David Buckingham - 'Media Theory'

David Buckingham is a media theorist who believes that children and young people have identities that don't exist at all or are constantly changing. He studied their interactions with electronic media, and he believes that ,due to the constant change of media, identities are constantly changing. He believes that genre isn't simply given to a young person as part of their culture, but instead it is constantly being negotiated and changed. The media reveals the bad sides of the world and therefore parents keep their children indoors to hide them from this reality. Due to this, children spend far too much time around various types of media such as TV's and computers, and therefore learn too much about the world and are constantly going through change due to the amount of views, opinions and cultures that they observe.

In relation to the topic of nerds, this theory by Buckingham makes sense as nerds are known to spend countless hours using these various types of media. This media includes games consoles, computers and TV's. Out of all the social groups and genres that exist in the world, nerds will spend the most time using this media and therefore becoming exposed to what it contains. They will not witness this first hand as they are not known to spend a lot of time outside socialising, but the increasingly growing opinion that nerds are often the victims of bullying is evidence of the fact that they may look upon the world and it's features in a negative way. They may have bad experiences with other people and various types of media will help them communicate with people similar to them, which will allow them to gain an understanding of the world in a different way to others. Although nerds are the most likely to find increasingly detailed content on the internet, this may not be the case. Even though nerds do spend a lot of time around computers, they are not known to do anything with them but use them as gaming platforms. They play console games, computer games and internet based games. Their huge interest in this hobby restricts them from viewing content that can cause a constant change in their identities, which is what will be happening to most young people.

"Identity is complicated, it's never simple or straight forward"

"Identity is complex, everyone thinks they have one"