas shows the problems he has at home, grief he gets from his mum about who he hangs about with, the fact he has to look after his siblings and how his family are very religous. Obviously these are the things that arent always thought about when teenagers are talked about in the Media. The episodes could be showing the reason why teenagers turn to violence, drugs, alcohol and antisocial behaviour. The fact that religion is a big part of the characters life and it actually helps him to sort hiself out at the end of the show, tells us that Skins is not trying to represent Teenagers completely negatively.
Skins Skins is a BAFTA award-winning Britishteen drama that follows a group of teenagers in Bristol, South WestEngland, through the two years of college. Its controversial storylines have explored issues such as dysfunctional families, mental illness (eating disorders for example), adolescent sexuality, substance abuse and death. The show was created by father and son television writers Bryan Elsley and Jamie Brittain for Company Pictures, and premiered on E4 on 25 January 2007. The show went on to be a ratings winner in its target demographic and to be a success with critics.
The show is famous for its unique and clever way casting of amateur actors and young writers. The cast are entirely replaced every two series, when the characters leave sixth form and begin their adult lives. There are usually about eight main cast members, although the second generation had nine. Most of the central actors are relatively inexperienced, but better-known actors, such as Nicholas Hoult, Jack O'Connell and Dakota Blue Richards have taken leading roles. Additionally, the show has traditionally cast well-known British comic actors as the parents of the central cast, who appear sporadically.
The show's writing team has an average age of 21, and includes several "teenage consultants". The series co-producer Bryan Elsley said, "It's all about the writing. We're about letting our audience feel they are not alone. We're always having people miss [writing] meetings because they've got A-levels or even GCSEs".
The first series received positive reviews, although some critics complained that the series depicts teenagers unrealistically and stereotypically. But how wrong can it be if a large proportion of the Skins writing team are teenagers? Others criticised the excessive promotion of the show (specifically in the UK) and having relatively mediocre writing in comparison to other similarly themed shows. Actor Nicholas Hoult defended the extreme storylines, saying they would not reflect "everyone's teenage life", adding "it is maybe heightened for entertainment but all of it is believable."
Grange Hill Grange Hill is a British television drama series originally made by the BBC. The show began in 1978 on BBC1 and was one of the longest running programmes on British television. It was created by Phil Redmond who is also responsible for the Channel 4 dramas Brookside and Hollyoaks; other notable production team members down the years have included producers Colin Cant and script editor Anthony Minghella.
Grange Hill was originally conceived by ATV comedy writer Phil Redmond, who first approached various television companies with the idea in 1975, unsuccessfully. In 1976, he managed to sell the idea to the BBC, and the drama executive Anna Home gave the series a trial run of nine episodes, the first being broadcast on 8 February 1978. From the start, the series caused controversy for its real-life, gritty portrayal of school life, rather than the more idealistic school dramas that preceded it. Redmond has said that he wasn't really able to start pushing the boundaries until later series'. This however led to Redmond being forced to agree that there would be no further series unless he toned things down. Grange Hill's highest profile period was undoubtedly the mid-late 1980s. One of the most famous storylines during this time was that of Zammo McGuire and his addiction to heroin. This storyline ran over two series (1986–87) and focused on Zammo's descent into drugs and how it strained his relationship with girlfriend, Jackie and friend Kevin.
On 6 February 2008, the BBC announced Grange Hill was to be axed after exactly 30 years. The announcement was made by CBBC controller Anne Gilchrist just two days before the show's official 30th birthday. Grange Hill ended on Monday 15 September 2008 with a further return appearance by Todd Carty, in which Tucker persuaded his nephew Togger Johnson not to give up on school like he did. Other than that there would be no spectacular conclusion.
The London Riots was covered throughout all newspapers, on new websites and on news shows. The riots started on the 6th August 2011 right through to the 10th August 2011. Youths and teenagers were constantly scrutinised and blamed for all of the violence and the papers especially focused on this group - however we know it was not all teenagers involved.
WIKIPEDIA:
Following a peaceful march on 6 August 2011 in relation to the police response to the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police Service firearms officers on 4 August 2011, a riot began in Tottenham, North London. In the following days, rioting spread to several London boroughs and districts and eventually to some other areas of England, with the most severe disturbances outside London occurring in Bristol and cities in the Midlands and North West of England. Related localised outbreaks also occurred in many smaller towns and cities in England.
The Sun Newspaper had very contriversial and bold headlines when these riots we going on. I feel that this is definately a strong tabloid to analyse as headlines such as "RIOTERS AGED 7", "ANARCHY", and "MEET THE ACCUSED". The photos used along with the headlines are very vivid and you can clearly see, without even reading anything but the headlines, that the newspaper is refferring to young people and youths.
