What Is Collective Identity?




 

'A focus on identity requires us to play close attention to the diverse ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life, and their consequences both for individuals and for social groups.' 

                                                                       ~Buckingham, 2008~

The quotation above, from David Buckingham, is one of the famous quotations that tells us about collective identity and how is it represented in real life. 

In media, every movie, tv show or a magazine has to undergo the process of mediation before reaching our little screens. For example, the movie before it reaches the audience; the  filter, camera choice, actors... have to be put together.

Certain media representations are constructed by editing, audio codes which adapt music to the frame in the film, visual codes (iconography) has to be seen for people to recognise certain identity or to know what is the representation of that character. However, this has many disadvantages, cosidering that a certain character or community is being represented by specific music or clothing.

 This leads to stereotypes and generalisation, a representation of a person or a community through basic or obvious characters that is usually overexaggerated. The best example in the movies is the 'dumb blonde character' which is being represented over and over in new media products, as a character who usually dies first in horror movies or is dumb in any teen movie.

 Stereotypes lead to verisimilitude, which is the quality of represented community or character that becomes close to real life, this can be dangerous and lead to discrimination among people, based just on dull representations of 'real life people'.

 

STEREOTYPICAL REPRESENTATIONS

Gender

Gender representations are the most famous stereotypical representations. Males are often represented as the ones who like cars and feel a strong urge to work out; their personality is  represented as always being 'buff', strong and confident. In the real world people generalise males as always being strong and confident, and if this is not true they are considered to be the odd one out.

Females, however, are represented as flower lovers and the ones who love to cook and clean, and can't function without a man. Furthermore, they love make up and are connected with the colour pink. This is obviously not the case in the real world, where females are connected with independence and courage and can make a living on their own. 

Buckingham and Gauntlett belive that identity becomes more important to us if we feel it is threatened. On the other hand, the feminist Judith Butler believes that there is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; gender is performance, and it's what you do at particular times, rather than a universal who you are.

Ethnicity and sexuality

Ethnicity of certain nations are represented in generalised way, even we when we hear a name of a country and its nation we assume stereotypical things and different connotations pop into our mind. For example, French (as a nation) is represented in movies as those who drink wine and eat cheese, wear berets and every piece of their clothing has to have stripe design. Also, Japanese culture is represented as eating sushi and being extremely good at maths.

Representation of sexuality is recognised the best on Netflix tv shows and movies, where now they started representing sexuality in a different way. For instance, a homosexual man in a movie is most likely going to wear pink and wear make up, along with acting super feminine. And a heterosexual female, is going to dress like a typical male and be portrayed as butch and act masculine. In the non-media world, people who have a different sexuality don't always behave like that or look like that, it is just a perception of different filmmakers and directors which create stereotypes, which people often respond to.

Class, status and regional identity

Classes and status are represented in a funny way, and are mostly represented in comedies. A lower class family is always going to have reckless kids and is going to get in trouble frequently. Middle (working) class is going to be shown as an average person with a solid job. And upper class people are represented as arrogant, rude and show high-self importance.

Furthermore, representation can depend on a region where people live. People who live on a country side (rural part) are going to wear country clothes and have a huge farm, which in reality not all people do have. In urban parts, people work well paid jobs, and live in modern apartments. And people who live in a villages are shown as a very simple people and are connected as a community with the rest of a village.