Representation

Representation

Read the Media Magazine feature 'Representation old and new'. This is in MM51 on page 6 - go to our Media Magazine archive to find the article. Complete the following tasks:

1) Why is representation an important concept in Media Studies?

Representations are important as they create meaning, and they have central to an understanding of the media.

2) How does the example of Kate Middleton show the way different meanings can be created in the media?

• A picture editor selects the photo from a whole series of images to be used to illustrate a news story. The image may be cropped, resized and, in some cases, photo shopped.
•  A news editor will decide on the way the story will be presented, and the use of captions to pin down, or anchor, the meaning of the image.
• The photograph of Kate Middleton in the newspaper is a re-presentation of what she looks like, with people controlling and manipulating the image at various stages throughout the process.
• The Duchess herself, the person, is some distance away from the image that is reproduced.

3) Summarise the section 'The how, who and why of media representation' in 50 words.

It is always important to consider who is building representations and why when studying them. Each and every media product has an aim that affects the representations it creates. The standards and demands of the target audience, the limits placed on them by genre codes, the kind of story they want to tell, and their institutional responsibility are all factors that producers will take into account.

4) How does Stuart Hall's theory of preferred and oppositional readings fit with representation?

Hall argued that audiences do not necessarily accept the ideology of texts passively, but instead draw on their own cultural and social experiences to create their own interpretations. In his view ‘meanings’ and messages are not fixed by the creator of the text, but depend on the relationship between the reader/ viewer, and the text. In the wallpaper/ family values example above, you may support the implied ideologies, and therefore you might accept the intended meaning. However, some audiences may only partially accept the meanings being offered by a text; Hall calls this the negotiated position. Other audiences might reject them completely (the oppositional position).

5) How has new technology changed the way representations are created in the media?

With the rise of new media, audience members can now construct and share their own media products, and in websites, video-sharing platforms and social media there are more opportunities for people to represent themselves than ever before. Individuals can now engage in the act of self-representation, often on a daily basis, through the creation of social media profiles and content.

6) What example is provided of how national identity is represented in Britain - and how some audiences use social media to challenge this?

During the 2014 World Cup, The Sun sent a free newspaper to 22 million households in England which represented its own concepts of ‘Englishness’ by symbolic references –queuing, the Sunday roast, Churchill and The Queen – to heroes, values and behaviours that the paper (and its owners, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corps)defined as appropriate expressions of ‘English identity’.

Watch the clip from Luther that we studied in class (Season 1, Episode 1 - minute 7.40-10.00 - you'll need your Greenford Google login to access the clip). Now answer these final two questions:

7) Write a paragraph analysing the dominant and alternative representations you can find in the clip from Luther.

The dominant representation shown in Luther is that he is shown

8) Write a paragraph applying a selection of our representation theories to the clip from Luther. Our summary of each theory may help you here:

Levi-Strauss: representation and ideology

Mulvey: the male gaze

Dyer: stereotyping and power

Medhurst: value judgements
Perkins: some stereotypes can be positive or true