With loads of around the clock news channels being aired on TV, the riots were constantly a talking point throughout the shows. Any footage that was filmed by onlookers, rioters themselves and TV crews were obtained and anaylsed thoroghly 24/7. The fact is it seems that all opinions and views were extremely biased and from a clip found on Petes Media Blog, you can see what reporters were trying to do when the other opinions were put forward.
As you can see the newsrepoter did not want to let the man speak his mind on why young people were committing these crimes. As soon as he accused the police of always suspecting young black people, she cut him out. You could easily argue that they wanted to make sure talks revolved around the fact that young people were comitting these crimes and not how it had been building up over the years and it wasnt there fault.
Obviously there are many other news pieces that represent the riots and young people in similar ways. Strong front pages such as The Daily Mirror also immediately show that it was teenagers comitting these crimes. There are loads of sources on Youtube with interviews from a variety of News Channels.
Straight from the beginning we noticed that there were negative representation of young offenders/people. Some characters were smoking, not listening to their probation worker, swearing at him, talking on their phone and starting fights among each other.
When starting community service, the characters try really hard to dress up and look good - even though it is just community service. This is hinting that there is such pressure on young people and they are assumed to want to dress up and look stylish no matter what. You see that when Gary gets white paint on his hat he goes mental!
There was also hints to different social groups throughout the episode, with Simon being called the "wierd kid", Kelly being called a 'chav' and lots of name calling of 'sluts' and 'virgins'.
Curtis is adamant that he "shouldn't be here", which is representing the fact that young people always think that the worlds against them and they are always treated unfairly. This perhaps could be the case though!
Gary was seen smoking drugs in the toilet - which again is always associated with young people and perhaps criminals.
1. How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic/social/collective groups of people in different ways?
2. How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?
3. What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?
4. To what extent is human identity increasingly mediated?
My initial response to the prompt questions is that we should focus British youth. We could focus on how British Youth are represented in TV, for example the TV series Skins and Misfits. We could focus on how British Youth are represented in Film, for example films like Kidulthood. We could also focus on how music, certain music genres and how contemporary media represent the people who listen to different genres and categorises/label them through the music they listen to. We could look into how British Youth are represents by music artists too. For question 2 we could focus on how the previous generation are struggling to adjust to the current one and may be a possible reason for contemporary media to be so critical of British Youth. For question 3 we could talk about how the labelling and categorisation of British Youth from contemporary media can cause them to feel united against whatever force is governing them. For example, police in the London summer riots.
We feel that recently there have been many Teen Dramas and that have shown a variety of different representations of Young People.
Examples we can use:
SKINS -Skins is a BAFTA award-winning British teen drama that follows a group of teenagers in Bristol through the two years of college Its controversial storylines have explored issues such as
dysfunctional famalies, mental illness, adolescent sexuality, substance abuse and death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skins_(TV_series)
THE INBETWEENERS - the show follows the life of suburban teenager Will and three of his friends at the fictional Rudge Park Comprehensive. The exploits of four friends, who are socially only marginally above what one of them calls "the freaks", are presented as they grow from their late teen years into adults and as they go on their quest, usually unsuccessfully, for such grown up things as beer and sex.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1220617/
MISFITS -Misfits is a British Science Fiction Drama television series about a group of young offenders forced to work in a community service programme, where they obtain supernatural powers after a strange electric storm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misfits_(TV_series)
FRESH MEAT - The show revolves around the lives of six students who are freshers (with the exception of Howard) at the fictional Manchester Medlock University. They live in a shared house off-campus rather than university halls of residence.
SHAMELESS - Shameless is a comedy drama set in a Manchester council estate named Chatsworth. It follows the lives of the Gallagher family.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shameless
TOPBOY - Set on the fictional Summerhouse housing estate in Hackey, North London. The series follows the lives of a group of criminals involved in drug dealing and street gangs.
Media and Collective Identity means how the media interprets different groups of people. Throughout our blog we will be explaining our thoughts on involved subjects of our title, such as teenagers with student protests and how that effected the media, also the representation of the people involved in the London riots. From physical actions to media incorporated subjects like YouTube where people express themselves in different ways to attract some attention either from their viewers or the press. young social groups will be through about constantly throughout our blog as being young people we can understand who's in what social groups, for example how music can change peoples social groups.also we'll be looking into how young people are represented on TV for example skins, top boy, misfits and the inbetweeners. All of these idea's will gradually build up in our blog to give us enough information we need to write up our critical response.
Social implications - when you something that causes you to have a negative affect on you by groups in society.
Contemporary media - media in every day life. modern, present day media
Representation - refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures.
