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Representations. - Demonstrate understanding of messages, values and representations with media text. Aims: Understanding the concepts of Representation and Values Being able to apply the concepts to examples from the media. Glossary. Messages:
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Representations - Demonstrate understanding of messages, values and representations with media text
Aims: • Understanding the concepts of Representation and Values • Being able to apply the concepts to examples from the media.
Glossary Messages: What the product is trying to convey or say. This may include dominant ideas or meanings, held by many people as well as minority viewpoints. These are a result of the values and beliefs of the viewer and that of the media producers. Values: Preferences, tastes, standards or morals carried within media texts.
Representation: How a group/individual or object is portrayed in the media. It is the process by which images etc maybe used to describe or stand for someone or something. Stakeholders: Those who have a stake in the production and distribution of a media text. Media Audiences: It is the group that a media product is aimed at. It can be a group identified as consuming or interacting with a particular product and is measured through ratings, box office sales etc.
Media Language: Encompasses all the ways in which a media text is constructed to communicate with the audience through verbal, visual, aural language e.g. lighting, layout, shots, typography, images and sound.
Representation – How it Works • You already know about representation. Break down the word and you see it clearly. The Media re-presents (i.e. changes or re-interprets) or constructs meanings about the world we live in. • There are dominant images – shared recognitions or familiar ideas and alternative images – different or unexpected recognitions or ideas. • In order to make sense of this, you need to think about some fairly difficult theoretical models about how society (the world and the way we live in it) actually works.
The HEGEMONIC MODEL • A hegemony is a system where one group is dominated by another. The dominating group achieves its domination by ‘winning’ popular consent through everyday cultural life. • In media studies terms, this model works by achieving dominance through media representations of the world. The media ‘tell us’ what to think, what to believe and how our world ‘should be’. • This works through ideology – a set of ideas which gives a partial or selective view of reality.
The PLURALIST MODEL • The pluralist idea is the exact opposite of a hegemonic one. • A pluralist model argues that there is diversity in society (everyone is different) and therefore there is also choice (we can choose what to believe and what not to believe.) • So in media terms, because the audience (society) is diverse, with different points of view, the media is influenced by society. Because the media need to please the audience they will try to reflect the values and beliefs that are predominant in society.
Representation and stereotypes • In simple terms, a stereotype is the application of one (usually negative) characteristic to a whole group. • For a stereotype to ‘work’ it needs to be recognisable to the audience and when so recognised, then judgements are made about the subject. If the stereotype is negative, then the judgements will also tend to be the same. • The predictable thing about stereotypes is that they are predictable! They create a sense of order and also provide a sense of identity (even if it is a negative one!)
Important Points about Stereotypes • Stereotypes are not always negative. (e.g. nurses are compassionate and caring) • They are not always applied to lower classes of society • They can be held about a group you belong to • They change according to time and fashion • They are not always untrue Media representation can do one or more of three things: • it can reinforce stereotypes • it can challenge them • It can inform them
Representation and Gender • If we define ‘male’ and ‘female’ all we are doing is a biological classification, but if we think about the terms ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ we have to think about social constructs. • Put simply, the words have very specific connotations of what is ‘natural behaviour’ for each sex. In other words, society has constructed (made) a set of ‘truths’ about what is the ‘right’ way for a man or woman to behave. • The media, of course, have had a hand in this construction, because of representation, which is an integral part of the encoding of any media text.
