Mood Board

Representation of national and regional identity

The national or regional identity that is represented in media, varies on the location.  It is often the focus  on certain stereotypical characteristics and customs associated with the nation or region.

Examples of the different representations of different cultural backgrounds and areas are;

The house wives series;  This shows the "wives" of particular areas and the way that they behave.  A more specific example is house wives of atlanta, it shows mostly if not an all black woman cast.  It shows the relationships that the women have with each other and others that they encounter in their everyday lives.  It does not necessarily represent black women as struggling or in poverty or as a minority but as rich, loud, ratchet and constantly "angry" or fighting.  Therefore putting them in the known stereotype for black women.

The london riots which happened most violently in the area of croydon, this originated in north london over the shooting of a man by the name of dougan and then it trickled down.  This helped to reinforce the overall outlook that most person have on croydon.  A dangerous area, in which crime rates are high and the people(mainly the youths) are violent and rebellious.

The ice bucket challenge funded an ALS breakthrough, this was a social media campaign, which took place in the summer of 2015, helped to fund the breakthrough in ALS research of 2016.  This helped to bring more awareness to the disease and to bring a lot of persons from around the world together for a cause.  Although, persons did have their criticism about the campaign and called it "slactivism" as well as persons or areas that did not partake may have been "demonised", but the overall impact of the event was that of a positive notion.

These show both a positive and negative notion of regional and national areas.  In my opinion, it does not matter about the area but the persons themselves, why certain things take place.

Research info.

https://qz.com/768877/a-south-african-high-school-has-banned-girls-from-afros-and-natural-hairstyles-because-they-are-untidy/- This story is taken from the website "Quartz". It is about a school in South Africa which has banned girls from wearing afros and natural hairstyles because they are untidy.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/31/melbourne-school-allows-black-students-to-keep-braids-after-furore- This story was taken from the Guardian and is about a school in Australia which is not allowing black students to keep their hair in braids as it is seen as untidy and does not represent the school.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/morning-viewers-furious-racist-school-11177283 - This story was posted on the newspaper 'Mirror's' website after being seen on the TV show 'This Morning' about a 12 year old school boy being told that he was banned from a school because he had dreadlocks.

Tuesday said her son's hairstyle was "not an issue" and she had met the headmaster on several occasions without his dreadlocks being mentioned.

She said: "I'm a strict mum. Before he even went to the school he spent an entire day in the school. Nothing was said to me, I sat down and downloaded the policy and nothing was said about dreadlocks".

Chickayzea, who had not been given permission to miss school for the interview, revealed the trauma of being taken out of class during his first week at secondary school.

The year seven pupil said: "I was in class and then my head of house came in and asked me if I can come out of class for a second and she told me that by Monday my hair was to be cut.

"I was upset and a bit worried because I really wanted to go to that school."

weekly news

Source is BBC news.

A Labour activist who accused an MP of sexual harassment has told the BBC she feels disillusioned by how the party handled it.

Ava Etemadzadeh, 27, said she was left feeling "very powerless and isolated" after Kelvin Hopkins was promoted the year after she complained about him.
The MP has now been suspended by Labour while it investigates the allegations.
The party says it takes such complaints "extremely seriously". Mr Hopkins has not commented on the allegations.
Ms Etemadzadeh claims the Luton North MP made inappropriate physical contact while hugging her, after she had invited him to speak at a university event in 2014, which "made me feel extremely uncomfortable".

'Shocked'

"The second incident was in Parliament when I went to have a conversation and he told me that 'let's not talk about politics, do you have a boyfriend?'," she told BBC News.
"And he also said that if nobody was in his office he would've taken me there. I was absolutely shocked and I wasn't really expecting that."
After refusing to respond to his phone calls, she claimed he sent her a message "saying that I'm an attractive, lovely young woman and a man would be lucky to have me as a lover and if he was young ... but he's not".
Some months later she raised concerns about Mr Hopkins' conduct with another Labour MP and her complaint was passed to the party's then chief whip Dame Rosie Winterton, who responded to it.

