What important interface is presented through identity?
Identity presents the interface between the personal (what is going on in our heads, how we individuals feel about who we are) and the social (the societies in which we live and the social, cultural and economic factors which shape experience and make it possible for people to take up some identities and render others inaccessible or impossible.
Why do we need to look in detail at relationship between changing social structures and changing identities?
In order to explore the possibility that there might be some uncertainties about who we are in the contemporary UK, we need to look in more detail at the relationship between changing social structures and changing identities.
What happens when individuals take up a particular identity position?
The importance of symbolization and the ways in which human beings can imagine themselves occupying a particular identity. What is actually happening when we imagine ourselves as the successful candidate, the streetwise teenager or the sporting hero?
What is actually happening when we imagine ourselves as a successful student/footballer/dancer?
One important attempt to resolve the problem of where the individual stands in relation to socially constructed and even determined identity positions was developed by Louis Althusser who argued that when people are recruited into identity positions they are interpellated or hailed.
Why and in what way do some identities ‘work’ so that we are dawn into them?
It works like this, you have to imagine that you are walking down the street and someone calls out your name. You stop, turn around and think ‘that’s me they’re calling me’.
What important problem does Louis Althusser theory attempt to resolve?
Althusser argued that this is how we come to feel that an identity is the one which fits us – as a member of a religious community, as a New Labour voter, as a lad, as a mother, as a ‘new man’, as a European. The process is one of recognition, of looking at yourself and thinking ‘that’s me!’.
What is interpellation and how does it work?
Interpellation is a process whereby people recognize themselves in a particular identity and think ‘that’s me’.
Come up with three examples of advertisements which seek to interpellate the reader in certain ways. How is the interpellation working?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcq8bnMpsKQ this advert is an advert that women can relate to. Women are stereotypically the housewife and so a chore such as food shopping is related to them. Women can relate to this because there a days when you don’t feel yourself and everybody gets ill. Also young children are known to through tantrums and the parent in this advert I think is doing the action that most parents feel in that situation but they keep it in their head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cM4EOeJzHA this advert advertises Virgin Airways. This advert interperllates the fact that if you travel/fly/book or work for Virgin Airways then you have a glamorous team looking after you, who express first class qualities in the ad. Also your flight will be on time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mviAHJ6AkOs this advert interpellates to anyone that has been bullied as this advert explains how it feels. This advert reaches out to everybody really but in particular I think young children and teenagers as this is where most of the bullying happens. Also the use of modern celebrities are ones that young people will recognise too.
Give three new examples of interpellation working consciously and subconsciously in lifestyle magazines/television/film. Explain how the interpellation is working in each context and how the reader/viewer is recruited towards certain identities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZumXPlCoZ8k This trailer is advertising the film Mum at 16. young mums, especially those who have had a baby at 16 and younger will be able to relate to this film because they have been in the same situation and may have felt the way the main character in this film does. The same goes for parents, in particular the mother who is represented in this film. Mothers who’s children haven’t had babies at a young age may be able to feel what the mother feels in this film because if they have children themselves and they were in that situation then they may react the same. And finally teachers. If you have a student at school that is pregnant and trying to keep it a secret then teachers may be able to sympathise with them because of the pastoral training they have had for students.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB3NPNM4xgo when I first watched this t mobile advert I did not feel that it related to any of us at all, however since reading about interpellation I was able to make some observations. Of course this sort of things doesn’t happen to us all in airports. However meeting and greeting a loved one at the airport is something we can relate to, for example not seeing a member of family for a long time who means a lot to you. The people singing in the advert are verbally expressing the way the people feel, in particular the first couple, and we can also relate to this. Also the Indian man singing to the guy right in his face is feeling slightly uncomfortable and confused (we can tell by his facial expression), this is something that we would probably feel and are able to relate to in case this ever happened us.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWNBjU6DjYY&feature=related This advert interpellates mothers, fathers, children and large families. We can relate to there being a big family meal and needing something to cook that everyone will like. Also the never ending washing up situation is demonstrated through the hyperbole of the dishwasher, for parents the washing in households seems to be never ending. The song connotates families through the lyrics and also it’s from 80’s which may be of the parents era, therefore something they can relate to.
What is class and how have social scientists attempted to explain work based identities through class?
Social class is used by social scientists as a means of classifying the economic and social divisions of a society. Different economic systems create social class groupings, which involve some degree of inequality.
What is gender and what has social science to say about the inequalities between genders and the relationship between gender and identity?
There are areas of the labour market and of domestic work, including unpaid caring work within the home, which a seen as ‘men’s work’ or ‘women’s work’. In industrial societies, paid work is exchanged for remuneration and is hence more valued and has higher status than unpaid domestic or caring work. The former has been seen as masculine and the latter as feminine. This has been enacted in most Western societies through the notion of a male breadwinner which is primary to man’s identity, whereas women’s work has been seen as an extension of their roles as wives and mothers and thus as a secondary activity.
What is culture? What is the relationship between culture and identity?
