Ill Manors: TEDx lecture blog task

Ill Manors: TEDx lecture blog task

1) Make notes on the lecture: focus on Plan B/Ben Drew's views on the opportunities for young people in London and how these inspired Ill Manors.
2) What are Plan B's beliefs/politics? What are his values/ideologies? Explain your answers.
3) Who is the target audience of the TEDx lecture? Demographics? Psychographics? How do you know? How does this compare to the audience for his music/films? Is there more than one audience for this talk?
4) What does Plan B say about the media? Explain how this can be linked to Cohen's media theory of moral panics? Read this summary of moral panics and the definition from Wikipedia and use them in your answer.

NOTES

• Not many opportunities for young people in London.
• He was someone that had a hard upbringing. 
• Young people are normally looked upon badly.
• There is a cycle between the mentality of a young person and society. 
• "Chav" has become a degrading word for a young person. 
• Society does not give young people a chance. 

This inspired Ill Manors as he wanted to show a wide range of the audience what it is like living in a council house and what it is like being a young person and being looked upon poorly. 


Plan B's beliefs and ideology is that young people are not motivated enough by society and are not believed in. He believes that this is a repetitive cycle where society dis - includes young people and therefore they start to build up the mentality that no one is on their side or that no one like's them which leads to them behaving badly or always having a bad attitude to anyone who is not a part of their community. Also, he believes that those in the working class are categorised as useless and are left to fend for themselves instead of the young people getting help and support which adds to their rebellion.  


The target audience of the TEDx Lecture are adults that are mostly likely to be aged 29 upwards and are in the middles class upwards. This is reflected by the type of people in the audience and the normality of a TEDx Lecture which is " nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world- "https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization"". From this it can be inferred that these lectures are more for people that seek knowledge and intellectuality and therefore i would categorise them in this age group and social class. This compares to the audience for Plan b's films and music as this targets people of a more younger age, as he mentioned in the lecture, which could therefore show that this talk is targeted at more than one audience being those who are of the lower class, a middle classed audience, a younger audience and also an older audience. 

Plan B says that the media exacerbates the negative behaviour of people who are in the lower class and "chavs" as they chose stories of a dominant representation to put in the media. For example, where he is telling the story of his filming experience and a group of young men defended him against another group of young men to progress his filming but the media leaving this part out so that societal views on gangs do not change. 
Cohen's media theory suggests - "http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/mediaviolence/violence.php?pageID=moral" - "Moral panics then, are those processes whereby members of a society and culture become 'morally sensitized' to the challenges and menaces posed to 'their' accepted values and ways of life, by the activities of groups defined as deviant. The process underscores the importance of the mass media in providing, maintaining and 'policing' the available frameworks and definitions of deviance, which structure both public awareness of, and attitudes towards, social problems." This can be linked to Cohen's media theory as the media makes coverage of this situation to entice the audience and progresses to tell the story in a negative way in order to sustain that negative mentality and not go against societal views and in order to be able to have social control by putting out a "resolution" to satisfy the audience.