Gauntlett's identity theory

Gauntlett's Identity Theory

Part 1

He thinks that audiences often get a sense of their own identity from the media products that they consume. You may watch films or TV programmes, read magazines, newspapers. You are going to get an idea of who you are and who you want to be. Audiences of women's magazines such as 'Realm' may have read the magazine in the 1960's and get an idea of how they were going to act as women. It helped them make decisions on what products they were going to buy, help them understand the person they needed to be to be excepted in society.
Modern audiences may read newspapers or online media such as 'The Daily Mail' and get their own identity from there newspapers and media. People watch things like YouTube and get a sense of their own identity from them. They might learn something about themselves or it might teach them something about their gender or sexual identity.
It can be applied to a lot of media products all you have to do it when looking at a product what might an audience learn about their own identity by looking at a product. What might it teach an audience, what might an audience take away from this product, and take away to learn about their own identity.

Part 2

He believes that in older media products n the past what generally tended to happen, they used to portray very straightforward simple representations. Past = straightforward simple representations in particular in gender. Past = simple stereotypical binary gender representation. We used to get simple representations of men, men would be strong and go to work and take care of their families in financial terms and be tall, which was a very one sided representation of men. Women would be housewives, mothers, caring, emotional, stay at home and have little independence.
Now = diverse complex representations particularly of gender. It's now longer those binary representations, we get a whole range identities, so when audiences watch them it's not straight forward, its challenging diverse representations, such as gender, sexuality. A lot more complex. Past = simple stereotypical, binary gender representations.
It's being able to look at the representations in front of you. If it is an older source having a think about, it is a really straight forward simple message, is it those simple stereotypes of identity. Or is it newer representation, it is more diverse, complex and challenging in terms of identity and if so, those products might match or conform to Gauntlett's identity theory.