Reprimanded

But Ms Etemadzadeh said she was told she would have to waive her anonymity for action to be taken and the prospect of this "scared" her.
It is understood Mr Hopkins, 76, was verbally reprimanded about his alleged behaviour.
But he went on to be promoted, albeit briefly, to Labour's front bench in June 2016 - shortly after leader Jeremy Corbyn faced mass resignations following the EU referendum.

Image copyright PA

Image caption Mr Hopkins has been MP for Luton North since 1997

Ms Etemadzadeh told the BBC she believed that the Labour leader's office had been contacted about the complaint "and it was ignored".
"I'm very disillusioned because just a few months later I realised that Jeremy Corbyn promoted Kelvin Hopkins to the shadow cabinet, despite the fact that the leader's office was aware of this and they refused to act and that made me feel very powerless and isolated and alone."

Formal procedure

She said she had gone back to the party this week and raised it again but was told she would have to make a complaint through a formal procedure, via its National Executive Committee.
Then she was contacted by a party official and asked to detail her complaints in writing but was warned the procedure would take a few days.
She says that within hours the party contacted to her to say that they were suspending Mr Hopkins, shortly before the Telegraph published her allegations.
Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn declined to answer questions from reporters about Mr Hopkins's promotion on Friday morning.
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said he understood that Mr Corbyn was aware that a complaint had been made against Mr Hopkins when he promoted him but was not aware of the full details and was told the matter had been closed.

In my opinion although In certain situations he was quite inappropriate with her.  She sounds as if she has over exaggerated the situation.  Also, it seems as if the parliament party is not actually taking her claims seriously, and they are making excuses for the situation.  Overall, this does not give a good look in regards of the party, based on their representatives behaviour.

Representation of events

Positive representation of events;

The Royal wedding.  This event was shown as exclusive, expensive and was made to seem important.  They only showed the positive side that happened at the event rather than the negatives because the Royal family needs to be seen at a certain standard.

Football, which is also aired on television live, they only ever show clips of supportive fans and the game.  Conveniently avoiding the negatives sides that the fans and even the players show.

Negative representation of events;

Raves are seen as negative because of the behaviour of those involved, and also the presumed activities that take place, and that the raves are cover up for transactions that are actually taking place. 

Carnival is another example of a negative representation of an event in the media, the media normally shows and reports most of the negative rather than the positives to carnival. They more show reports of stabbings, robbery, acid attacks etc rather than persons having a good time and enjoying themselves.  This is most likely done to fulfill an ulterior motive.

Representation of issues

Negative representation of issues;

The media has placed a negative representation on certain issues such as the LGBT community for an example.  Most see the LGBT as if they were a "disease", some are open about it but still prefer to not be affiliated.  An example of this are when persons who are in the LGBT are bullied or killed.

Another issue is that of the care shown in care homes for the elderly is that the elderly are taken advantage of in their vulnerable state, and abused.

Positive representation of issues;

Women and girls all over the world have been speaking about their experiences of sexual assault forming the hashtag me too.  This brings light to the issues that women face no matter how little or small it is.

Another positive representation of an issue is #blacklivesmatter.  Because of all the issues affecting the black community they banded together to fight against the ill treatment and issues.

Representation of age

Positive and negative representation of the elderly in the media;

Are used to appeal to families as they are depicted as family oriented nd friendly, as represented in advertisements and programmes.  For example; Pets4Home

Are often represented as weak, sick, fragile and vulnerable. For example; LifeAlert

Old age is often shown as taboo, this can be concluded based on the advertisements of anti-aging creams and ointments that have been created.  For example; L'oreal.

Positive and negative representation of the youth in the media;

Young people are often represented as rebellious and rude, and just going through a phase as they try to "find" themselves.  For example, The movie mean girls.

While others are represented as studious and school orientated.  These are often shown known as "nerds".