Collective Identity Terms/Theories

Collective Identity - Collective identity refers to a person's sense of belonging to a group. The identity of the group, or the 'collective,' becomes a part of the person's individual identity. The idea here is that by participating in social activities, a person can develop a sense of belonging and an identity that goes beyond the person.

Henry Jenkins - Audiences are becoming participatorial rather than spectatorial largely due to the availability of technology and society.

Laura Mulvey - Male Gaze Theory - Audiences are positioned to view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male, such as through the extensive use of focussing particularly on the curvature of the female body. - Leads to the objectification of women. Women viewers are made to view the product SECONDARILY, from the point of view of a male. 

•    Objectification - To view something as an object rather than a being
•    Jonathon Schroader (1998) - "To gaze implies more than just to look at. It signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of gaze"

Baudrillard - The media presents a simulation of the world that is artificial and 'hyperreal'

                    - Some audiences consider this hyperreality to be reality - leading to hypersexuality etc

                    - The representation of media is mediated through the media (War reporting e.g)

Mediation - The ways that the media represent and reconstruct reality, sometimes creating an idea that is not truly representative of the real subject.

                 - Selection vs Rejection, Focussing, Organisation 
                 - Link to Post Modernism/Global Village?

Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g. social class, family, football team etc.) which people belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.