The culture of a society has its shared meanings, values and practices. Culture provides us with some of the categories and means of organizing ideas through which we make sense of our lives. Assumptions about what is appropriate for women and for men can shape and influence our identities and the scope which we have for deciding both ‘who we are’ and ‘who we want to be’.
Give one historical and one contemporary example of cultural meaning being established through genders part in the construction of identity.
How do the new factors of class and gender increase the tension between the individual and the social and between the individuals control or agency and that of social structures?
The changing of social structures for example changing gender roles, patterns of employment, changing class and ethnic composition of the UK, might mean different identities are becoming available and others are disappearing.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Friday, 5 November 2010
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Who are you? What can social science tell us?
Critical and Perspective in Media - Media and Collective Identity
What are the processes that George Herbert Mead argues link the personal to the external?
The process is how you look at yourself from the outside. You have to think about how others see you and be self-conscious about the way you look. For example the job interview scenario used in the reading task was a good example. We think about how we want to look smart for them but then what happens if it is a hot day and you were in a suite then you may look uncomfortable and not so smart. You need to think about how you are going to be seen so we have to imagine what we look like from the outside.
What is Mead referring to when he uses the term ‘symbolizing’?
Symbolizing is our language where words operate as symbols. Gestures, pictures and images can also represent something else so they to are part of symbolizing.
What is happening when we visualise ourselves?
When we visualise ourselves we symbolise ourselves through the clothes we wear and our behaviour. Using the job interview example we imagine ourselves at the interview either in the negative position or the positive.
How do we ’signal’ our identities to others?
We signal ourselves through representation and symbols. For example how we speak, the clothes we wear, badges, flags, scarves and uniforms. So if I was to wear a school uniform the was commonly recognised in the community then I would be signalling to others I attend that school.
What ’choice’ does Judith Williamson argue that we have?
Williamson says that we have the choice on how represent ourselves to others. She also says that others will understand the choice that we make and that in different countries were cultures differ then the clothes we choose to wear will be interpreted differently.
How do Mead’s and Williamson’s arguments develop our understanding of identity?
If identity is how I see myself and how others see me then identity is a more deeper process of our life’s then I first thought. We have to be able to imagine ourselves which isn’t always easy, to reflect who we are and how we appear to others.
What conclusions does Erving Goffman reach in his analysis of everyday interaction conversations and encounters? What theoretical argument does he offer as a result?
Goffman suggests that how we present ourselves to others is like acting, or performing part of a script that have already been written for us. He says that we act a variety of different roles which is like the characters and parts in plays, but we bring are own interpretations and expectations to it all. This theory is quite the same as investing in our identity but more as having a personal commitment to our identity. Therefore this gives us more of a detailed ability to read people and how we get the message about who we/or are.
How is Goffmans ‘presentation of self’ different from ‘investing in an identity’?
They are different because they each focus on different aspects of identity. Investing in identity is more about our daily interaction with others and how speak, whereas the presentation of self is all about our appearance. Clothes and gestures and crucial to this part of presentation of self. In addition to this it is understood that the presentation of self is more revealing that investing in identity. For example if we twist our fingers in job interview continuously then this is interested as a nervous gesture, which could be giving off the wrong impression, whilst through voice we are trying to give off through voice.
Not all of our actions are conscious or explicit. What are the consequences of this?
Identity relies upon are conscious and active presentation, but it might also involve thoughts and feelings about which we might be so conscious of. Unintentional signs such as a biting of the lip or slips of the tongue are manifestations of the unconscious mind.
How do Goffman’s arguments develop our understanding of the social dimensions of identity and the relationship between identity and roles?
His emphasis on the social dimensions of identity and the relationship between identity tell us more about the social aspects and social exchanges between people. Goffmans approach to it all suggests that there are links between the society in which we live and the limitations offered by the or parts we play in society, because the scripts, in sense, have already been written.
What is the Freudian unconscious?
The Freudian unconscious is an idea which has passed into everyday language in the western societies through popular culture, the advertising industry and through psychoanalytically inspired practices like therapy.
What mechanisms, of which we might not be consciously aware, determine our identities?
We may not be familiar and not consciously aware of Freudian slips, when the word we say wasn’t actually the word we intended to say. This reveals something about our hidden desires. For example in a students essay they wrote ‘ of coffee’ instead of ‘of course’. This would suggest that it might be time for them to have a break.
How according to Freud does identity emerge?
According to Freud identity emerges through and from childhood. Through early development children repress all their anti-social needs, wants and all the things they are not allowed. Therefore this repressed material enter the unconscious mind and is revealed through dreams and slips of the tongue. Who we are is not given in advance, we are not born with identity, but it emerges in a number of different forms through a series of identifications which combine and emerge an infinite number of forms so there never is one fixed, coherent identity but several in play.
What is signified by the term ‘identification’ when used in the context of psychoanalysis?
Identification in the psychological process of association between oneself and something else. (originally someone else). Identification does not just involve copying but it involves you taking that identity into yourself.
What impacts can sex, sexuality, and gender have on identity?
