Generic Theory

Representation - The way ideas, objects, people, groups and life forms are depicted in the media
Mediation - The process of selecting and shaping, creating meaning from an original event

This has represented Muslims are terrorists. It mediated the actual survey, which was whether the answerers have sympathy for those going to fight in Syria, into a question regarding sympathy for jihadis.

Collective Identity - • Collective identity: the individuals sense of belonging to a group who share a set of traditions and values, (part of personal identity).

Identify a group within the post what is their collective identity?

• Representation: any consideration of a ‘collective identity’ must take into account the role that representation plays within the construction of a media text.

For example, if a young person wears tracksuits and snapbacks, they may be labelled by others and the media as a chav, meaning they are delinquent, a hooligan and a vandal. If they are labelled as this frequently enough, they may act towards the stereotype and end up having many of the traits they are told they have.

Buckingham - 2008 - identity is complicated/complex
“A focus on Identity requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups”  

Deviancy Amplification Spiral

Gauntlett - identity is now consciously constructed, and the media provides some of the tools to help us construct our identities. The media contains a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable lifestyles.
At the same time the public have their own diverse set of feelings. The media and media consumers are engaged in a dialogue in which neither overpowers the other

What this means is the media will create representations of an identity, and although these dominate our lives, we can choose different parts of the media representation as well as our own experience to create your own identity in your head, as well as how you view the identities of others. This contrasts to the Hypodermic needle theory, as it claims we get to choose what we take in from the media and whether or not we believe to be accurate. However, this links well to Hall's encoding and decoding model, as the encoding is what representation the media will create, however how we decode it will not be necessarily the same.

Giddens - There is a social structure which shapes our lives (traditions, institutions, moral codes, established ways of doing things), but it relies on individuals following these structures.
Structuration - the process in which human agency and social structure are in a constant relationship. The social structure is reproduced by the repetition of acts by individual people (and can therefore change)

Structuration - a social structure is something that is part of society, however, they are created by the actions of single people. For example, the social structure of Racial segregation was structured over time, which will have started with human agency challenging a social structure.

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