SCRIPT FOR XTRANORMAL.

Man 1: Collective identity.

Man 2: Collective identity is an individual sense of belonging to a group of people who share the same interest and relate to each others identity.

Man 1: Some examples of collective identity are Nationalities, Sexuality, Academic/sports/creative interests, Age groups, Gender, Family's, Class, Ethnicity/religious identity and Ability/disability.

Man 2: We will be looking at collective identity on TV and in Films.

Man 1: We have looked into British youth in films, and have watched the film Fish Tank.

Man 2: Fishtank is a good example of collective identity and British youth as it is about a 15 year old girl, and her life and family.

Man 1: The theorist Ting Toomey idea of identity negotiation is relevant with the movie 'Fish Tank' . All the characters on the London estate were born into a metaphorical Fish Tank, were they grow up with the society they are born within. Their identities as humans have been negotiated because of the society they are in. Many of the characters on the estate all have a consistent set of behaviors.

Man 2: The theorist Althusser idea of interpellation is that the power of mass media resides in their ability to place a subject in the way that their representations are taken to be reality. Interpellation is extremely prominent within lower class society. The media does not portray London's estates as positive but negative. Somewhere full of violence , sex and broken morals. The media has almost created a certain 'packaging' around single parents , low income families and job seekers, portraying them as an isolated community. Fish tank propagates this showing a typical stereotypical. 

Man 1: The first prompt question for collective identity is 'How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic/social/collective groups of people in different ways?' For this question i would talk about how TV and films such as Misfits and Fish Tank that show identity in different groups. For example i would say that Misfits shows the identity of the youth, and the behaviour through having them on community service. This gives people the impression that all British youth is like this, and this is how they behave. 

Man 2:Although every character is different in the TV series, they still have a collective identity. As for the film Fish Tank, i would say that this is showing the collective identity of typical lower class families. In this film it is showing us a family of 3, mother and two daughters. We see the typical, day to day scenes, of alcohol, sex and broken morals. They don't have any understanding of morals as they swear, and one of the daughters is young, around the age of 7 and the other one is 15. The eldest daughter is also having sex underage. There is no evidence of a religious background in this family as they haven't shown any indication of following rules. 

Man 1: The second prompt question is 'How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?' For this question i would watch some TV shows and Films from a previous time period and then watch TV and films in the present, and look how they represent society and different collective groups in different ways. I would compare the contemporary medias and write about how they represent different collective identity or to see if they represent them in the same way.

Man 2: The third prompt question is 'What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?' For this question i would look at lots of different TV shows and Films that show collective identity and then analyse what impact these have on people watching them. For example elderly people might avoid coming into contact with a group of teenagers because they have seem on the TV show or films that represent them in a negative way such as Kidulthood. This could have the impact that every teenager is like this and its their collective identity to be 'bad'. 

Man 1: The fourth prompt question is 'To what extent is human identity increasingly mediated?' In this question i would talk about how yours or other peoples collective identity is mediated. For example the way in which film and TV represent young people. Youth is mediated through TV and Films which are presented through adults eyes. Only things such as Facebook and Twitter are where youth can really express themselves and this is not mediated, therefore adults only get the identity through other adults and don't see anything else. 

Man 2:One theorist David Buckingham said in his book, 'After The Death of Childhood', that how youth are mediated will never be reality because it is always coming from an adults eyes. Skins is a good example of how youth is mediated. Skins gives adults and parents awareness of children, and this shows the adults realm of sex, drink and drugs but youth doing it. Skins also has youth write scenes for Skins, such as they had a competition for anyone to write one scene for skins. This is good because its showing that youth is being mediated through the youths eyes instead of adults. Whereas the TV series 'Inbetweeners' is written by adults but is similarly showing teenagers in school and thier social life of drinking, and getting up to things they shouldn't be. The programs raise awareness for adults and young people so that they can make more informed choices. 

Man 1: There are scenes in the Film, 'Fish Tank' and the TV series 'Misfits'  that show Daivd Buckinghams theory. 

Man 2: There is a scene in Fish Tank where you see around the room, and you see the gerbil in the cage, an then it changes to see the 15 year old girls drinking beer. It then goes on to show a gnome on the window seal and then the pink TV and stickers on the wall. This is showing us a room of what we think is a little girls, and seems innocent because of the pink TV and the stickers around them. Next we see too very young girls smoking and drinking beer, with dolls and toys chuck to one side behind them. In this scene the children are represented is a negative way as you would expect a child of this age to be playing with dolls, like the scene makes us think first. 

Man 1:It is also showing the adult realm of drinking and smoking. This scene shows a contrast between the two. It also gives high awareness for parents, and whether their children are doing this. David Buckingham's theories could be applied to this scene. In this book 'After The Death of Childhood', he talks about what could happen to children when their exposed to adult realms. 


Man 2: In the first scene of Misfits, they show all the community service people leaning on the balcony waiting to meet their probation worker. Once the probation worker has started to talk about how its going to change their lives and they can prove being wrong about them being 'scum', the community service workers are rude too him. One boy, Nathan, makes a comment about how people are born looking like a criminal and starts a fight with another boy. One of the girls answers her phone and answers back to the probation worker when  he asks her to get off the phone. They then start taking the mick out of each other and ignore the probation worker. This is also representing youth in a negative way, but different from the scene in Fish Tank because it is not showing adults realms in children. 

Man 1: It is showing the bad behaviour in youth and the attitude they use towards people of an older age. They are all dfferent types of people but they all have a collective identity of bad behaviour as they are alll doing community service. This could be showing british youth as impoloiate, rude, and gerenally naughty people. This could link into David Buckingham's theory becuase it could be showing that if they were exposed to adult realms then they feel asthough they have a sense of power and have taken it too far and now are dealing with communtiy service. It also links into Althusser idea of interpellation, where the mass media are saying this is how teenagers are, always getting into 'trouble', but they aren't but its how they are represented in Misfits.