Collective identity is, in principal, a social group that is constructed or that we, ourselves, form. The growth of the Internet has been the biggest change in technology over the past 10 years, and therefore it is inevitable that something as powerful as the Internet is going to chance our vision of society. The Internet has become a central part to our lives; used in a variety of occupations by a huge majority of the population it has become one of the most important communication developments of this century. We now live in an age of transmediality; a migration of content across a vast number of different media forms (the Internet being the solely most important platform for content being portrayed on). Therefore, the Internet has significantly affected the different groups in society causing a sense of fragmentation. Affecting this new generation of people, it is now a real difficulty for the older generations to interact with this new ‘digital’ generation or as often dubbed, ‘digital natives’ (2001, Marc Prensky, ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’). This younger generation or ‘digital natives’ have grown up with the Internet throughout their lives forcing their perception of the Internet to be a very important element to their lives. In contrast, the older generations or ‘digital immigrants’ have not grown up with the Internet forcing their perception of the Internet to be very limited plainly because they are not used to it and do not know entirely how it works.
Over the past couple of years, it has become clear that the media has changed in a number of different ways. This can be shown by the Media and web 1.0 and Media and web 2.0 ideas. This difference between the old media (web 1.0) and the new media (web 2.0) is that there is now a heavy emphasis on the people rather than media itself. For example, ‘The new media are no longer mass media… sending a limited number of messages to a homogenous audience… the audience itself becomes more selective’ Sabbah, 1985, suggesting that media is run on the audience rather than the mass.
We can see this by the increasing popularity of citizen journalism, which has increased in popularity ever since the Internet was made available to a variety of people through devises such as phones and iPods. Through social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, it is now easier than ever to update news very quickly, ‘on-the-go’ and has become steadily popular with the ‘digital natives’. For example, the Hudson River plane crash in New York was first reported via a video on a phone which was then placed onto the persons Twitter account. In minutes, it had been reported to the world and is a real example of citizen journalism.
The sense was that the old media (media 1.0) was controlled by oligopolies, individuals such as Rupert Murdoch, who own a number of dominating companies. Now, the sense is that the media is controlled by the producer meaning streams of different opinions and more valuable media.
Marc Prensky’s article, ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’, 2001 places great emphasis on the collective identities and how they have been affected by the Internet. He states clearly the difference between the ‘Digital Natives’, ‘”native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet’, and the ‘Digital Immigrants’, ‘those who were not born into the digital world but have, at some point, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology’. He places the population into these two separate groups and suggests that because they both speak different ‘languages’, it is difficult to teach because they no longer understand each other. For example, ‘our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language’. Prensky says that ‘Digital Natives’ are used to receiving information really fast, thriving on instant gratification and frequent rewards. ‘Digital Immigrants’ have no real care for the skill that the ‘Natives’ have acquired and assume that the ‘Natives’ are the same as they have always been. Through things such as the Internet, the Digital Natives have a real belief that learning should be fun; via games, programmes and other technological delights. The Digital Immigrants, on the other hand, believe that learning shouldn’t and cannot be fun and that there should be emphasis on slow learning- through lectures, books and simple learning.
The Internet has fundamentally changed the ways in which we are to communicate between society. Before the Internet, the only real communication was the birth of telephone. The Internet has enabled communication through so many things such as; email, social networking, blogging, file-sharing sites, Internet chat. All of this is mainly used by the Digital Natives and is an extremely important part of their lives and was only really formed over the past decade. This rise in interaction can also be seen with sites such as Second life, where you play as an avatar and meet new people on the Internet. These sorts of sites have quite an ominous and ambiguous effect- you can pretend to be anyone you want to.
To conclude, the Internet has changed our notion of collective identity. No longer is there a concentration on Web 1.0- where the media is controlled by oligopolies and is very centralised, now the concentration is on Web 2.0- where the media is controlled by the producers through things such as citizen journalism. Collective identity can also be seen in Marc Prensky’s, ‘Digital Natives, Digitals Immigrants’ idea. With the difference between the generations and their perception of the Internet; the Digital Natives having grown up with the internet and is part of their daily life, and the immigrants having to get used to something they are not entirely comfortable with. The Internet has also changed the way us, as the collective identity, communicate with each other. We can be completely different people through avatars on sites such as Second life and Habbo Hotel. The power of the Internet has changed technology, conventions and ultimately our culture.
