Representation: identity theory (David Gauntlett). The media provide tools and resources audiences use to construct their identities, the pick and mix relationship with representations, the shift from singular to fluid and negotiated identities, and the role of participatory, do-it-yourself media.

What this dot point is asking

Within representation, Eduqas names David Gauntlett for identity theory. Where Hall, van Zoonen and Gilroy focus on how representations construct and constrain, Gauntlett shifts to the audience: the media provide tools and resources that people use to build their own identities. You need his key ideas (resources, pick and mix, the shift to fluid identities, the role of participatory media), the ability to apply them, and a judgement that weighs this freedom against the power representations still carry.

The answer

The media as tools and resources for identity

This reframes representation from the audience's side. A product is not just a message about a group; it is material that people use. The analytical move is to ask what resources for identity a product offers (roles, lifestyles, values, ways of being).

The pick and mix relationship

Gauntlett describes audiences' relationship with representations as pick and mix: people select, combine and adapt elements from many different representations to assemble a sense of self. No single representation determines who someone becomes, because identity is built from a wide field of sources. This is why two audiences can take very different things from the same product.

From singular to fluid identities

Gauntlett argues identity has shifted historically:

• Older media tended to offer singular, fixed and traditional roles, especially clear, separate roles for men and women.
• Contemporary media offer a far wider, more diverse and contradictory range, supporting identities that are more fluid, negotiated and open to change.

This historical shift is a key part of the theory: the range of available representations has widened, which supports more flexible identities.

Participatory, do-it-yourself media

Gauntlett places particular weight on participatory, do-it-yourself media, where audiences make and share their own content. His later work on creativity and making argues that creating media is itself a way of constructing and expressing identity, not just consuming it. This links identity directly to the online and participatory forms studied in Component 2 (and to Shirky and Jenkins on the active audience).

Judging the freedom

The judgement weighs Gauntlett's optimism against the power representations still carry. Hall (stereotyping as power), van Zoonen (the male gaze) and Gilroy (colonial binaries) show that representations can still constrain identity, so the pick-and-mix freedom is real but not total. A top answer holds both: the media offer rich identity resources, but those resources are not neutral.

Examples in context

A strong identity answer reads the product as a resource audiences pick and mix from, links it to fluid identity and participation, and judges the freedom against the power representations still carry.

Try this

Q1. Explain what Gauntlett means by the pick and mix relationship with media representations. [5 marks]

• What the marker wants. That audiences select, combine and adapt elements from many representations to construct their own identities, so no single representation determines identity (AO1).

Q2. Analyse how one set product offers the audience resources for constructing identity. [10 marks]

• Cue. Read the product as a resource audiences pick and mix from, link to fluid identity and participation, and judge the freedom against the power of representations (Gauntlett, AO2).