Q2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our media product reinforces the stereotype of male teenagers as troublesome and troubled.
We use a black hoodie which the media represent as a favourable item of clothing for hooligans and criminals as they would use the hood to hide their identity. As this is such a big stereotype especially for Britain, we decided to use it to signify an unsympathetic lead character who we suggest is "hiding something" and is also uncomfortable in his surroundings.

Although we have challenged racial stereotypes as there are no black people in our thriller opening (the media represent black teenagers as violent criminals and thugs who are associated with gangs), we have reinforced the media stereotype for school orientated mass murderers (such as in the Columbine massacre) as Caucasian males by casting a white male in the lead role. For example "We Need to Talk About Kevin." We have also limited our representation because all our characters are white. we could change this in our next Media Construct.

In the shot below (a close up of our character's eyes) we try to convey in the mise en scene that his smiling eyes (connoting happiness and excitement) show he has selected a victim. We create sympathy for the victim as she is unaware and the stereotype is complete as the main character has no mercy or sympathy. He is just evil. We use the stereotype to create anxiety in the viewer, which we then would play on later in the story. We would then make the reader feel sympathy for the character by making him more rounded and less of a stereotype.