Exam question - “The media dose not construct collective identity, they merely reflect it” – discuss

Q:

“The media dose not construct collective identity, they merely reflect it” – discuss

A:

From first look a normal person would disagree with this statement, saying that the media dose not construct collective identity and that it is really reflected through different forms of media such as radio, TV and newspapers.

However on closer inspection it can be viewed differently and in actual fact the media itself dose construct a collective identity. One way this can be seen is though the constant creation of stereotypes by the use of the media, for example with the media constantly stating that all politicians are useless, then it dose seem to press that view into society and become the one opinion that everyone has of them.

In relation to youth this could be seen with how the media is always referring towards hoodies as un-educated, lazy trouble making teens and now it seems that from the power of the media that this is the only opinion of them within today’s society. Some may argue that however the media is merely reflecting the already built up idea that surrounds teens and hoodies and that it was already the opinion of the public and today’s society before the media even published it.

However a counter argument to this could be that the only people’s opinions of this were the medias writers and so by default it is the medias fault that this view of only a few peoples opinions has been so widely speared due to the influence and power of the media over the people.

The opinion that actually the media dose construct collective identity can also be explained through the theory of moral panic and the opinion that with one negative event exposed through the media will result in the opinion of the nation that it is happening everywhere and is not just one isolated even, and it is more likely to happen more often and thus eventually create a stereotype such as the ones before.

An example of this would be how over Halloween one event happened in which an elderly man was injured by a group of youths, and from looking at recent articles it seems that this is now caused a general opinion that every Halloween more and more dangerous things happen involving youths and that next Halloween it will be more likely to happen again.

The opinion that the media constructs collective identity is closely related to the theory of “post modernism” and that the media actually constructs our own reality due to how it is up to the media to determine what stories are “news worthy” enough for the general public to read about.

However more recently over the past few years it seems that writers and journalists are only interested in publishing stories that they deem “interesting” and not stories that would appeal to the publics concern. This being that the media now dose not choose stories that it thinks its readers ought to know but what stories it thinks will be most interesting for the viewer to read thus making the paper more money.

An example of this would be where a group of youths had started rebuilding a community center in order for them and there friends to do something rather then be stuck in all day after school bored or having the only option of hanging around on the streets. However when the news of this got wind to journalists who then went to interview the children they presented the children with questions relating to gun and knife crime and there opinions of this, and when one of the youths stated that they were not interested in that topic and wanted to talk about there project the journalists replied that it was not interesting and news worthy enough for the readers to be interested before turning away.

This example alone showing that the theory of post modernism is a much to true and that the media dose construct our reality as it alone is the source of information that we have in order to learn about the world, once again showing that the media doesn’t just reflect reality but that it truly dose construct it.