Sex, gender and sexuality impacts our identity because Freud says that children are seen as having sexual desires of a diverse kind. Freud argues the most important physiological drive in sexuality. Identification with the parent of the same sex is vital for satisfactory development of the child into adulthood. This has many implications on our individual identities. Freud’s focus on the unconscious adds to the understanding of the process in which we work to form our identities. It suggest that we bring childhood experiences, even those that we are not conscious about into the decisions we make as adults.
What are the processes that George Herbert Mead argues link the personal to the external?
The process is how you look at yourself from the outside. You have to think about how others see you and be self-conscious about the way you look. For example the job interview scenario used in the reading task was a good example. We think about how we want to look smart for them but then what happens if it is a hot day and you were in a suite then you may look uncomfortable and not so smart. You need to think about how you are going to be seen so we have to imagine what we look like from the outside.
What is Mead referring to when he uses the term ‘symbolizing’?
Symbolizing is our language where words operate as symbols. Gestures, pictures and images can also represent something else so they to are part of symbolizing.
What is happening when we visualise ourselves?
When we visualise ourselves we symbolise ourselves through the clothes we wear and our behaviour. Using the job interview example we imagine ourselves at the interview either in the negative position or the positive.
How do we ’signal’ our identities to others?
We signal ourselves through representation and symbols. For example how we speak, the clothes we wear, badges, flags, scarves and uniforms. So if I was to wear a school uniform the was commonly recognised in the community then I would be signalling to others I attend that school.
What ’choice’ does Judith Williamson argue that we have?
Williamson says that we have the choice on how represent ourselves to others. She also says that others will understand the choice that we make and that in different countries were cultures differ then the clothes we choose to wear will be interpreted differently.
How do Mead’s and Williamson’s arguments develop our understanding of identity?
If identity is how I see myself and how others see me then identity is a more deeper process of our life’s then I first thought. We have to be able to imagine ourselves which isn’t always easy, to reflect who we are and how we appear to others.
What conclusions does Erving Goffman reach in his analysis of everyday interaction conversations and encounters? What theoretical argument does he offer as a result?
Goffman suggests that how we present ourselves to others is like acting, or performing part of a script that have already been written for us. He says that we act a variety of different roles which is like the characters and parts in plays, but we bring are own interpretations and expectations to it all. This theory is quite the same as investing in our identity but more as having a personal commitment to our identity. Therefore this gives us more of a detailed ability to read people and how we get the message about who we/or are.
How is Goffmans ‘presentation of self’ different from ‘investing in an identity’?
They are different because they each focus on different aspects of identity. Investing in identity is more about our daily interaction with others and how speak, whereas the presentation of self is all about our appearance. Clothes and gestures and crucial to this part of presentation of self. In addition to this it is understood that the presentation of self is more revealing that investing in identity. For example if we twist our fingers in job interview continuously then this is interested as a nervous gesture, which could be giving off the wrong impression, whilst through voice we are trying to give off through voice.
Not all of our actions are conscious or explicit. What are the consequences of this?
Identity relies upon are conscious and active presentation, but it might also involve thoughts and feelings about which we might be so conscious of. Unintentional signs such as a biting of the lip or slips of the tongue are manifestations of the unconscious mind.
How do Goffman’s arguments develop our understanding of the social dimensions of identity and the relationship between identity and roles?
His emphasis on the social dimensions of identity and the relationship between identity tell us more about the social aspects and social exchanges between people. Goffmans approach to it all suggests that there are links between the society in which we live and the limitations offered by the or parts we play in society, because the scripts, in sense, have already been written.
What is the Freudian unconscious?
The Freudian unconscious is an idea which has passed into everyday language in the western societies through popular culture, the advertising industry and through psychoanalytically inspired practices like therapy.
What mechanisms, of which we might not be consciously aware, determine our identities?
We may not be familiar and not consciously aware of Freudian slips, when the word we say wasn’t actually the word we intended to say. This reveals something about our hidden desires. For example in a students essay they wrote ‘ of coffee’ instead of ‘of course’. This would suggest that it might be time for them to have a break.
How according to Freud does identity emerge?
According to Freud identity emerges through and from childhood. Through early development children repress all their anti-social needs, wants and all the things they are not allowed. Therefore this repressed material enter the unconscious mind and is revealed through dreams and slips of the tongue. Who we are is not given in advance, we are not born with identity, but it emerges in a number of different forms through a series of identifications which combine and emerge an infinite number of forms so there never is one fixed, coherent identity but several in play.
What is signified by the term ‘identification’ when used in the context of psychoanalysis?
Identification in the psychological process of association between oneself and something else. (originally someone else). Identification does not just involve copying but it involves you taking that identity into yourself.
What impacts can sex, sexuality, and gender have on identity?
Sex, gender and sexuality impacts our identity because Freud says that children are seen as having sexual desires of a diverse kind. Freud argues the most important physiological drive in sexuality. Identification with the parent of the same sex is vital for satisfactory development of the child into adulthood. This has many implications on our individual identities. Freud’s focus on the unconscious adds to the understanding of the process in which we work to form our identities. It suggest that we bring childhood experiences, even those that we are not conscious about into the decisions we make as adults.
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