How does your media product represent particular social

groups?

What is a social group?

Social Group: A group of people who interact with each other and are aware of having something in common.Social groups suffer from stereotypical stigma, people can be grouped together and assumed that they act in a certain way because of the way they dress, choices they make. A social group is a collection of people who interact with each other and share similar characteristics and a sense of unity. A social category is a collection of people who do not interact but who share similar characteristics.

Criminals in society

Fear - Fears in the criminal are widespread, persistent, and intense; especially fears of being caught for something, fear of injury or death, and fear of a putdown.

Anger -Anger is a basic part of the criminal’s way of life. He responds angrily to anything interpreted as opposing what he wants. Anger is, for the criminal, a major way of controlling people and situations.

Poor Decision Making for Responsible Living - In important personal decisions there is no sound reasoning, fact-finding, consideration of costs, or options. Criminals are reluctant to ask a question about non-criminal activities, because they view it as a put–down to reveal their ignorance. If their pretensions and expectations are controverted by the facts, they do not want to hear them.

The Loner - Criminals lead a private, secretive life; one against the world. They feel themselves to be apart from others, even if outwardly they are active and gregarious. Lack of Empathy -Criminals demand every consideration and every break for themselves, but rarely stop to think about what other people think, feel, and expect.

Characteristics of Criminals.

How have these characteristics been represented in your opening.

These particular characteristics have been represented in our opening through one of our main characters played by Thomas Wragg, the characteristic of anger is shown at the very ending of our opening when Thomas is faced with a decision and chooses to shoot our other joint Main Actress Played by Princess Robinson. This shows the underlying characteristic of anger, to make a spur of the moment decision without thinking about the repercussions. This links in nicely to another characteristic which is lack of empathy. This is again represented in the ending of our opening where Thomas shoots Princess for no apparent reason. She has no part in the main plot of the story and the loss of her life is only a repercussion of a petty crime. He does not stop for a moment to consider what this would do to the family of Erin (Played by Princess) and totally lacks all empathy towards Erin or her situation.

Another characteristic that is represented is poor decision making for responsible living, the Criminal in our film Jasper Howard (Played by Thomas Wragg) is the stereotypical criminal which has all the life events that add up to it. He is know forced into petty crime because he needs to fuel his drug habit. It started off small but know he is having to commit more crime to cover up badly executed earlier crimes. It is a constant downward spiral with no way out, just like many other real life criminals fall into on a daily basis.

Similar or different to a existing product

The criminal in our thriller is similar to the criminal in night crawler because they both have the characteristic of Poor Decision Making for Responsible Living. In Jasper Howards case it is committing petty crime to fuel his drug habit which is obviously a bad decision. In Lou Bloom’s case he is a driven man desperate for work & muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story. These both demonstrate a typical characteristic of criminals shared world wide which is making bad decisions and bad life choices.