Collective identity is where someone feels or shows that they belong to a certain group type that shapes their personal identity. Some examples of collective identity are Casuals, Hipster and Mod. Youths seem to be drawn toward sub-cultures because it fits their identity, the way they dress, what type of people they hand around with and the way they act around one another.
British youth in the 1960's were all about the Mod's and Rockers. The fashion spread through the country with the smartly dressed Mod's and the all black, aggressive Rockers. Although, throughout time and history, the media has played a massive part in the way these sub-cultures has been portrayed and put a label over the sub-cultures. The 1964 riots in the South coast of Britain involved the two sub-cultures, the Mods and Rockers. The Mods wore designer suits protected by Parka jackets and were often known to carry coshes and flick-knives. They rode Vespa or Lambretta scooters, modified with numbers of mirrors or mascots and listened to music such as Ska and The Who. Rockers rode motorbikes with no helmet to protect them, with leather gear on and listened to music such as Elvis and Gene Vincent. These two major gangs collided and clashed in the 1964 weekend violence in Brighton, which was famously made in to a film called Quadrophenia. Quadrophenia shown the audience a insight into how this youth culture were sting and what they were doing in their everyday life. From violence to love, this showed the true colours of these two different sub-cultures. Although, this film may have been a hit with the cinema, the audience was now labelling the sub-cultures on how they were portrayed in the film. The representation of teens are now changing in the eyes of the world.
"Subcultures try to compensate for the failure of the larger culture to provide adequate status, acceptance and identity. In the youth subculture, youth find their age related needs met".
Dick Hebdige suggests that the reason for these sub-cultures and the way they act is to get attention, create there own identity and portray a message to viewers. The Mod's have certainly got their own identity with they way they dress and they way they act mixed with the film Quadrophenia, showing that the media has played a massive role in getting them known and made people have an opinion on them. The Mods and Rockers didn't want to follow the crowd with wearing 'normal clothes' and listening to plain music, they wanted to be different, stand out from the crowd but this back fired on them as a sub-culture. When the Rockers came along, they created this hatred towards each other resulting in both of the groups getting a bad name for themselves.
Monday, 3 February 2014
Tuesday, 28 January 2014
1960's Youth Identity - A Different Representation
Let's go back in time to 1961, just 3 years before the media in Britain represented its youth as being violence driven hooligans who were a threat to the very fabric of society.
1961 saw the release of the film 'The Young Ones' starring, amongst others, Cliff Richard.
The story is about the youth club member and aspiring singer Nicky (Cliff Richard) and his friends, who try to save their club in western London from the unscrupulous millionaire property developer Hamilton Black, who plans to tear it down to make room for a large office block.
The members decide to put on a show to raise the money needed to buy a lease renewal. The twist in the story is that Nicky in reality is Hamilton Black's son, something he keeps keeps secret from his friends until some of them try to kidnap Black senior to prevent him from stopping the show.
Although he is fighting his father over the future of the youth club, Nicky can't allow them to harm him, so he attacks the attackers and frees his father. In the meantime, Black senior has realised that his son is the mystery singer that all of London is talking about, after the youth club members have done some pirate broadcasts to promote their show.
So, although he's just bought the theatre where the show is to take place, in order to be able to stop it, the proud father decides that the show must go one. At the end, he joins the youth club members on stage, dancing and singing, after having promised to build them a new youth club.
TASK
Here is the trailer for the film - how is the representation of British Youth different here to what you have previously seen?
1961 saw the release of the film 'The Young Ones' starring, amongst others, Cliff Richard.
The story is about the youth club member and aspiring singer Nicky (Cliff Richard) and his friends, who try to save their club in western London from the unscrupulous millionaire property developer Hamilton Black, who plans to tear it down to make room for a large office block.
The members decide to put on a show to raise the money needed to buy a lease renewal. The twist in the story is that Nicky in reality is Hamilton Black's son, something he keeps keeps secret from his friends until some of them try to kidnap Black senior to prevent him from stopping the show.
Although he is fighting his father over the future of the youth club, Nicky can't allow them to harm him, so he attacks the attackers and frees his father. In the meantime, Black senior has realised that his son is the mystery singer that all of London is talking about, after the youth club members have done some pirate broadcasts to promote their show.
So, although he's just bought the theatre where the show is to take place, in order to be able to stop it, the proud father decides that the show must go one. At the end, he joins the youth club members on stage, dancing and singing, after having promised to build them a new youth club.
TASK
Here is the trailer for the film - how is the representation of British Youth different here to what you have previously seen?
