G235: Critical Perspectives in Media

Theoretical Evaluation of Production

Question 1(b) Representation

Aims/Objectives

• You will be able to describe what representation is.

• Be able to identify the types of groups that are represented?

• You will be able to discuss representation in your products

Big question

• The media does not construct reality, but instead represents it?

• Richard Dyer (1983) posed a few questions when analysing media representations in general.

• 1. What sense of the world is it making?• 2. What does it imply? Is it typical of the

world or deviant? • 3. Who is it speaking to? For whom? To

whom?• 4. What does it represent to us and why?

How do we respond to the representation?

Representation - Definition• How the media shows us things about

society – but this is through careful mediation. Hence re-presentation.

• For representation to be meaningful to audiences there needs to be a shared recognition of people, situations, ideas etc.

• All representations therefore have ideologies behind them. A preferred representation (Levi – Strauss, 1958).

• In terms of your coursework you will be looking at representation in terms of :

1. MARXISM2. FEMINISM3. POSTMODERNISM4. STEREOTYPES

Ideology – refers to a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality. Notion of ideology entails widely held ideas or beliefs which are seen as ‘common’ sense and become naturalised.

What is important is that, in Marxist terms, the media’s role may be seen as :Circulating and reinforcing dominant ideologies (less frequently) undermining and challenging such ideologies.

• Rosalind Brunt (1992) details that ideologies are never simply ideas in peoples’ heads but are indeed myths that we live by and which contribute to our self worth.

• David Gauntlett (2002) argues that “identities are not ‘given’ but are constructed and negotiated.”

Bell hooks

The colour codes: Lighter skinned women are considered more desirable and fit better into the western ideology of beauty.

Black women are objectified and sexualised in hip-hop reflecting the colonialist view of black women (sexually disposable).

a mediated view of black culture that is considered the norm.

Tricia Rose

Hip Hop gives black female rappers a voice introducing female empowerment.

Hip hop gave audiences an insight into the lives of young black urban Americans and gave them a voice.

Jacques Lacan

The Mirror Stage: Where infants see their reflections in the mirror and see it as a superior reflection of themselves that they must aspire to.

Seeing iconic rappers who are successful ‘young black males’ may see them as a superior reflection of themselves they could aspire to. Particularly those iconic figures whom have struggled through a deprived childhood e.g. 50 Cent and Biggie Smalls (Notorious BIG).

Why does hip-hop display the representations it does?

Hip Hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes

• Michel Maffesoli (1985) identified the idea of the “urban tribe” – members of these small groups tend to have similar worldwide views, dress styles and common behaviours – leads to the decline of individualism.

• Collective Identity• David Gauntlett (2007) argues that

“Identity is complicated. Everybody thinks they’ve got one. Artists play with the idea of identity in modern society.”

2. Gender and Ideology (FEMINISM)

• Masculinity and femininity are socially constructed.

• Feminism is a label that refers to a broad range of views containing one shared assumption – gender inequalities in society, historically masculine power (patriarchy) exercised at right of women’s interests and rights.

John Berger ‘Ways Of Seeing’ (1972)“Men act and women appear”. “Men

look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at”.

“Women are aware of being seen by a male spectator”

• Jib Fowles (1996) “in advertising, males gaze and females are gazed at”.

• Paul Messaris (1997) “female models addressed to women....appear to imply a male point of view”.

• Music videos today still support that an attractive appearance and a sexy body rank high among the most important goals young people can achieve, especially women

(Aubrey & Frisby, 2011).

Indie

• White men are most recurrently the focus of such videos and are commonly portrayed as powerful, aggressive, and hostile (Brown & Campbell, 1986;

Mental Disability

• Philo (1994) looked at the impact the media have on the public view of mental illness, with two-fifths of those questioned believing violence and mental illness were connected.

• Ward (1997) discovered that stories involving mental illness, criminality and violence were given more exposure than positive stories involving mental health issues. Seen as solely a female issue

• We often judge a text’s realism against our own ‘situated culture’. What is ‘real’ can therefore become subjective.

• Stereotypes can be used to enhance realism - a news programme, documentary, film text etc about football hooligans, for e.g, will all use very conventional images that are associated with the realism that audiences will identify with such as shots of football grounds, public houses etc.

4. Stereotypes?

• O’Sullivan et al (1998) details that a stereotype is a label that involves a process of categorisation and evaluation.

• We can call stereotypes shorthand to narratives because such simplistic representations define our understanding of media texts – e.g we know who is good and who is evil.

• First coined by Walter Lippmann (1956) the word stereotype wasn’t meant to be negative and was simply meant as a shortcut or ordering process.

• In ideological terms, stereotyping is a means by which support is provided by one group’s differential against another.

• Tessa Perkins (1979) says, however, that stereotyping is not a simple process. She identified that some of the many ways that stereotypes are assumed to operate aren’t true.

• They aren’t always negative (French good cooks)• They aren’t always about minority groups or those less

powerful (upper class twits)• They are not always false – supported by empirical

evidence.• They are not always rigid and unchanging.

Perkins argues that if stereotypes were always so simple then they would not work culturally and over time.

• Dyer (1977) details that if we are to be told that we are going to see a film about an alcoholic then we will know that it will be a tale either of sordid decline or of inspiring redemption.

• This is a particularly interesting potential use of stereotypes, in which the character is constructed, at the level of costume, performance, etc., as a stereotype but is deliberately given a narrative function that is not implicit in the stereotype, thus throwing into question the assumptions signalled by the stereotypical iconography.

“Representations in media texts are often simplistic and reinforce dominant ideologies so that audiences can make sense of them”. Evaluate the ways that you have used/challenged simplistic representations in one of the media products you have produced.

Think of this question as the first part of your revision...