task 1

Bully and Skins

Q1) In the opening sequence if skins teenagers are represented as rebellious, carefree and promiscuous. The montage gives us a insight of the different characters and gives us a bit of introduction of the characters by the use of props, for example there's one character smoking, there's another drinking, there physical, sexual actions between some and this shows us the audience of their experiemental, normal teenager behaviours. This reflects the copycat and moral panics theory.

The trailer for bully starts with a non-diegetic sound connoting a happy, lively, jolly sort of atmosphere until the characters speak and you see the teacher say's 'your the nastiest boy ive ever seen' to hopkins which connotes that there will be trouble. The hopkin character is then shown as a rebellious teenager. He is shown as a anti school subculture which is shown in scenes such as when he is slapping a person or when he is causing trouble in the lab. He is shown as a dominant and powerful character as people are scared of him which is shown when people are running away from him.

Overall the two texts are similar because they highlight the negative aspects of teenagers. Although these are constructed in such a way that it causes the audience to stereotype all teenagers in a negative way.

Q2) A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. This was coined by Stanley Cohen which was used to describe folk devil. This is reflected in bully and skins because the teengers are represented as rebellious and impose their wasy of thinking and life style for everyone towards the social moral codes of schools and expected norms and value of society. However they are also represented negatively in the news on both print and broadcast platforms. For example the over exaggerated titles of “knife crime increase” or the stereotypical names for teens that are repeatedly used such as “yobs” and “rebels”, help over exaggerate the issue adding a lot more emphasis to the immoral characters that teens stereotypical have.

However audiences can choose to interpret the text differently as these portrayls which may cause a moral panic, may in fact educate an audience not to do these things causes conflict. Furthermore not all characters are presented as rebellious and cause a moral panic for instance in the simpsons Lisa is a hardworking and quirky therefore the assumption that all teenagers are deviant and cause moral panics isnt true.

Q3) New and Digital media is becoming more and more widespread and easy for everyone to use. It has in many ways given young audiences the opportunities shape their own media representations. For example through the E-media platform, teens are now able reflect themselves and their personalities on networking sites such as Facebook. it allows people to share their own identity by letting people put up their information and picture. It gives the person the power and control to do put up or take of and to post whatever they want on their profiles. It is used as for entertainment and communication because it gives the chance to post on other peoples status and keep in contact with old friends.

Futhermore forums and fanpages have allowed teenagers to vioce their opionions on matters and by doing so they can change others peoples outlook on things as not everyone is into streetculture and knife crime and some loose their friends etc. However on the other hand, the media doesn’t allow youngsters the opportunity to shape their own representations as they are heavily influenced by the media and therefore are more likely to act the way in which it is expected of them and in some ways which is the “normal”, therefore anything they wish to do with their own will, may be refused as they would feel out of place, as a result of other ideolgies being injected into their minds, influencing them and shaping their representations for them instead of letting them do it themseleves.