Monday, 18 March 2013

Task 3: Definitions

IDENTITY:
‘In psychology and sociology, identity is a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations (such as national identity and cultural identity). The concept is given a great deal of attention in social psychology and is important in place identity.’ WIKI – This in theory means that identity is a way in which a person is show to look, act and feel and also how they fit into society. This applies to large groups and communities.
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
The concept of a collective identity refers to a set of individuals' sense of belonging to the group or collective. For the individual, the identity derived from the collective shapes a part of his or her personal identity. It is possible, at times, that this sense of belonging to a particular group will be so strong that it will trump other aspects of the person's personal identity. To put it another way, Collective Identity is the idea that through participating in social activities, individuals can gain a sense of belonging and in essence an "identity" that transcends the individual. Therein are the rewards and risks of Social Networking. One can derive great satisfaction and sometimes great risks from participating. Within a typical collective, agreement is often valued over debate, though even more often fierce battles may erupt.http://collectiveidentity.net/node/10 - In comparison with normal identity, collective is the type of identity that informs our decisions of how we fit in to groups of people. This term in my opinion is normally linked with stereotypes; whether it is Irish people always drink Guinness, to black people represented as gangsters.  
MEDIATION:
‘Mediation, as used in law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties with concrete effects. Typically, a third party, the mediator, assists the parties to negotiate a settlement. Disputants may mediate disputes in a variety of domains, such as commercial, legal, diplomatic, workplace, community and family matters.’ WIKI – Above is the dictionary definition of the term Mediation. In Media, Every time you use a media text, we are not seeing reality, but someone’s version of it. This may seem like an clear point, but it is something that is easily forgotten when we get caught up in enjoying a text. The media place us at one remove from reality: they take something that is real, a person or an event and they change its form to produce whatever text we end up with. This is called mediation. You should be looking for this with any media text.

 REPRESENTATION:
‘A social representation is a stock of values, ideas, metaphors, beliefs, and practices that are shared among the members of groups and communities. Social Representations Theory is a body of theory within Social Psychology and Sociological social psychology. It has parallels in sociological theorizing such as Social Constructionism and Symbolic Interactionism, and is similar in some ways to mass consensus and Discursive Psychology.’ WIKI – In terms of media, this means that a lot like collective identity, representation is how we perceive groups, cultures and communities and also how we are shown them via all the different medias. For example representation of black Britain is Black/Caribbean people shown to live in crime ridden areas, also being shown as criminals. Films like Adulthood demonstrate this.
HEGEMONY:
‘Hegemony is an indirect form of government of imperial dominance in which the hegemon (leader state) rules geopolitically subordinate states by the implied means of power, the threat of force, rather than by direct military force.’ WIKI – In terms of a media context, hegemony is in theory ‘returning to the status quo’ and the order of how people ‘should’ fit in to society. For example in the film ‘Pressure’ the lead black character cannot get a job at an accounting company, showing the boss to be a dominant white man. The result is he doesn’t get the job showing that the status quo is restored as the white people have all the well-paid jobs and the black people have the lower income jobs like shop keeping.
COLONIALISM:
‘Colonialism is the establishment, exploitation, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. Colonialism is a set of unequal relationships between the metropole and the colony and between the colonists and the indigenous population.’ WIKI - ?
POST-COLONIALISM:
‘Post Colonialism is a term which refers to a broader understanding of the modern representations of race and ethnicity and the history of these representations.’ http://www.adamranson.plus.com/postcolonialism.htm - in terms of media the, post-colonialism is the aftermath of the pasts evens which have led to today social developments. For example, black people have developed in our society since they first came to Britain in the 1958; the culture has changed dramatically from lower classed citizens to a strong part of society today.
 
SYNCRETISM:

‘The attempted reconciliation or union of different or opposing principles, practices, or parties, as in philosophy or religion. Grammar . the merging, as by historical change in a language, of two or more categories in a specified environment into one, as, in nonstandard English, the use of was with both singular and plural subjects, while in standard English was is used with singular subjects (except for you in the second person singular) and were with plural subjects.’ http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/sycretism - This essentially means when two things come together and share the same beliefs and thoughts to try and make something right. In terms of the media this word can be used for when two different people come together against certain arguments whether it is due to social, political or economic values. For example in Flame in the streets, the two main characters are fight a battle together even though they are from different walks of life.
YOUTH SUBCULTURE

‘A minority youth culture whose distinctiveness depended largely on the social class and ethnic background of its members; often characterized by its adoption of a particular music genre.’ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/youth+subculture - This basically means when people join specific groups to enable their self to fit in and be a part of it.  They will change their ways and beliefs to act similar to the others. An example of this could be a emo, chav, indie, grunger etc. Within the media Sub cultures could be used to represent a time in history or age. They could be used to portray the comparison between sub cultures and different people and how some act different than others.



No comments:

Post a Comment