Evaluation: Question 2

'How does your media product represent particular social groups?'

Our media project focuses mainly on teenagers. There are many ideologies for teenagers; the majority of them negative. For example, one ideology is that all teenagers are moody and laze about in bed all the time. Another is how they all want to smoke and party all the time and dabble in recreational drugs and sex. There is obviously some truth behind these ideologies, and that is how society believes and identifies with them. However, we believe a lot of these ideologies through stereotypes and mediation. The media select the information we are given as a society, and we are therefore led to believe the ideas behind them. A good, comic example of a stroppy teenager is Harry Enfield's film 'Kevin And Perry Go Large'. He just strops about the place whining and sleeping all the time.



Another example is a character called Lauren from 'The Catherine Tate Show'. She has to keep her cool by asking 'am i bovvered?'. This adds to the ideology of teenagers having an attitude and acting cool.



These ideologies are quite negative, but there is some truth in them. We have conformed to quite a few ideologies in our project, but this is because there is some truth in them. For example, the girls in the footage are quite fashionable and this conforms to the ideology of young girls being into the latest fashion and trends.
Another one is the killer is male. He is big and intimidating and has concealed his face, conforming to the ideology of it being a man that is a criminal and preys on teenage girls; we could of challenged this ideology of using a female killer, unusual and it goes against the grain.
We have conformed to the fact that the woman is always the victim. The 'Damsel in Distress' and the weak, vulnerable one, who always needs saving, typically by a heroic, masculine man.
An ideology we have unintentionally conformed to is that the lead girl is blonde, and in danger, suggesting that 'all blondes are dumb'. WE did not mean to conform to this ideology, because Dulcie was chosen to act because she was willing and we thought she would be the best at it. However, it has worked quite well because the other girl in the footage, myself, is ginger, and there are not many ginger people in films. There is always a brunette or a blonde in roles. We could of challenged this norm and cast myself as the lead, but as a group, we thought Dulcie would be better.

There are quite a few ideologies we have conformed to, but there are some we have challenged. The recent headlines within the news and the gangs all wearing their hoodies gave teenagers a bad status in society, as most of these hoodied youths aren't dangerous. The girl in our project has a hoodie on, and so challenges the ideology of hooded youths as dangerous, because she is the one IN danger.
Another ideology we have challenged is the fact a group of girls have gone camping. Stereotypically, girls are not outdoorsy and are really into fashion and hair and make-up. Clearly these girls are, but the have chosen to go camping in the woods, stereotypically a boyish thing to do.

I think we have represented the social group of teenage girls quite well. We conform to quite a few ideologies, whether they were intentional or not. The fact they were unintentional proves the point of mediation; of how we believe what information is selected for us to read. We decided to use teenagers because it was realistic to film and shoot, and realistic for audiences to believe them to go camping and have fun, and get into trouble and end up in danger!