Evaluation question 2

The main social group my media product represents is teenagers from a fairly low economic background. The text uses informal language and abbreviations which is how teenagers speak when texting so they have like a letter or a few for it. Concealing of identity is represented in two ways here one is to be seen as a gang member and the other to not be recognised by many people, hiding shame and fear of intimidation. Also how they dress because the hoodie hides their face so people who dress like that think they are hard they are known as trouble makers also if they wear a hat over their eyes it stops you seeing their face. Someone who is bullied would dress in the correct school uniform but when he sees the bullies he would get scared and find an alternate route to avoid them. The bullying endured by the victim in my intro was unbearable so he stayed away from school as they were always waiting there for him so he started underachieving which made him fail but not a result of his own doing and would look at school then walk away because he is ashamed of what has happened.

Costume

When bullies wear items of headwear to hide their facial expressions as they think they are hard and people cant anticipate their next move but if you look at them you will find out by getting caught in their vision or block their path. They normally wear dark colours so at night they would blend into the darkness so they could grab you as you walk past. But they only pick on people smaller or in a vulnerable position as they have an advantage over them and they are unable to defend themselves in the confrontation. Also the bag for the victim is used to carry books which shows academic commitment and distinguishes him from other character and connotes his studious, scholastic character.

Location

The story is set in a park which moves to a walk way then onto main road which is not very clean and when he goes to the house it isnt of wealth class it is of a fairly low class and status as it is semi-detached and is not very well built up. Also you can see it is reasonably low class and status area from the other houses around.

Character
I am representing a victim. The character is portrayed as vulnerable but they are mostly on their own so it makes it easier for them to be singled out. They are people who like school and get all their homework done and dont get into trouble a lot. They get picked on for their actions as they are smart. The victim dont provoke the bullies in anyway they are just targeted because of their vulnerability and can become subjected to the three forms of bullying which are verbal, physical and cyber bullying. I have used camera shot size - in this case an extreme closeup on the mobile phone face - to represent more social group dynamics between bullies and their victims, in this case cyber-bullying, which is present in my intro as the bullies threaten Higgins with a text.

Language

The use of informal language is ever present in my intro when Jarvis and Grogan texts they have abbreviations like u instead of the word. Teenagers communicate like this but the use of dexis which is skl which is school but it is not named the school but the participants understand it as they talk in the same way. These thing above which are shorthand are used to make references to ideas or objects in the film, this also helps to build a representation of the street character of the bully group.

Identity object
The hat that the protagonist wears is a black base ball style cap which is often worn by people of a lower class and status who have a diminished sense of style due to low education standard . Another key aspect of identity here is his vulnerability as a victim: he doesn't want to be noticed because of his situation which made his life a misery and made it crumble to pieces. The hat keeps his face in the shadows so the darkness of his face portrays the low class as well because dark colours are considered low class and status. The hat here is being used here to conceal his identity as he doesnt want to be seen by anybody because that is what those specific hats are used for. The bag shows him as the victim and gangs and bullies dont wear bags like that which all shows he is a victimisation.