1960's Youth (Young Ones)
- Don't want any trouble
- Smartly dressed
- Polite
- Happy
- Care about their home town
- Respect the people around them and where they live
- Enthusiastic
- Trendy within their social group
- Smart clothing, suit and tie
1960's Youth (Quadrophenia)
- Cause trouble a lot
- Rude
- Ignorant
- Don't care about the town
- Don't respect anyone or anything
- Fighting
- Trendy within their social group
- Casual clothing with a hint of smart clothing such as a blazer
Thursday, 16 January 2014
Youth Caulture: Rocker
Rockers
The rocker hairsyle, kept in place with Brycreem, was actually a tame or exaggerate pompadour haristyle, as we popular with some 1950's rock and roll musicians. The rockers were mtocyclists, wearing clothes such as black leather jackets. Rockers mainly favoured in the 1950's rock and roll, mostly by aritsts like Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. The mods and rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early-mid 1960's. Mods and rockers fighting in the 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youths and the two groups were seen as devils.
The rocker hairsyle, kept in place with Brycreem, was actually a tame or exaggerate pompadour haristyle, as we popular with some 1950's rock and roll musicians. The rockers were mtocyclists, wearing clothes such as black leather jackets. Rockers mainly favoured in the 1950's rock and roll, mostly by aritsts like Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. The mods and rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early-mid 1960's. Mods and rockers fighting in the 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youths and the two groups were seen as devils.
Monday, 13 January 2014
Youth Subcultures
Dick Hebdige: The Meaning Of Style (1979)
Richard "Dick" Hebdige (born 1951) is a British media theorists and socialists most commonly associated with the study of subcultures, and its resistance against the mainstream of society.
Quote - "Members of a subculture often signal they membership through a distinctive and symbolic use of style, which includes fashion, mannerism and music"
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Youth Culture
Youth Culture
Noun 1. youth subculture - a minority youth culture whose distinctiveness depended largely on the social class and ethnic background of its members; often characterized by its adoption of a particular music genre
The meaning, formation and behaviour of youth cultures have been the subject of research since the 1930s. In August 2011, England witnessed a number of ‘youth’ riots in several London Boroughs, Birmingham and Bristol.
The following article was published in The Guardian newspaper in December 1999. You can find the original article online by clicking here.
'They blast the flesh off humans! Teenage hoodlums from another world on a horrendous ray-gun rampage!" So ran the promotion for the 1959 film Teenagers From Outer Space, in the days when teenagers were viewed by grown-ups as deviant, difficult and scary.
The emergence of this thing called "youth culture" is a distinctly 20th-century phenomenon; the collision of increased standards of living, more leisure time, the explosion of post-war consumer culture and wider psychological research into adolescents all contributed to the formation of this new social category defined by age. Previously, the rite of passage between childhood and adult life had not been so clearly demarcated -this is not to say that young adults didn't have their own activities before the invention of Brylcreem and crepe soles (youth gangs were common in Victorian Britain, for example) but it hadn't before been defined or packaged as a culture.
Once "invented", the "youth culture" provoked a variety of often contradictory responses: youth was dangerous, misunderstood, the future, a new consumer group. British post-war youth culture emerged primarily in response to the American popular culture centred on rock 'n' roll. The 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, with its soundtrack featuring Bill Haley And The Comets' Rock Around The Clock, was a defining moment, inspiring people to dance in the aisles (and some to slash seats).
The fear was not only of hoodlums but also of the creeping Americanisation of British culture. But the impact of imported US films and music did not lead to cultural homogenisation; instead, it inspired a series of spectacular - and distinctly British - youth subcultures from the mid-50s to the late-70s: teds (quiffs, Elvis, flick-knives, crepe soles, working-class London origins circa 1953, drug of choice: alcohol); mods (Jamaican-rudeboy/Italian-cool style, US soul, purple hearts, The Small Faces, scooters, working-class London origins circa 1963, drug of choice: amphetamines); skinheads (Jamaican ska, exaggerated white, British, working-class masculinity, contrasting starkly with middle-class hippiedom of the same period, boots, braces, shaved heads and violence, sometimes racist, late 60s origins, drug of choice: amphetamines); punk (Sex Pistols, spit, bondage, swastikas, circa 1976, drug of choice: glue and amphetamines).
Drug use became a feature of youth subcultures from the Mods onwards - not just any old drugs, but ones that characterised and defined the subculture in question. Mods chose speed because it made them feel smart and invincible; it also gave them the energy to keep on the move, awake at all-nighters (and through work the next day).
