David Gauntlet

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.