Explain the role played by the media in the construction of identity."


Media has a significant role in the construction of identity. Identity means the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. The reason why media has such a significant role of how society looks at or constructs identity could be because cultural hegemony. In marxist philosophy cultural hegemony is the domination of culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of a specific society. This includes beliefs, explanations, perceptions and values. To our generation, generation Y and Z who were born after the 80's this isn't necessarily the case. The so called "ruling class" has been taken over by the media and its power to influence people. The media uses cultural hegemony to create a culturally accepted norm that is universal and at the same time it is a dominant ideology. This justifies social, political and economic status and at the same time it influences the construction of identity to a very high extent.

Throughout our course we have looked at the representation and identity of men. We have used various case studies such as Mens health magazine, Deadpool (the movie), and "The Night Manager" which is a British TV drama. This allowed me to have a widen understanding of mens' identity in different platform of media, such as paper format and film, which all have different features, tools and way to create representative values to support the construction of men's identity.

The Mens' health is an international magazine that has been first launched in 1995, and ever since then they have been expanding their business, and with the use of digital technology they have become more digital by involving synnergetic works with mobile phone apps, tablets, desktops, at the same time they create events, news letters etc. The majority of their target audience is 18-44 year old men with over 1 million subscriptions. They talk about a lot of diverse topics however their main categories are, fashion, cars, grooming, fitness, watches, supplements.
This shows an example for cultural hegamony and how media affects the construction oft he identity of men. This is because the magazine talks and creates a lot of norms and ideas how an ideal man should look like, smell like, act like, and dress like. This is also shown through the front pages and magazine covers they use, because we can see muscular models, or film stars that are all successful, and have a great physique. This almost like injects the information into the audience's brain that almost become a fact to them.
This relates to the hypodermic needle theory that states mass media is very powerful and it injects information to a passive audience and therefore changes their beliefs and opinion about a product, service or in this case about the idea of men's identity.

A different however relative theory by George Gerbner is the cultivation theory that states that the media is re-enforcing the already existing opinion of the audience. This means audiences tend to watch or read media platforms that back up their own opinion. For example the men's health magazine states that a real man should have under 10 percent body fat and they should be muscular, the readers read that particular article or section because they already agree with it and it could be a sort of entertainment or find their own identity throughout that media message. This also bring us to the uses of gratification

However there are ways that media does not influence the construction of the identy to such a large extent. This is because ofthe diversity of our generation that still includes generation X, and due to the cultural and educational differences.
The reception theory suggest that the audience is not only passive and take in the information that the mass media sends towards them, but they react to it in a certain way. The three ways to react according to the theory are; opositional that does not agree with the message media sends, negotiated, that has a nautral opinion about the message; and dominant that agrees with it.

"The Night Manager" is a TV drama based on a book by Jogn le Carre published in 1993. It is about an ordinary night manager that gets involved with the law enforcement and becomes a succesful spy. Throughout his transformation we can see how his identity and personality change in a way that it confirms the hegemoical stereotype created by media, such as aggression, physical power, appearance. It is up to the audience to decide how they want tounderstand the message and link it to his status, identity or the job he needs to do. At the same time we can also see the hegamonical stereotypes being represented as we see the contrast between man and women, how physical appearance and behavior is important throughout the TV drama. We can see use of "female Gaze" (Laura Mulvey's ) theory applied to appeal to a men target audience which could be a way media influences the construction of male identity to create an ideal women to be attracted to.

Overall media plays a significant role in the construction of male identity through different platforms of media, using hegemony to influence people's ideology about it, however at the same time as shown through the reception theory there are different non passive audiences as well due to cultural differences that do not agree with a specific way of representing or constructing identity. 

Little bit of homework

Describe the most important post production decisions you made for your different media production and explain why therese decisions were significant. Refer to large range of examples in your answer to show how your skills in post production developed over time.(25)

Throughout my foundation media portfolio I had to create a magazine cover, contents page, and a double page spread as final media products where of course I had to make important post production decisions. My chosen genre was Hip-hop, therefore the post production had to involve important features that I have studied about in my chosen genre that created significant signifiers and link, that relates to it. A successful post production involves a well prepared pre production, or preparation that included the planning of photooshots. After choosing the appropriate images for my media products my post production involved me to use Photoshop as a photo manipulating, editing and processing program.

