Useful Theory

Antonio Gramsci - Hegemony

 
Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci (1881-1937). He emphasised that the control of society by one group or one set of political ideas was not necessarily achieved by force or control of arms, but by persuasion and ‘consent’ – the basis of democracy. The rulers manage to convince the mass of the population that they are ‘better off’ accepting current government policies. Maintaining hegemonic control is thus a process of constantly reinforcing the message and developing the argument. The concept of hegemony allows for substantial change in ideas over time, even though the same groups remain in power. These groups constantly adjust their ideas and find new ways to gain the consent of those they dominate.

In media terms the Mass Media both perpetuate cultural hegemony and are a cultural hegemony in themselves in that a relatively small number of big companies, e.g. News

Corp., The BBC, Time Warner, Sony etc., control most of the world’s media, and this in turn allows them to control most of what we see, hear and know. This, in turn, allows them to control what we think, selecting only ideas that serve its interests, i.e. bourgeois capitalism. This is known as a ‘Top Down’ model of dominant ideologies.

David Buckingham

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

Mikhail Bakhtin 

The Russian philosopher Bakhtin believed that individual people cannot be finalized, completely understood, known or labeled. He saw identity as the unfinalised self meaning a person is never fully revealed or known. This ties in with the idea that identity is a fluid concept, a life-long project that is never complete. 

Stan Cohen 

Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972) 

David Gauntlett 

'Identities are not 'given' but are constructed and negotiated.'  

Michel Foucault  (French thinker 1926-1984)

For Foucault, people do not have a 'real' identity within themselves; that's just a way of talking about the self -- a discourse. An 'identity' is communicated to others in your interactions with them, but this is not a fixed thing within a person. It is a shifting, temporary construction. Power is something which can be used and deployed by particular people in specific situations, which itself will produce other reactions and resistances; and isn't tied to specific groups or identities.  Power outcomes are not inevitable and can be resisted.

(The power in our instance would be MASS MEDIA) 

Plan B

This video fuels the negative representation of youths collective identity. Plan be calls someone a chav and then says that must mean "council house and violent" just because he is wearing a hoodie, this is because this is how the media and other stereotype everyone wearing a hoodie. There is a clip in the video when the youths are being chased by police dogs this could perhaps show the police abusing their authority by want to hurt the youths on the street. I think in this video and song Plan B is trying to challenge the Stereotype by stating the worst in people and mimicking the government and also the view of others due to media influence. I think Plan B hope to give the youth of today a voice through his song and video.

How far were the responses of the rioters themselves given space in the media

Many interviews that were conducted with the youths just portrayed them in a negative light and therefore gave the media more ammunition to fire against youths. For example one news report described the youths featured as "dripping in designer good" insinuating they had looted them when there was no evidence of this. The responses of the rioters were not given as much space in media as they should have received however the responders on the rioters were given much more space within the media and this created a bad persona surrounding the youths

News Reports

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwK2R8XlYMA&NR=1&feature=fvwp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-XAK6kuoFI&feature=endscreen&NR=1

News Paper articles on London Riots

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3787061/600-riot-yobs-left-DNA-on-windows.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3797021/Feral-underclass-to-blame-for-riots.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3795997/Teen-in-court-over-riot-attack.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3747365/Olympics-girl-is-London-riot-yob.html

Critical Perspectives in Media

From a BBC new report from the 7th August a news correspondant refers to the rioters as 'young men'
Sonia a local who was interviewed mentioned 'young people, that's never worked, they've left school 
and are in their late 20's and they've never had a job and it's not because they don't want to work'.
Other local boys being interviewed mention 'where do the youths go now that the good youth centre 
has been closed down' an other mentions how'the police haven't really communicated directly with the 
youth and it has caused the problem that they feel they have no word and no voice.. so they're smashing 
up things so their voices get heard'.
All this linking to youths and the idea that they want to be heard and the lack of communication between 
youths and everybody else.

Quadrophenia

1) Discuss the representation and ideological values of Jimmy, Steph and Kevin 
in Quadrophenia. Use textual examples to back up your point made.

Jimmy:
Group identity important to Jimmy as he likes to be part of a gang. Jimmy 
wants to be different and more alternative to all the other mods.
Scenes with Jimmy and his dad and at work show how he is stereotyped 
and shows a divide between middles class and working class.
There is also a divide between youths and adults, Jimmy and his dad- '
got to be part of a gang, haven't you got a mind of your own!'
All of these reinforce the representations of youth and the binary oppositions in the film.

