Media and collective identity Precis

The media helps to shape the identity of certain groups within modern society. Identity can be thought of in a number of different ways. These include protection of identity, such as an identity card and your own unique identity on social gatherings such as the internet networking website Facebook. The media usually targets social groups , such as the classes and also minority ethnic groups, such as the police, teenagers, the elderly and the disabled. The media’s opinion on all these unique groups which exist within our society. The way that the media represents these different groups, especially if they do it in an extreme way can help to shape or even change our opinions about the different groups in our society. Magazines and gender are two factors that link easily together, because a lot of magazines target one gender as their core reading audience. For example heat magazine is targeted at women, because they like to read about the celebrity lifestyle and gossip as the research carried out by the publishers and editors has lead to them creating a well structured magazine based on their research of their target market. Nuts magazine does the same for the male reading market. One of Karl Marx’s main areas of analysis was on feminism and them holding their own unique identity and how that it is a key importance in society.
Celebrities are another key area in terms of taking about media and collective identity. Celebrities are thought by many as idols and something to emulate. Celebrities are also usually the key targets of the media, especially stories like scandals and fashion tips etc. Celebrities are usually thought of as spoilt and as a sort of cult. However the opinion on celebrities usually varies as some struggle to understand why they are so important and why we care about them and what they think. Whereas other see them as their idols and will watch reality TV shows, such as celebrity big brother or I’m a celebrity get me out of here , because they care about them so much. Sexuality is also a big topic , especially for the newspapers as they are usually represented in a less neutral way. Either they are being criticised or praised using media, such as films like, Brokeback mountain, Philadelphia and sugar rush.
British cinema has also helped to make a decent contribution to media and collective identity especially in films like Bend it like Beckham as stereotypes are often used to base different culture roles within the films. For example the proud Indian culture shown in Bend it like Beckham contrasting with the football and British cultural representations. However the downfalls and negative features of an identity can be shown in British films. This is England is a prime example of this, because it shows the effects of crime and gang crime in Britain today so they also realism to the content of the films. This helps to show cultural development.