Project 2 - Understanding the Brief

 

Who is my Audience?

The brief specifies that I should be targeting ages 13 to 19. I have considered two ways I could approach this. The first would be to engage their interest by showing them cultures they are not fully aware of, the other would be to focus on a particular culture for people of that culture so they can relate to it. For this reason, I think the most suitable culture to look at would be youth culture. The way I have decided to portray youth culture would be to show how youths embrace and effect varying subcultures, especially ones popular with youths. This way, I could investigate what youth culture is through subcultures. I could therefore show youths other subcultures, but also represent their own subculture so they can relate to it.

With my age demographic in mind, here are a few of the subcultures I am considering representing:

Drinking Culture - Drinking culture applies to all teens because alcohol, being legal, is the most accessible recreational drug. As hobbies and interests change in teenage years, they begin to point more towards adult interests. With alcohol being such a huge part of first world cultures, teens typically develop an interest and a taste for it. Therefore, drinking is a big part of youth culture.

Gang Culture - 40% of gang members are under the age of 18. Youths join gangs for a variety of reasons.

Consumer Culture - Consumer culture covers a huge variety of things, from clothing to social media. Teens spend £657.00 on average on branded clothing and products.

Drug Culture - 21% of high school students smoke or have smoked marijuana.

Cancel Culture - Cancel culture is about ostracising people, ideas and philosophies, or ways of being that you do not personally agree with and calling them out, particularly on social media. With cancel culture being primarily a product of social media, it is a culture that effects teens massively.

Skateboarder culture - 45% of skateboarders are 12 - 17, so skateboarding is definitely big in youth culture.

Graffiti Culture - Graffiti culture is an interesting one because it has many different branches. You get professional street artists who get commissioned to decorate buildings, you have people who do graffiti art illegally, gangs that mark their territory and much more. Whilst little is known about non-commissioned graffiti artists, graffiti culture is stereotyped as teens and young adults, so it is work looking into further.

Punks - Punks listen to punk music, adapted from reggae and other Caribbean culture. They typically wear dark clothing contrasted with neon highlights made out of tough wearing materials such as denim, leather and metal. They will often have neon hair. They dress with the intent to shock.

Skinheads - Skinheads typically listen to R&B and soul music. Most will shave their heads, and all will wear boots, slacks or other blue-collar workwear to display their open sense of pride of their low social class and income. This was initially primarily done to antagonise middle class hippies who skinheads felt were striving for an unachievable ideal that was ignorant of the less fortunate.

Hip-hop - 63% of hip-hop enthusiasts are under the age of 21, and it is the biggest music genre for under 18s in the Americas and Europe. Typically, hardcore hip hop fans will wear tracksuits, t-shirts, trainers, baseball caps or do-rags and other gym wear along with big flashy jewellery, often sunglasses and piercings or anything else that shows wealth.

How will I respond to the Brief?

The brief tells me I should be "capturing the culture of young people." I will therefore be representing different aspects of youth culture to show what a broad topic it is. By creating a media product that displays a variance of subcultures, I will "engage young people," and " encourage them to think about their own culture, and that of others." In order to meet the brief deadline of 28/05/2021, I will be creating weekly action plans that can be seen in my 'Action Plan' tab. 

To develop my range of skills, I will be reading up on using a digital camera, photoshop tips and tricks, and how whichever media product I produce should be professionally formatted. I will also research anything else I do not understand or that I struggle with. all of this will be documented in 'My Progress Journal.'

In addition I plan to find "inspiration" and investigate 'what defines my culture,' through my primary research, and finding about cultures my friends and family associate with in the form of a survey I have created on 'SurveyMonkey.' Also, though, much of this will be covered in my secondary research regarding other cultures.

Planning how to meet the Criteria

Firstly, I started by breaking down each of the assessment criteria, and how I will fulfil that aspect of the criteria.

I then typed up my work and separated my blog into each necessary page, and put each task into a category. Finally, I started adding how long each task should take.

My tick list can be downloaded here -