Later, within rave culture, drug use - this time, ecstasy - was central to the point of being almost obligatory. Dick Hebdige, acommentator on youth culture, argues that the multicultural nature of post-war Britain was crucial to the formation of many subcultures; each one, he says, should be seen as a response to the presence of black culture in Britain, the ska/rudeboy-inspired two tone movement being a particularly vivid example. The tribes were created through the amalgamation of particular types of cultural goods; music, fashion, hairstyles, politics, drugs, dances - with their boundaries defined through crucial choices: Vespas or Harley-Davidsons, speed or acid, Dr Martens or desert boots. But then, youth culture is full of contradiction: the desire to express individuality by wearing the same clothes as your mates, and rebelling against capitalism at the same time as being a perfect capitalist slave.
Britain also led the way in the study of youth, and its celebration of creativity and resistance, though these studies, naturally, have their favourite subcultures, often overlooking others. (Still, the kiss of death for any subculture is to be "understood" by a sociologist.) By the late 70s and early 80s, youth subculture began to change, and became less gang-oriented.
The regular emergence of new subcultures slowed down, and the first major period of revivals began. It became difficult to identify distinct subcultures, rather than just musical styles. In fact, something weird happened: everyone started behaving like a teenager.
By the 90s, "proper" grown-ups had started to complain that contemporary youth were dull and conformist, and the music of small children became the preferred choice of most teenagers - Pinky & Perky dressed up as Steps.
Today, there are still plenty of new genres of music, but they don't have such visible subcultures affiliated to them. Even something as recent as 80s dance music and rave culture - after its initial, Smiley-faced, ecstasy-fuelled unity - fragmented into a multitude of sub-genres with no definable set of cultural attributes.
Despite society's consistent attempts to regulate youth culture, perhaps the main cause of its demise in recent years is the extension of adolescent behaviour until death by the Edinas and Patsys of this world. Youth culture is now just another lifestyle choice, in which age has become increasingly irrelevant.
Noun 1. youth subculture - a minority youth culture whose distinctiveness depended largely on the social class and ethnic background of its members; often characterized by its adoption of a particular music genre
The meaning, formation and behaviour of youth cultures have been the subject of research since the 1930s. In August 2011, England witnessed a number of ‘youth’ riots in several London Boroughs, Birmingham and Bristol.
The following article was published in The Guardian newspaper in December 1999. You can find the original article online by clicking here.
'They blast the flesh off humans! Teenage hoodlums from another world on a horrendous ray-gun rampage!" So ran the promotion for the 1959 film Teenagers From Outer Space, in the days when teenagers were viewed by grown-ups as deviant, difficult and scary.
The emergence of this thing called "youth culture" is a distinctly 20th-century phenomenon; the collision of increased standards of living, more leisure time, the explosion of post-war consumer culture and wider psychological research into adolescents all contributed to the formation of this new social category defined by age. Previously, the rite of passage between childhood and adult life had not been so clearly demarcated -this is not to say that young adults didn't have their own activities before the invention of Brylcreem and crepe soles (youth gangs were common in Victorian Britain, for example) but it hadn't before been defined or packaged as a culture.
Once "invented", the "youth culture" provoked a variety of often contradictory responses: youth was dangerous, misunderstood, the future, a new consumer group. British post-war youth culture emerged primarily in response to the American popular culture centred on rock 'n' roll. The 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, with its soundtrack featuring Bill Haley And The Comets' Rock Around The Clock, was a defining moment, inspiring people to dance in the aisles (and some to slash seats).
The fear was not only of hoodlums but also of the creeping Americanisation of British culture. But the impact of imported US films and music did not lead to cultural homogenisation; instead, it inspired a series of spectacular - and distinctly British - youth subcultures from the mid-50s to the late-70s: teds (quiffs, Elvis, flick-knives, crepe soles, working-class London origins circa 1953, drug of choice: alcohol); mods (Jamaican-rudeboy/Italian-cool style, US soul, purple hearts, The Small Faces, scooters, working-class London origins circa 1963, drug of choice: amphetamines); skinheads (Jamaican ska, exaggerated white, British, working-class masculinity, contrasting starkly with middle-class hippiedom of the same period, boots, braces, shaved heads and violence, sometimes racist, late 60s origins, drug of choice: amphetamines); punk (Sex Pistols, spit, bondage, swastikas, circa 1976, drug of choice: glue and amphetamines).
Drug use became a feature of youth subcultures from the Mods onwards - not just any old drugs, but ones that characterised and defined the subculture in question. Mods chose speed because it made them feel smart and invincible; it also gave them the energy to keep on the move, awake at all-nighters (and through work the next day).
