This study looks at identity as a social construction. The identity theory illustrates that an individual possesses multiple identities, and that there are specific meanings that individuals attach to their multiple identities. Furthermore, these identities relate to one another, influence people’s behaviour, thoughts, and feelings or emotions, as well as connect individuals to broader society (Peter et al., 2009; Bekker, 2001; Webber & Mitchell, 2008). Bekker (2001) and Peter et al. (2009) concur that people possess multiple identities because they occupy multiple roles, belong to multiple groups, and claim multiple personal characteristics, yet the meanings of these identities are shared by members of society. Castells (2003: 6) argues that although dominant institutions such as the media can contribute towards identity construction, individuals have the agency to adopt or reject certain identities. Television (TV) is one of the major contributing mediums in identity formation, and in this study, television viewing is considered to be used by viewers in the process of identity formation – be it of gender, sexuality, social, or political in nature (Lemish, 2007).
Broadly, identity can be defined as the essence of who or what we are. It consists of our languages, cultures, characters, behaviours, beliefs, and so forth. Our identities come from all that we associate ourselves with. It is what defines us as individuals. Many contemporary theories of identity conceive of identity as a process, rather than as a fixed possession or label. From this perspective, identity is not something that can ever be achieved once and for all: it is fluid and open to negotiation, but also subject to many constraints. It is always under construction (Weber & Mitchell, 2008).
Bekker & Prinsloo (1999: 189) argue that identity, as well as the discourses and narratives which refer to it, cannot be understood as reflecting a complete or absolute reality. They consider these as an outcome of long and complex processes where “self-definition and exo-assignation” are confronted, where choices are made for affective and strategic reasons, where some identifications are given primacy over others. This means that identity involves choices, whereby one can choose what he or she identifies with amongst the options presented. This strategic reasoning and identification involves language because language is the privileged medium in which we ‘make sense’ of things, in which meaning is produced and exchanged (Hall, 1997). Meanings can only be understood through our common access to language, therefore, language is central to meaning (Hall, 1997). Furthermore, Hall (1997: 1) claims that language is one of the ‘media’ through which thoughts, ideas and feelings are represented in a culture. To make sense of the symbolic materials that the viewers receive, they use language. Representation through language is therefore central to the process by which meaning is produced. This illustrates that there is a relationship between language and identity. People use language to interpret any message, and when the message has been made sense of, it can contribute to the construction of one’s identities.
At the same time, this study employs a Cultural Studies approach to media where the youth are not viewed as passive TV viewers. For a long time mass society theories and approaches to audience measurement had assumed audience passivity (Nightingale & Ross, 2003: 5). Of course, there is an obvious ‘passivity’ to being an audience member, due to media products or texts being things produced ‘out there’ by media companies which we are not really interested in, unless we want them (Long & Wall, 2009). However, research confirms that audiences choose to engage with the medium and its content in a variety of active ways, including managing their attention to it, making meanings out of its messages, analysing and criticising, and selectively remembering it
(Lemish, 2007). For Long & Wall (2009: 243) ‘activity’ appears to require more than switching on the television, or browsing the internet or a rack of magazines at the news stand. Audience members make a selection, and then sit back and enjoy the show. This implies that most audiences choose what they watch, having reasons for their choice of media or programme.
Most people experience media as consumers – solely through various forms of output, the end result of media production. Long & Wall (2009: 22–23) say that making sense of media texts is habitual, a constant in our everyday existence. They argue that we watch TV or listen to the radio, presenters and actors speak our language and refer to things, places and people we recognise in familiar ways: if they did not, the media might not retain our attention. Thus, media products come in a range of guises and make meaning through a variety of means, with many purposes, as part of a relationship between producer and consumer.
The Cultural Studies approach as explained by Lemish (2007) refers to the process of making meaning of television messages and relating them to various other meaning systems available in everyday life. This activity requires viewers to use a variety of cognitive strategies related to thought and perception. Developmental theorists argue that ‘meaning’ of television content can be understood as residing neither in the particular television program nor as an independent creation in the child’s head, but rather it is produced in the interaction between the child and the program (Lemish, 2007). It is what Hall (1973) refers to as the “act of decoding and interpreting” of media messages by audiences. He argues that a television message conforms to the norms of ordinary language, which is impossible without the operation of codes which are shared between those who produce and those who interpret messages.
Making meaning or making sense involves an active process of interpretation whereby meaning is actively read and interpreted (Hall 1997). Furthermore, Hall (1973) states that messages are a part of a process, encoded in texts in production and then decoded in consumption, and this process takes place within a complex social structure in which the message is not isolated.
The active audience approach maintains that even if individuals may have relatively little control over the content of the symbolic materials made available to them, they can use these materials, rework and elaborate them in ways that are quite alien to the aims and intentions of the producers (Thompson, 1995). This means that audiences do not just accept what is given to them by the media, but they critically and actively engage in what they watch or see on television. Audiences
interpret and manipulate media texts in ways in which they make sense of them. According to Thompson (1995: 39), media messages should be seen as an activity: not as something passive, but as a kind of practice in which individuals take hold of and work over the symbolic materials they receive (i.e. interpreting texts, doing things with them).
Alasuutari (1999: 3) comments that the reception paradigm that Hall (1973) promoted involves a semiotic approach to messages, which means that a message is no longer understood as some kind of a package or a ball that the sender throws to the receiver. Instead, the idea that a message is encoded by a programme producer and then decoded (and made sense of) by receivers means that the sent and received messages are not necessarily identical, and different audiences may also decode a programme differently. This forms part of the reason why this study has used participants who come from different geographical areas in Grahamstown (both urban and peri-urban) to ensure that the study represents different audiences who may decode the programme used for data collection differently.
All in all, although the power or influence of television is visible, the viewer also plays a certain role in the production of meaning of any media text that they consume. This becomes clearer in a case study that was conducted by Muff Andersson (2010) in South Africa on the award winning,
Yizo Yizo drama series which was aired on SABC 1 between 1999 and 2004. Her analysis shows
that what is increasing in importance in the producer-text-audience triangle is not message construction by the production team, but rather message reading by audiences. Andersson (2010: 4) states that the final surprise of any text lies in its audience reception; that is, one cannot guarantee how individuals will read texts, considering their position. Thus, while interpretation of a message depends on the context, impacting upon how we might infer any likely result in audiences, that interpretation, like the production of meaning, is bound up in the greater social structure of convention and power. With all these pressures, the message at the start of the production chain is not that which consumers take away (Long & Wall, 2009: 247). What Long and Wall (2009) say, further illustrates what has been indicated above that the meaning behind a message of the producer may not necessarily be the same meaning that the receiver makes of the message because different people interpret messages differently.
The theoretical framework mentioned above will be used in this study to explore the relationship between language and the identity of isiXhosa speaking youth in Grahamstown, and the role of the
YO TV programme in the construction of this identity. It will look at how young people receive and in turn interpret or read the YO TV programme. Thus, through the lens of young people, the study will look at how the reception of YO TV by a selection of isiXhosa-speaking youth shapes their identities as young adults. The study also examines the YO TV programme (as a media text produced by a producer) and its role in constructing youth identity (youth as audience or receivers of media text). Additionally, the interpretation of any message involves the use of language, and language is closely linked to culture, hence the study will also look at the role of the programme in constructing youth identity in relation to language and culture.