Timed paper

7 Explain the role played by the media in the construction of collective identity. [50]

In order to answer this question you will need to know off by heart:

• The details of your two contemporary Media texts Dr Foster and August: Osage County. Do you know the producers/dates/production company/awards for best actress etc
• The details of your historic text. Production company/dates etc. You also need to state the contextual detail of this text-what was going on historically/politically at this time for women?
• The details of your future texts. Production company/dates/actresses etc. You need to think what the future context of female representation in the Media may be like. Who will be producing the media in the future?
• Your media theorists. You will need some basic quotations from theorists such as Buckingham/Gauntlett and Mulvey in order to discuss the problems of representing collective identity and you will also need quotation from another two theorists to discuss Media construction or audience reception-look at Stuart Hall or Gramsci/Gillmor
• What you are going to say about representing women-try to summarise the different female roles in your texts in the introduction to make it very clear to your examiner that representing women is complicated! You will also need to be aware of the fact that they may still use stereotype traits in order to say something political about these representations-look at Kate and Karen. (Perkins 1979 may be useful here)
• Your structure- this will be defined by the different representations you are looking at. e.g. paragraph 1 - women as dominant (remember to discuss this in both your texts, paragraph 2- women as nurturing (again use both your main texts) paragraph 3 - women as manipulative/evil (again use both your main texts to compare/debate discuss. You will use your historic/future texts as single sentence to draw out further debate.
• Textual detail- you will need to have very clear/detailed examples from your two main texts (Foster and August:Osage) to discuss costuming/sound/editing/mise en scene etc to support your points about how complicated complex collective identity of women is. You will also need detail from your historic/future texts, but this doesn't have to be as detailed. 
• Media Terminology- you will need to make sure you keep using the media terminology you have been taught from your entire A-level studies e.g. signs/signifiers/semiotics/mise en scene/ shot reverse shot/ diegetic sound/ connotations/audience/reception/production/ etc etc

Try to fit all of this onto a storyboard design on A3 or A4 paper and check it through with me,

Phew!

Practice exam question with exemplar

June 2014

Media and Collective Identity

6 Media and collective identity: how does one affect the other?

7 “Media simply represent collective identity, they don’t create it.” How far do you agree with this statement? Make reference to one of more group(s) of people in your answer.


Media and identity seem to be in a symbiotic relationship where one is intrinsically linked with the other. This relationship is fluent, dynamic and ever changing. It is the 'collective' part of this relationship that is most complex. As soon as there seems to be a 'collective identity' that has recognisable traits and patterns, this is disrupted by new representations and new mediums to present representations. This is very true when investigating the representation of women in the media. In August Osage County, a SmokeHouse dramatic film 2015, the women in the Weston family clearly portray how complicated the representation of women has become. Even in this nuclear family, this microcosm shows women to embody the roles of sister, mother, daughter, wife, but also of matriarch, divorcee, submissive, tart and dominant leader.
During a scene where Barbara challenges a doctor's prescription of her mother's (Violet) many pills, Barbara is portrayed through the camera work to be in complete control of the situation. It is her god-like non-diegetic voice

Exemplar essay

'These perspectives in turn are products of distinct moments in time and are specific to the social realities of these times.' Samantha lay
How far do you agree with this statement. Refer to your case studies to support your ideas.


Representation is of course a product of the time and social influences surrounding it. The representation  of women in historical media texts such as Folger's coffee advertisements are denote a 'stay at home wife/mother' who is reprimanded by her working husband for making bad coffee and for not having the foresight to buy a better brand appear. Woman are portrayed as less intelligent than men and are constrained to the domestic environment. However, a more contemporary representation and future representation of women reflect woman's changing role in society as influenced by the social and political changes of the time . In BBC 1's 2015 TV Drama Dr Foster and Smoke House's 2015 dramatic film August: Osage County, it is clear to see that representations of women, in their many different roles, are products of an ever changing landscape for female representation. 

BBC 1's Dr Foster presents many different roles for women. The main protagonist Gemma is a professional, a GP holding down a medical practice, a marriage and fulfilling the role of mother to her son. Throughout the 6 episodes of this drama, this one character is represented as: a competent GP; an unprofessional and unethical GP; a loving wife and a revengeful seductress willing to use her body in order to manipulate her husband Simon's, demise; a kind and nurturing mother and a deranged mother willing to let her husband believe she has killed their only child in order to force a confession...

A bit more contextual information

2016 Bafta TV Awards. 

Leading actress

Winner: Suranne Jones, Doctor Foster

Claire Foy, Wolf Hall

Ruth Madeley, Don't Take My Baby

Sheridan Smith, The C-Word

New past paper practice question

'These perspectives in turn are products of distinct moments in time and are specific to the social realities of these times.' Samantha lay
How far do you agree with this statement. Refer to your case studies to support your ideas.

Consider the theories mentioned in past paper questions

”The media do not construct collective identity; they merely reflect it”. Michel Foucault. Who has the power in the relationship of collective identity construction? is it the audience or is it the producer of the text? Do the changing representations reflect changes in the audience?


"Media representations are complex, not simple and straightforward”. Stuart Hall.  How far do you agree with this? Do you think that their are some representations that are simple? Why is this?

What about the following quotes, could you use them in your writing?
 

‘The media do not construct reality, they merely offer a window on the world’. David Buckingham

It is unsatisfactory to assume that people somehow copy or borrow their identities from the media' David Gauntlett

'This (referring to the impact of the Media) could hardly fail to affect our own way of conducting ourselves, and our expectations of other people's behaviour.' David Gauntlett

'Identities are complex constructions.' David Gauntlett

"Each individual has a set of multiple identities which operate at different times and under different circumstances. People define themselves by gender, family, religion, ethnic group, class, city, region, nation" - Jeffrey Richards

"Of all the collective identities which human beings share today, national identity is perhaps the most fundamental and inclusive" - Anthony Smith

"For the nation is, above all else, … 'an imagined community', a focus of loyalty and a source of identity, providing a sense of belonging to something bigger than oneself" - Jeffrey Richards

"Every nation has a set of national values, desirable qualities that derive from the national identity and the national character" - Jeffrey Richards

"The practitioners of both elite and popular culture, an later the mass media, … play a central role in defining and disseminating national identity, values and character" - Jeffrey Richards

'how we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation.' Richard Dyer

"Does the audience ultimately have more power than the media?" David Gauntlett 

"The power of the audience to interpret media texts, and determine their popularity, far outweighs the ability of media institutions to send a particular message or ideology to audience within their texts." David Gauntlett 

'These perspectives in turn are products of distinct moments in time and are specific to the social realities of these times.' Samantha lay

How about including these examples?

Please watch/research the ideas below.

Emma Watson speaking about the He for She campaign:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkjW9PZBRfk

Reactions to Ghostbusters new trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9NdSGka9EM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPrsg4vWNP8

Add these ideas to you inclusion of future representations of women. How do you think women will be represented? Will it continue to vary and change? Why?