Later, within rave culture, drug use - this time, ecstasy - was central to the point of being almost obligatory. Dick Hebdige, acommentator on youth culture, argues that the multicultural nature of post-war Britain was crucial to the formation of many subcultures; each one, he says, should be seen as a response to the presence of black culture in Britain, the ska/rudeboy-inspired two tone movement being a particularly vivid example. The tribes were created through the amalgamation of particular types of cultural goods; music, fashion, hairstyles, politics, drugs, dances - with their boundaries defined through crucial choices: Vespas or Harley-Davidsons, speed or acid, Dr Martens or desert boots. But then, youth culture is full of contradiction: the desire to express individuality by wearing the same clothes as your mates, and rebelling against capitalism at the same time as being a perfect capitalist slave.
Britain also led the way in the study of youth, and its celebration of creativity and resistance, though these studies, naturally, have their favourite subcultures, often overlooking others. (Still, the kiss of death for any subculture is to be "understood" by a sociologist.) By the late 70s and early 80s, youth subculture began to change, and became less gang-oriented.
The regular emergence of new subcultures slowed down, and the first major period of revivals began. It became difficult to identify distinct subcultures, rather than just musical styles. In fact, something weird happened: everyone started behaving like a teenager.
By the 90s, "proper" grown-ups had started to complain that contemporary youth were dull and conformist, and the music of small children became the preferred choice of most teenagers - Pinky & Perky dressed up as Steps.
Today, there are still plenty of new genres of music, but they don't have such visible subcultures affiliated to them. Even something as recent as 80s dance music and rave culture - after its initial, Smiley-faced, ecstasy-fuelled unity - fragmented into a multitude of sub-genres with no definable set of cultural attributes.
Despite society's consistent attempts to regulate youth culture, perhaps the main cause of its demise in recent years is the extension of adolescent behaviour until death by the Edinas and Patsys of this world. Youth culture is now just another lifestyle choice, in which age has become increasingly irrelevant.
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
The media and collective identity
We will be focussing on the ways in which the media represent the identity of British Youth Culture.
Through the work we undertake you should be able to resopond to the following 4 prompt questions:
Through the work we undertake you should be able to resopond to the following 4 prompt questions:
- How do the contemporary media represent 'British Youth' in different ways?
- How does contemporary representation of 'British Youth' compare to previous time periods?
- What are the social implications of different media representations of 'British Youth'?
- To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’?
Historical – the development of the media forms in question in theoretical contexts.
Contemporary – examples from no more than five years before the examination. That is, in our case, from no earlier than 2009.
Future – personal engagement with debates about the future of the media forms / issues in relation to the concept of 'British Youth'.
Rules For The Exam
The majority of examples you refer to in the exam should be contemporary. However, theories and approaches may be drawn from any time period.
If you refer to only one media area in your answer, the mark scheme clearly indicates that marks will be restricted to a maximum of the top of level 1.
If you fail to provide or infer historical references and / or future projections, marks will be restricted to a maximum of the top of level 3 for use of examples only.
What is the A2 exam?
In A Nutshell The purpose of the exam is to assess your knowledge and understanding of media concepts, contexts and critical debates, through your understanding of one contemporary media issue and your ability to evaluate your own practical work in reflective and theoretical ways.
Logistics
The examination is two hours.
You will be required to answer two compulsory questions, on your own production work, and one question from a choice of six topic areas.
The unit is marked out of a total of 100, with the two questions on production work marked out of 25 each, and the media theory question marked out of 50.
Section A : Theoretical Evaluation of production
Section B : Contemporary Media Issues (Media and Collective Identity)
During Term 3 we will be learning about the contemporary media issue of COLLECTIVE IDENTITY in preparation for Section B of the exam.
During Term 4 we will be preparing for Section A of the exam in which you will be evaluating your own completed production work.
Completion of Work
You should have set up your A2 Exam Blog by now - if you haven't done so already you should, in the words of Jean-Luc Picard 'Make it so.'
Your blog will be your place of work. This will be a vital part of your preparation for the exam and essential for future revision. Take pride in it. Be proud and keep up to date.
Logistics
The examination is two hours.
You will be required to answer two compulsory questions, on your own production work, and one question from a choice of six topic areas.
The unit is marked out of a total of 100, with the two questions on production work marked out of 25 each, and the media theory question marked out of 50.
Section A : Theoretical Evaluation of production
Section B : Contemporary Media Issues (Media and Collective Identity)
During Term 3 we will be learning about the contemporary media issue of COLLECTIVE IDENTITY in preparation for Section B of the exam.
During Term 4 we will be preparing for Section A of the exam in which you will be evaluating your own completed production work.
Completion of Work
You should have set up your A2 Exam Blog by now - if you haven't done so already you should, in the words of Jean-Luc Picard 'Make it so.'
Your blog will be your place of work. This will be a vital part of your preparation for the exam and essential for future revision. Take pride in it. Be proud and keep up to date.
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