Building an Identities case study

A student doing a case study on national identity and news could choose a major national event, such as the:

  • The fatal attack on the soldier Lee Rigby in London
  • The fire fighters' strike
  • The Syrian crisis in the wake of a chemical weapons attacks or the peace talks
  • Edward Snowden’s leaks on US spying practices
  • Same-sex marriage becoming legal in England and Wales
  • The fear of Romanian immigrants 'flooding' to the UK in January 2014

They would then choose a range and variety of media products to focus on.
These could include, for example:
  • BBC news coverage at the time
  • YouTube citizen journalist video
  • Analysis of the events by an alternative news website in the week following the story
  • A non British news source's coverage
Plus briefer use of other media products to support, for example a selection of Twitter comments from one person who was involved, one story from a newspaper's website, a satirical news websites take on the story, etc.
Students could consider the following questions:
  • What national identity or identities are being constructed?
  • What ideas and values do the identities communicate?
  • What is the role of mainstream and alternative media?
  • What is the role of the audience? How could audiences and different audiences use and respond to the different products?
  • What is the impact of social media and user generated content?
  • How and why are collective identities formed?
  • Are the products and identities similar or different, why? Does one national identity dominate or are there diverse or contradictory identities? Why is this, considering, for example, producers, production, aims and audiences?
  • How do the national identities reflect and reinforce power in society?
Students also need to consider and apply a number of media issues, debates, theories and wider contexts. For example when considering national identity, students could investigate:
  • the changing roles and power of audiences and debates about active and passive audiences
  • pluralist versus Marxist ideas
  • the role of social media and audiences as producers of news
  • postmodern ideas about fragmented identities
  • post colonial arguments about UK/non-UK identities
  • the rise of different news sources and how audiences use and respond to them
  • are they more diverse and open or is there a move back to narrower, more traditional identities?
  • what are there economic reasons behind the identities?
  • what are the possible effects on democracy?