Quotes from David Gauntlett (Media, Gender and Identity)
'It is the case that the construction of identity has become a known requirement. Modern Western societies does not leave individuals in any doubt that they need to make choices of identity and lifestyle - even if their preferred options are rather obvious and conventional ones, or are limited due to lack of financial (or cultural) resources. As the sociologist Ulrich Beck has noted - everyone wants to 'live their own life,' but this is, at the same time 'an experimental life'.'- Today we're bombarded with ideas about - being yourself, standing out or finding your place - we're encourage to define our existence in terms of what buy, do, earn money from or enjoy. Obviously finding an 'identity' is problematic especially when so many existing identities and roles are uncertain - think gender roles, career stability, upward mobility in class. So Beck is saying that we experiment with 'identities' to see what fits, works and is comfortable. And Guantlett continues:'Your life is your project - there is no escape. The media provides some of the tools which can be used in this work. Like many toolkit, however, it contains some good utensils and some useless ones; some that might give beauty to the project and some that might spoil it.'- One of the tools in this 'toolkit' is personalities and characters in the media that could act as 'role models' - someone that we relate to and aspire to be, but not necessarily 'copy'.'The role model remains an important concept, although it should not be taken to mean someone that a person wants to copy. Instead, role models serve as navigation points as individuals steer their own personal routes through life.'- Gauntlett explain the power relationship between the media and the audience:'The power relationship between the media and the audience involves a 'bit of both' or to be more precise, a lot of both. The media sends out a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable forms of self-expression, gender, sexuality, and lifestyle. At the same time the public have their own even more robust set of diverse feelings on the issues. The media's suggestions may be seductive but can never simply overpower contrary feelings in the audience.'- So when thinking about whether our identity is 'mediated' - constructed or reflected by media, there's arguments on both sides - but Guantlett believe's it's a bit of both.
Mikhail Bakhtin
The Russian philosopher Bakhtin believed that individual people cannot be finalized, completely understood, known or labeled. He saw identity as the unfinalised self meaning a person is never fully revealed or known.
This ties in with the idea that identity is a fluid concept, a life-long project that is never complete.
Sheldon Stryker
We interact with others to create an identity, this is called identity negotiation. This develops a consistent set of behaviours that reinforce the identity of the person or group. This behaviour then become social expectations.
This is particularly relevant for collective identities (especially sub-cultures) that develop a specific way of relating to each other (attitude, language, ideas) that goes some way to helping construct our identity.
Judith Butler
Butler says: 'There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; ... identity is performatively constituted by the very "expressions" that are said to be its results.' In other words, gender is a performance; it's what you do at particular times, rather than a universal who you are. The idea behind this is our identity (specifically here gender identity) is not defined by biology but is actually a performance learned as we grow. As media students we can apply to our study of identity as many of these performances and notions of idenity will be learned from the media.