On my final magazine cover we can see a person covered in tattoos, wearing a hat, a black T-shirt looking straight into the camera. During the post production I have used the liquefy tool on Photoshop in able to increase the shape of my models, muscles. This is because the majority of hip-hop idols have fit bodies and they like to show them of in able to represent themselves powerful, and place them in a high status. Also their body is covered in tattoos, to show authority, cover feelings, and show where they come from, or their beliefs, therefore I have created several tattoo templates in PNG format, using photoshop and applied it onto my models arms, and neck then used a light filter to make it look natural, and then again I have used the liquefy tool in able to make the tattoo follow the shape of my model’s body. At the end of the process I have decreased the opacity of these tattoo templates in able to get a surrealistic look to it.

The post production process did not only include me to manipulate the images of my models but, make important decisions about font types and about colour coordination as well, which I have researched earlier throughout my studies. It led me to understand the aspects of using less than three font types and colours that will not confuse my target audience, or will not create a chaos in balance that could mislead my signifiers that I wanted to re-create.

During the post Production process I have used “dropp shadow” on several writings on my magazine cover contents page and double page spread, this allowed me to create a almost 3D effect within the layers which gave it a more aesthetically pleasing look, while remaining modern and well presented.
A major influence that had a significant impact on my media products were the choice of the background for my double page spread, Which was smoke. I have used a smoke Png template that I have turned into a brush, giving me control over size, opacity, and place which gave the best possible outcome to the representation of my model’s role within the content. I have refined the edges of the background and its content by using a layer mask in able to create a softer background effect and bring my model’s feature and importance out more.
The fonts, the background and the model were highly in balance, and the flow of the double page spread has blended together which successfully re-created a real magazine content page.

Overall my skills have developed to a large extent throughout the post production process, this is because it included me to research about the culture of my genre, and learn about tools how to recreate certain effects by watching videos, and exploring my own creativity. I have learnt a lot about layers within Photoshop, colours, size, brushes,  and different formats and how I can combine my knowledge in able to create a true representation of my imagination, that fits into the task and can create a final media product that is realistically comparable to real ones.

Discuss the impact of global media on culture (50)

Global media allows us to connect, share relate and mobalize across geographic, political, economical, social and cultural divides by using different media platfroms, such as social media, internet, TV, radio, newspaper. This of course has a large impact on culture, which is the ideas, and behaviours for a particular group of people or society.

Global media has a significant impact on culture on the one hand, this is because of the enhanced technology and the lifestyle we live at the moment, which is ruled by people from the generation Y and generation Z which are the people born from 1970’s up until today. This is because technology has influenced our lives in every possible way, therefore media has a larger possibility to get to us. This is being shown through a large variety of available platforms to practise mass communication, that we do not have to go to shops anymore to buy newspapers, we can just check them on our phone, also the internet allows us to connect to our social media accounts where we can interact with news, information and all the mass communication out there.

These impacts could be positive and negative at the same time. It could be positive, which is shown through the gratification theory that is made by Katz and Bumler. They created a theory that states people interact with media in able to get educated, find personal identity, entertainment, social integrative needs. This of course has an influential impact on culture due to the information that the receiver, or the audience receives from the mass communication.

Also media could have a negative effect on culture as well, this is because there is the hypodermic needle theory, that states the audiences are passive, therefore they do not have a oppositional opinion to the information they receive, they just get it “injected into their mind”. This shows that the media has the power to control people which could negatively impact our culture, depending on what area of the world we live in. For example in north Korea there is a limited amount of TV channels available and they are filtered to an extent, which means the information the audience receives is highly influential, which applies to the hypodermic needle theory. Further more the cultivation theory examines the long-term effects of television. The primary proposition of cultivation theory states that the more time people spend living in the television world, the more likely they are to believe social reality portrayed on television. This also shows that mass media could have a large influence on our life and culture.

However on the other hand global media does not have such a big influence on culture, this is because globall mass communication might not be universal, and due to the cultural differences the audience might not agree with the information or the message media sends to the audience, therefore it will not influence them in any way. This is backed up by the reception theory, which states, there are three different types of audiences; negotiated, oppositional, dominant. Negotiated audience is who does not have a particular negative or positive opinion of the information that media provides of a particular content, he or she just accepts it and takes it in as information. Oppositional audience, do not agree with it, and dominant audience strongly agree with the information that mass communication provides to them.

Further more another reason why Global media does not have a great influence on our life is because the information goes past through opinion leaders. This is the two step flow theory that states media uses opinion leaders that pass through information to the rest of the audience.

Overall global media has a significant influence on our culture, this is because it forms opinions, change peoples’ habit, the way they communicate between each other, and this is being supported by the large range of media platforms, such as television, newspaper, radio, and on the largest extent, social media.  Social media allows people to have a universal platform to communicate where cultures could merge together therefore be impacted and impact global media at the same time. Media takes information from our culture and reflects it back to our culture, we as an audience need to decide how we are going to take in the message that they send us by the way we interact and the way we react to it.