Discuss The social implications of media in relation to collective identity. You may refer to one group of people more in your answer.

Collective identity refers to the shared group is represented due to their characteristics. This means a whole social group can be represented in a certain manor due to a select group of certain individuals. In this essay i am going to be focusing on the male gender and how they people may agree and disagree with the collective identify of them in certain case studies.

The first representation we are going to look at is through the fitness magazine mens health magazine. This magazine’s purpose is to promote mens health and the lifestyle that follows with it. The male gender is represented as a very vain and body conscious personality. This collective identify is a much more popular life style in the contemporary male gender. This is due to the male gender over time becoming much more body conscious and starting to develop a more modern representation. although, this collective identity may be challenged by people who do not share this body conscious personality. Example of these people can be people who are of an older age and simply do not understand the content that mens health are producing. these people generally tend to be people of a lower social grade , people within the D social grade are low skilled workers who man not have the disposable income to be spending on gym membership and the fairly expensive lifestyle it entails. For this reason this collective identity is being represented in mens health magazine is becoming a much more popular representation of the male gender, but it will also still have the people who aren't with the time and dont agree with the representation of men. 

A second example where collective identity may be challenged is the way that the male gender is represented in the BBC’s The Night Manager. This sky drama documents an undercover agent infiltrate an British millionaire who is a secret illegal arms dealer. In this example we are shown the male gender represented in different way to the previous example. In the night manager we are shown representations of a few characters, the first being Jonathan Pine. Pine is the spy character in which the series document him bringing down the villain Richard Roper. Pine , played by Tom Hiddleston Pine is a well kept white male who conforms to stereotypical conventions of a British spy character. Good with seducing women and using his looks to help gather information we are shown remarkably similar characteristics of James Bond possibly one of the most successful British characters of all time. This shows that we are shown aspects of an older representation of the male gender. My reasons for seeing this as an older representations is due to newer spy content this has came across in the last couple of years. An example of this can be kingsman are film which tells the story of a teenager from a council estate who is brought into a  secret spy agency. This specific representation i personally feel is a much more contemporary version of a spy story this is due to the characters being much more relatable due to them being everyday normal people. Whereas in the night manager we are shown a character who is from a background and history of activities which the common person are not able to relate to. Yet on the other hand there are aspects of the representation of the male gender in the night manager which is much more up to date then the past is what women take from the content. By this i am talking about how through the use of the male gender in such a way that women are able to seek satisfaction from the content also. In pervious interactions of British spy films such as James bond we notice that the  plot of the film always implements an attractive women to give the audience content which they can get satisfaction from , this is a prime example of Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory which states that when men look women appear. Although people claim that their theory is rather outdated and should consider this theory the other way round as well. i personally agree with this and feel that we should consider the male gender being interpreted in such a way that women are also able to achieve pleasure from them. The night manager is one example where they have chosen to implement a good looking character to claim the hero role in this series, in doing this they have appealed to a wide audience. but a backlash from this is that the collective identity of male gender is becoming something which is relatable to the everyday male. 

In conclusion The social implications to collective identity with reference to the male gender is that it can ultimately lead to the complete opposite, it can in fact segregate the group. this is due to the male gender nowadays being so diverse and practically impossible to place under one set of characteristics. But in the media it is all about where the representation of the gender is coming from, this is because they can interpret the male gender in such a way that they can produce a certain piece of content as a result of placing the male gender in a certain way.