Rationale

Rationale

'Investigating the extent that social media representation have on identity and self-perception of 16-19 year olds'

For my extended project I have decided to look at the representations theory within social media. I will research and investigate into why teenagers represent themselves in a certain way. Within my project it will also uncover how these representations create stereotypes from social media to reality for both males and females.

The idea of looking into the social media representations of teenagers interested me because I find it interesting how social media can create stereotypes from how both men and women are representing themselves on the social networking sites creating expectations from the opposite genders in the real world. The stereotypes created by us on social media escalates onto things like the news, advertisements and television programmes which could be even more interesting to look into as this could give more information out on why certain representations are made. I think it is really important to pick something I am interested in finding out about as I will enjoy doing project and will be willing to find out much more information.

For this project I will be looking deeply into the representation theory within media as well as how both genders are portrayed within media and social media and create a questionnaire for people to answer on why the act a certain way on social media.

This project will benefit me heading towards the career path I want to go down as it is closely related to events and media career and understanding how these representations work could broaden my knowledge about the things I already know about the subject, this would also be a good subject for me to choose as a lot of free time is spent on social media and could use my own social media within the investigation making the results more reliable. Also like previously mentioned when expanding my knowledge within the selected area, it would help me understand why   people from certain background and lifestyles see things from either a positive or a negative point of view.

The fact that I am looking into social media related with the representations theory within media which is the way in which media represents the real world which helps relate this to my technical learning of level 3 creative and digital media, as it is important to understand how things are going to be seen through someone else’s eyes as well as from people with different background and lifestyles.  As well as it helping me understand the media concept of it would help me go more in depth with my technical learning with knowing how they will be portrayed from thorough research.