British society is represented clearly in both Sense and Sensibility and Four Weddings. In Sense and Sensibility, society is clearly based on class and gender, as we can see represented in the opening of the film. There is a clear hierarchy between the characters, judging them on their class and most specifically their gender. Even from the first scene we can see that men have the dominance over the women, just by family tradition. As the father dies, instead of his possessions and wealth being passed on to his wife and family, it is instead passed to his brother, leaving his close family with nothing. In Four Weddings, however, we can see a real change in traditions. The women seem to be almost equal to the men. We can see this by the way Curtis has portrayed all the characters together as friends. There is no sense of hierarchy and power; it all seems to be very equal.
In Sense and Sensibility, women are very important to the plot and to the presentation of society. Fanny is an important character, particularly in the opening, as we get a real sense of her dominance. This is ironic, in comparison with the initial scene, because the audience are under the impression that men have authority over women. However, in the second scene with her husband, she clearly has the power over him making it humorous and ironic. Fanny is the first female character that we see; she is presented as upper-middle class, very proper and rich. She also speaks in a very posh English accent, which seems again quite comedic in comparison with her husband’s accent. Similarly, she is in posh attire also- she seems fashionable and rich. Fanny is clearly controlling over her husband and we can see this by the camera angles Li has chosen to portray. We can see Fanny’s power in the two-shot camera angle and by the amount of speaking Fanny does in comparison with her husband.
The representation of the Dashwood’s in Sense and Sensibility is very different. They seem depressed, upset at the loss of their home and possessions and obviously, the death of their father/husband. This is highlighted by the dark lighting presented throughout their house which suggests a mournful, morbid state which indicates their feelings and emotions at this stage. The music, piano playing in minor, also adds to this feeling of depression. Their clothing and attire is very simple and plain, in comparison with Fanny, connoting a less sophisticated and posh way of living. There is no clear sense of fashion in the characters. Camera shots and angles are also used in the passage to distinguish a sense of money and class. The sweeping shot over the portraits signifies the previous wealth of the Dashwoods and highlights the loss of their money now.
Class system is a really important part to this film. Leggott, J, 2008’s Contemporary British Cinema states that ‘class systems are a central or sub textual role to a plethora of films’. Indeed, in the case of Sense and Sensibility I believe this is correct for the reasons that, although gender is important, it is a presentation of the Upper-middle class at this time and therefore is important to the film. This sense of class being a central role to the film is highlighted later in the film with the meeting of Williby.
Four Weddings and A Funeral is based around the lives of a similar class of people, Upper-middle class. However, it differs completely in the values and traditions of women because it is a modern piece. The presentation of women is much more equal to that of men, there seems to be an equated boundary between the two sexes. They are seen, very much, as friends and are seen in many mid-shots as all together in a group. There is no real dominance in the film from either sex, which shows a changing tradition, although the film is on a similar story line to that of Sense and Sensibility. Both films are about marriage, and the need for it in society. However, the outcome differs in each movie. In Sense and Sensibility, the Dashwoods marry the ones they love and in Four Weddings, Hugh Grant ends up unmarried. Perhaps this is some revelation of the modern time we are in, and therefore Four Weddings has a much more normal tone to it. It is also ironic that Hugh Grant should appear in both movies as a main character. Hugh Grant is a statement of British cinema, and therefore we know these films are very British. He plays similar characters in both; bashful, kind and in desire of love which can link to what is said in Observer Film Month Quarterly’s article about Richard Curtis. ‘There are also, of course, classic Curtis characters which appear in most, if not all of Curtis' films- "hopeless floppy-haired young man in love’.
To conclude, we can see there are many similarities and differences to Sense and Sensibility and Four Weddings. Four Weddings seems more modern and honest in its presentation of love, where as Sense and Sensibility still has an almost fairytale-like quality with its outcome. This is because Four Weddings is modern, and Sense and Sensibility is an adaptation of Austen’s novel, written in the 1800’s. Both share similar British qualities, however, and are a presentation of the middle class. Indeed, it seems ironic how Hugh Grant should play almost identical characters in both but again this develops the British feel to the films.
