Media and Collective Identity notes

How do I create my identity?
• Clothes
• Job
• Appearance
• Friendship groups
• Sexuality
• Childhood background
• Education
• Wealth/status
• Religion
• Ethnicity
• Mother tongue
• Technology
• Video games
• Age
• Family
• Friends
• Social class
• Community
• School, clubs, groups, hobbies
• Social networking sites

How does the media communicate collective identity?
How do media texts arouse audiences’ sense of national pride or disgust, antagonism or ambivalence?

What makes you feel British?
• The Royal Family
• Tea
• Fish and chips
• Doc Martens
• Parka
• Big Ben
• Doctor Who
• London Eye
• Houses of Parliament
• Buckingham Palace
• England Flag (St George) and Union Jack
• Farmers
• Terrace houses
• Cobbled streets
• Red letterboxes
• Red telephone boxes
• Double Decker buses
• Baked beans
• Corrie and ‘Enders
• Guy Fawkes
• Punch and Judy
• Chicken Tikka Masala
• Queuing
• Full English breakfast (fry up)
• Shakespeare
• Baden-Powell
• Marmite
• The BBC

FOCUS ON THE ROOTS OF SOCIAL REALISM IN FILM AND TV
You can reference:
• News
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Radio
• Television
• Internet
• Film

Students should create case studies on certain feature films or television drama. They can reference any aspect of the media – sports events are especially explicit displays of identity.

Radio 4 Today programme 1.2.10
A discussion about Andy Murray losing the Australian Open against Federer. The discussion centered on collective identity, for example, if Murray had won he would have been called a great British player. Because he has lost, he is called a great Scottish player.