Question Four: To what extent is human identity increasingly mediated?

Question Four - To what extent is human identity increasingly mediated? 

In the media the people in which are portraying individuals identity is actually the people creating the sources of media. Such as 'The Press' 'Television' 'Music' and many other media areas. Instead of letting the individuals represent themselves how they think they should be shown, the people who are writing the articles and programmes are the people giving their own representation of the identities.
 

David Gauntlett is a media theorist. He stated that you can only get the truth of identities if the people themselves are allowed to creatively represent themselves. Where as in the media the truth of the human identities is being twisted (mediated).

The television industry have to continuously make sure the images of characters within series and TV dramas are appealing to the audience, fitting in with a certain theme relating to the show, or the present day fashion. Despite this not necessarily being a fair/truthful representation the television industry do this because they know the stereotypical thoughts of teenagers will entice more viewers. 

 For example ‘Skins': within this programme Teenagers are portrayed as self- asorbed, followers, rebellious, greedy people that fail to see the real importance in life. In the first episode of Skins we see the storylines plotted out before us, buying drugs for a party and attempting to lose their virginity. The first storyline line we are introduced to tells us how Tony, is trying to help his mate, Sid, lose his virginity. This displays teenagers as sex crazed loonitics.The second storyline in which we are made aware of is of Sid and Tony trying to buy some drugs for a party in order to have a wild and crazy night. This shows how teenagers feel the need to put 'crap' into their bodies in order to have a good time.


So as you can see Skins is an example of a programme in which feels the need to represent all teenagers as a group of identities which are addicted to drugs, drink, sex and partying. These stereotypes are becoming increasingly popular to use in television programmes in todays world despite these stereotypes  not being the case for the majority of teenagers. 


In addition to this Documentaries are clearly based on real footage ,which in some ways makes the images displayed of teenagers in the program more interesting for the audience because  they would see it as a reflection of their true human identity. However producers of Documentaries can manipulate the audience by only choosing negative footage of teenagers to display.

The press industry also creates a stereotypical human identity for teenagers of the present day. For example the riots in 2011. The press chose specific images they wanted to display to the reader and the type of language they use to manipulate the reader to how they receive the information.