Catgorising facial expressions

Marjorie Ferguson has categorised facial expressions in the cover photos of British woman's magazines.
. There are 4 of them.

1. Chocolate box

 half or full-smile, lips together or slightly parted, teeth barely visible, full or three quarter face to the camera. Projected mood: warm bath warmth, where uniformity of features in their smooth perfection is devoid of uniqueness or of individuality

2. Invitational

on this pose the emphasis is on the eyes. The mouth is shut with only a hint of a smile (teeth barely showing at times), head to one side slightly. The mood is suggestive of mischief or mystery, the hint of contact potential rather than sexual promise.

3. Super - smile

 this is of a full face with a wide open smile with teeth visible. Looking happy and giving off a good vibe. The Head is forward and the chin is back. Hair is often wind blown and suggests 'Look at me' approach.

4. Romantic/Sexual

 Dreamy, heavy-lidded and unsmiling. Overtly sensual or sexual. The projected moods are possibly 'available' and definitely 'available'. Often clothing is limited or props are used.

Laura mulvey

Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema - (1975)
 The Male Gaze

Laura mulvey coned the male gaze. She believes that in film audiences have to view characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male. The concept of gaze is one that deals with how audience views the people presented

For feminists it can be though of in 3 ways

- how men look at women

how women look at themselves

how women look at other women

Features of the male gaze -

the camera lingers on the curves of the female body

lingering on body parts
narrative from the male point of view

Use of the male gaze in everyday life -

some theorists also have noted the sexualising of the female body even in situations where female sexiness has nothing to do with the product being advertised.

Criticism of Mulvey and Gaze theory -

some women enjoy being looked at

the gaze can also be directed towards members of the same gender for several reasons, not all of which are sexual, such as in comparison of body image or in clothing.         

Intertextuality definition and theorists

Referencing another text with/in another.

John Stuart - "Incorporating, raiding and reconstructing"

Juile Kristeva - "any text is the absorption and transformation of another"

How has the way the media has represented and/or created collective identity changed over time?

Media represents groups in society in a variety of ways that in a way can be argued that it has changed over time to a certain extent. This can be supported with the theorist David Gauntlet who says society requires us to choose an identity and media helps with this. On the other hand, Potetta and Jasper states that an identity is first constructed by outsides who may still enforce it, but depends on acceptances by those to whom it is applied to.  Youth is a collective identity that uses both of the theorists in the media to have a profile in society, although the issue is how youth has changed.

In the medium of Newspapers, Youth in the modern day are shown in a negative light such as in 2008 the Daily Mail shared the idea that "the true horrors we fear today aren't supernatural bogey men created by sciences. They're our own youth." Following the theorists, this would show that the modern youth's collective identity is negative. Similarly, the historical youth identity is shown negativly.  Douglas Hurd in the Guardian in the 1980s describe the youth; "with too much money in their pocket and too many pints inside them, but too little self discipline and too little notion of the care and responsibility which they owe to others."  This connotes that the collective identity of young people hasn't changed over time.

The media have created and continue to create many moral panics using music as the stimulus of them.  Elvis Presley's  rock and roll music was highly commercial but also extremely controversial. He was quickly branded as damaging and dangerous to the 1950's society. Any TV appearances of Elvis also showed his young, excited teenage fans and this led to an over emphasis of teenage involvement in deviant behaviour. Elvis was said to have aroused teenage girls in ways they shouldn’t be aroused with his “hyper-sexual” dancing of the time. Justin Bieber could be a modern example of Elvis Presley as his music focus on the idea of love and relationships which young teenage girls would strongly appeal to. Although, as Justin Bieber being a member of the youth as well he conformed to the stereotypical view of taking risk and being involved in crime. This consequent in dedicated fans self harming which started a trend that took over social media, especially twitter where there was hashtag cutforbeiber. There are many examples of music that created and influenced the youth's identity, it could be argued that in history that music was a bigger factor than today as technology has developed there are more media texts and sources that are easily accessible.   

 'Press gang' was a tv series in 1980s about school teenagers that have been set up to run a newspaper this shows the collective identity of teenagers as being intelligent and hard working. They are presented as trying to be part of the adult world, comparing this to the modern  tv series 'Misfits' shows how the media has changed how they represent youth. In 'Misfits', the characters are a group of young offenders sentenced to work in a community service program that presents the youth as being rebellious and criminal that are reluctant to give back to their society. This proves that the media has changed how they present the youth. 


Using the media text of film to see how youth is presented supports the idea that the identity has changed overtime. For example, a historical film Juno faces a mature issue as the youth actually become responsible due to the fact they're potential parents. The way they show it is comical and in a way they even show the adult world being more destructive. In comparison,  a modern film facing a mature issue is The fault in our stars where the characters are terminally ill which portrays the youth as being responsible and sensible about a serious issue. They fulfil there dreams and prospects in a short period of time that indicates them as being determined and successful. 

Media represents groups in society in a variety of ways that in a way can be argued that it has changed over time  to a certain extent.