Media and Collective Identity
- How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic/social/collective groups of people in different ways
- How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods?
- What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people?
- To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’?
I have chosen to look at how British Asians are represented as a collective identity on TV, film, radio, the internet and the press, as well as how British Asians represent themselves.
All representations are mediated, even those that individuals or collective groups make of themselves, and we should remember this when considering issues about 'reality' of representation and whether media reflects or affects representations. Media is becoming an increasingly powerful means through which our understanding of collective human identity is developed and manipulated. This is misleading as the media makes it appear to the viewers that this is self-fulfilling and real.
Yasmin is set amongst a British Pakistani community in parts of Keighley, before and after the events of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The effects of those terrible events meant an upsurge in prejudice against the Muslim communities in many parts of Great Britain. As the 9/11 events were caused by Muslims, this immediately put a stereotypical view on all the other Muslims in the world. This is clearly shown in Yasmin. When Yasmin goes to work, she endures prejudice when people start sticking notes on her locker stating 'Yaz loves Osama'. She is eventually asked to take some paid leave and given no valid explanation. We see ordinary people in the pub looking down at her as well as yobs on bikes attacking an innocent old Asian woman in the street who Yasmin goes and helps. We see how young male members of the once harmonious Pakistani community in Keighley go against their parents and start to become radicalised by corrupt readers of the Koran to rise up and fight against the West for the way that they have started to demonise Islam and persecute their people. By the end of the film, every white person Yasmin was friends with, had gone against her and were no longer her friends.
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