G235: Critical Perspectives in Media

Theoretical Evaluation

of Production

1b) Representation

Aims/Objectives

• To reinforce basic representation theory.

• To have a basic understanding of how to evaluate your coursework against key representation theory.

• To produce a narrative answer

This is about…

• For your coursework, this will focus on you analysing how you have represented:

• Place (regional identity)• People (gender, class, ethnicity, disability,

sexuality, age)• There must be a comment about the ideas

you have communicated about them (ideologies) and whether they are stereotypical or/reinforce traditional/dominant ideologies or not.

1. Representation – Basic Definition

• Stuart Hall (1980)• 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.

Mediation works in 3 ways• James Baker (2007)• 1. Selection: Whatever ends up on the

screen or in the paper, much more will have been left out.

• 2. Organisation: The various elements will be organised carefully in ways that real life is not

• 3. Focusing: mediation always ends up with us, the audience being encouraged towards concentrating on one aspect of the text and ignoring others.

Task 1. Mediation• You have 5 minutes to write down what

you are representing in your production (Place? People?).

• Pick 1 example write down how you:• 1. Selected certain elements to mediate

your representation.• 2. Organised these elements to mediate

your representations.• 3. How you encouraged your audience to

focus on one aspect to help mediate your representations.

• 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?

2. Context of representation

• James Baker (2007) suggests that there are 3 ways to look at representation:

• The Reflective view• According to this view, when we represent

something, we are taking its true meaning and trying to create a replica of it in the mind of our audience — like a reflection.

• The Intentional view• This is the opposite of the Reflective idea. This

time the most important thing in the process of representation is the person doing the representing to mean (adverts).

.

The Constructionist viewAs an individual to make up your own mind and

the influences of the society that you live in on the way that you do so.

• Any representation is a mixture of:• 1. The thing itself.• 2. The opinions of the people doing the

representation• 3. The reaction of the individual to the

representation• 4. The context of the society in which the

representation is taking place.

Task 2. Context/Reception• Pick 1 example. • How have you been tried to be reflective

( create a mirror of reality)?• How have you been intentional

(deliberately encoded point of view)?• How are your audience meant to respond

to this representation?

Tim O’Sullivan et al. (1998) 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.

3. Ideologies behind representation

Ideologies and Representation (MARXISM)• A hegemonic view of society – fundamental

inequalities in power between social groups. Groups in power exercise their influence culturally rather than by force.

• Concept has origins in Marxist theory - ruling capitalist class are able to protect their economic interests.

• Representations are encoded into mass media texts in order to do this – reinforce dominant ideologies in society – links therefore to mediation and creating a preferred meaning for the audience.

Task 3. Ideologies• Pick 1/2 examples. • What dominant ideologies have you

reinforced in your representations?• How have you done this?

• If you have challenged dominant ideologies, how have you done this?

4. Stereotypes and Countertypes

• 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 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.

• Richard Dyer (1977) the types produced by different social groups according to their sense of who belongs and who doesn't, who is 'in' and who is not creates stereotypes.

• 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.

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

• Countertypes are representations that deliberately go against cultural, hegemonic stereotypes.

Task 4. Stereotypes• Pick 3 examples. • Did you use stereotypes to represent/tell

stories about place/person/ reinforce ideology?

• If you have used countertypes, how have you done this?

5. Representing the social – Gender/Race/Age

• Gender• Masculinity and femininity are socially

constructed. • Ideas about gender are produced and reflected in

language O’ Sullivan et al (1998).• 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.

• Age• Representations of age are clearly based on ideas

about binary opposition (Strauss, 1958).

• De Fleur suggested that carefully mediated representations create social value statements and they change accordingly over time.

• Youth groups have been ‘demonised’ by the mass media, creating moral panics (Stanley Cohen, 1972) about youth groups and subcultures.

• Race• Representations of race are clearly based on ideas

about binary opposition (Strauss, 1958).

• Edward Said (1978) that representations of non-white groups are based on the notion of the ‘other’, constructed as something ‘exotic’ (Hall, 1997).

Task 5. Representing the social• Pick 3 examples. • Look at the theories from within feminism,

racial, age discourses.• Did you represent age/gender/race

stereotypically? • Why did you do this?

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”

Gay Gaze

• It can be argued that we can also have a ‘gay male gaze’ (Steve Neale, 1992). Images which show men in passive, submissive, sexualised poses – lying down, looking up at the camera so that the viewer is dominant can be described as homoerotic. In this case the male subject will have hands behind their heads in a pose which could suggest relaxation but could also be read as submissive and non-aggressive.

POSTMODERNISM AND REPRESENTATIONS OF REALITY• In a media saturated world, the distinction

between reality and media representations becomes blurred or invisible to us (Julian McDougall, 2009).

• Modern period came before – people were concerned with representing reality, but now this gets mixed around and we end up with pastiche, parody and intertextuality. For example, Daniel Strinati (1995) details that “reality is now only definable in terms of the reflections of the mirror”.

• Jean-Francious Lyotard (1984) and Jean Baudrillard (1980) share the belief that the idea of ‘truth’ needs to be deconstructed so that dominant ideas (that Lyotard argues are “grand narratives”) can be challenged.

• Baudrillard discussed the concept of hyperreality – we inhabit a society that is no longer made up of any original thing for a sign to represent – it is the sign that is now the meaning. He argued that we live in a society of simulacra – simulations of reality that replace the real. Think Disneyland.

Essay• Analyse one of your media productions in

relation to representation.

• It is vital for this that you have an understanding of how representations have been created in existing media texts as you will need to reference these with explicit examples as part of your essay.