2) What examples of mise en scene reinforce the idea of youth culture?
The misuse of drugs within the film as Jimmy and the mods constantly have bags 
of amphetamine pills, known as 'blues'.
The noisy mopeds are a contributing factor reinforcing the idea of youth culture in 
Quadrophenia as the mods all drive around on a moped. The noisiness of them shows 
the rowdiness of the gang of mods that drive the mopeds.
The clothing of the mods is also a factor as Jimmys dad asks 'why are you dressing 
like a freak?', the mods believe their clothing is a way to separate themselves from 
the rest of society and make them different to the rockers.

3) What ideologies are present within the film?
Sub cultural ideaology
Living for the here and now
Dominant ideology of being in a gang
Them and us - (mods Vs rockers and soceity) - binary oppositions 
(my generation - young V old)

4) How can Stan Cohen's theory be related to this film?
In Quadrophenia british youths are represented using Cohens 1972's theory of 
moral panic. Cohens theory of moral panic consists of an episode in a period of time when 
a group or a person alone emerges to become defined as a threat to society. In Quadrophenia 
this is shown by the two conflicting groups in the 1960s, these groups were the mods and the rockers. 
The disputes between these two groups usually took place over the overlapping of territories.

In Quadrophenia, the youths are shown in two seperate groups, the mods and the rockers, 
and they are shown rebelling against eachother. This is for them to rebel against their parents, 
against the law and against themselves in some ways. In Quadrophenia, radicalism is shown 
in the way that the youths are reacting against the post war conditions, now the war is over they 
are more free to conform to social groups and more able to be more self expressionate.

Clockwork Orange

Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It was written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick. It features disturbing, violent images, facilitating its social commentary on psychiatry, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian, future Britain. 
Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the main character, is a charismatic, psychopathic delinquent whose interests include classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and what is termed "ultra-violence". He leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls hisdroogs (from the Russian друг, "friend", "buddy"). The film chronicles the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via controversial psychological conditioning. Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured adolescent slang comprising Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.

Overall the background to this film is to give an overview of their idea of future Britain with ideas of gangs and mobs and to an extent they have been correct.
Many reports had been released by the press relating attacks to A Clockwork Orange. In 2005 a gang of youths where charged for manslaughter after the death of a bar manager in London. They were believed to have beat him to death and filmed it on a mobile phone, many know this as 'happy slapping' and this is shown throughout the film and has related this attack to the film.  
 In 2010, 2 girls on a drink fueled night out "attacked a gay man to death" because of his sexuality. Onlookers, again, said it was like a scene from the movie A Clockwork Orange.

Obviously the two attacks have given A Clockwork Orange bad press as though the film has influenced young people to go out and attack people in such a way. Because of the media portraying this film in a negative way it causes people who read and listen to the media to think of the film negatively and blame the film for these two deaths. However, when youngsters of the 70's where asked how A Clockwork Orange had affected them after seeing the film they all replied with the same answer, 'that is was nothing they hadn't seen before'. People like to find something else to blame rather than the people and media help it's audience do such.
 
Overall the film links back to Cohen's theory in the way that the headlines created moral panic for society to think that many teens in that age group were part of a gang and go out to beat passers by up, when in reality youngsters just what to get on and enjoy their time as youths and seeing such behaviour on a film would never be acceptble in a society like ours today.  Youths today are used to seeing fights and immoral behaviour, and the majority deem unacceptable, and A Clockwork Orange is just an other violent film that has tried to grasp the reality of the future, yet it is not all what it has been made out to be. 

Stan Cohen

Cohen is credited with coining the term moral panic in his 1972 study. Cohen suggests the media overreact to an aspect of behaviour which may be seen as a challenge to existing social norms. However, the media response and representation of that behaviour actually helps to define it, communicate it and portrays it as a model for outsiders to observe and adopt. So the moral panic by society represented in the media arguably fuels further socially unacceptable behaviour.

MORAL PANIC
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972) and credited as creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when " condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests." Those who start the panic when they fear a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are known by researchers as "moral entrepreneurs," while people who supposedly threaten the social order have been described as "folk devils."
Moral panics are in essence controversies that involve arguments and social tension and in which disagreement is difficult because the matter at its center is taboo. The media have long operated as agents of moral indignation, even when they are not self-consciously engaged in crusading or muckraking. Simply reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or panic.

Deviancy amplification spiral (also simply called deviance amplification) is a media hype phenomenon defined by media critics as a cycle of increasing numbers of reports on a category of antisocial behavior or some other "undesirable" event, leading to a moral panic. The term was coined in 1972 by Stanley Cohen in his book, Folk Devils and Moral Panics