REPRESENTATION (TV DRAMA)

MEDIATION

• Before looking at representation you need to consider ‘mediation’…

• Every time we encounter a media text, we are not seeing reality, but someone’s version of it.

• The media take something that is real, a person or an event and they change its form to produce whatever text we end up with. This is called mediation. You should be looking for this with any media text….

EXAMPLE 2

• If you ever go to see a comedy show (Mock The Week) recorded for the television, you will see the process of mediation in action.

• What might end up as a half hour broadcast, will be recorded over an entire evening — jokes that might seem spontaneous when watched on the TV will have been endlessly repeated until “just right”.

• The studio audience will have been trained into laughing in exactly the right way by warm up men and the text that finally reaches the public will also be given context by use of soundtrack music and computer graphics.

• The whole experience of hearing a few jokes will have been mediated.

REPRESENTATION

Representation – How groups, individuals, institutions or social changes are portrayed through the media; how they are re - presented.

The way someone or something is represented is not necessarily reality.Representations can often be subjective rather than objective and are constructed.

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.

REPRESENTATION

Key points to consider in terms of representation

• What is being represented?• How is it being represented?• Who is responsible for the representation?• How can the representation be interpreted?

You will need to consider the above in discussing representation in TV Drama.

STEREOTYPES

• Stereotyping is an important concept in terms of representation.

• Stereotypes act as a short hand by which we can more easily understand a representation.

• Activity: Write a list of things you associate with ‘Old people’

• Your list will almost certainly contain some ‘stereotypical’ assumptions.

• Stereotypes are assumptions that have reached some form of consensus amongst a particular social group or culture

• Stereotypes can be misleading but people often assume that stereotypes are automatically false. This is not necessarily the case!!

ARCHETYPES

• These are the original, the typical or perfect specimen…

The archetypal male hero

The archetypal female hero

YOUR ACTIVITY

• Complete a PowerPoint of research into the following stereotypes;A businessman A housewifeA lower class teenage boyAn upper class teenage girlAn old age pensionerA femme fatale A teacher A doctor A SecretaryA homosexual male

• Research should include analysis into mise en scene including costumes, props, locations and body language as well as likely shot types and angels

• You should use images, screenshots from films, TV dramas and music videos etc

HOMEWORK

• If you haven’t done so already complete the PowerPoint

• Using one person, create a portrait for 5 of these ten 'characters'. Carefully consider composition of shot, mise-en-scene, props and locations as well as body language.

• You must use only one person though; that one person must become all 5 of the characters that you choose