Representation

Aims/Objectives
To reinforce basic representation theory. How Mediation Works Ways to look at representation Understand Stereotypes Hegemony v Pluralism

This is about
Place (regional identity) People (gender, class, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, age) Important to think about the ideas you have communicated (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
Every time we encounter a media text, we are not seeing reality, but someone version of it. This may seem like an obvious point, but it is something that is easily forgotten when we get caught up in enjoying a text. If you see a picture of a celebrity kissing her boyfriend, you may find it unsurprising that the picture has been altered and does not show the reality of the situation, but in fact we should bear this in mind whatever we encounter in the media. The media place us at one remove from reality: they 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 1
Think about a new album by your favourite group, for example. This is not just the sound of a few musicians playing together in a studio. Instead, the reality of the sound that they might make has been mediated before it reaches you. Engineers and producers have re-modelled the sound and artists have packaged the album. Newspapers and magazines have reported the group and created a context for the album so that most people probably had an opinion about it before it came out. Once again, whatever sound the group made in the studio has been highly mediated before it gets to you.

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.

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.

 Johnathan Bignell (1997) suggests that news is not just facts, but representations produced in language and other signs like photographs. The newspaper is just one medium of news communication. The process of selection is central to the production of all newspapers (to create a preferred meaning Reception theory).

2. Organisation
The various elements will be organised carefully in ways that real life is not In visual media this involves mise-en-scene and the organisation of narrative In the recording of an album the production might involve re-mixing a track. Any medium you can think of will have an equivalent to these.

3. Focussing
Mediation always ends up with us, the audience being encouraged towards concentrating on one aspect of the text and ignoring others. If you are watching a film the camera will pan towards an important character. In a tabloid the headlines will scream, for your attention. It can be easy to ignore how different from our everyday lives this is. If you are walking through a field, you are unlikely to see a sign saying look at this amazing tree. You make your own decisions about what is worth our attention. The media text, through mediation, tries to do this for us.

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.

2. Context of representation
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?

 Those are never the real people that we are seeing but representations of them which have somehow been created.

TASK
What, if anything, are the following people used as symbols of? Nelson Mandela Britney Spears Madonna David Beckham Can you think of any other examples of people who have become symbols?

Task 2
What is your opinion of any of the following Paris Hilton Jennifer Lopez The Duchess of Cornwall* Star Trek fans Immigrants

 Its unlikely that you know these people personally The impression that you have of them must come from the media. They have given us descriptions that have affected our views of these people. David Beckham, as he is represented in the media is not just a football player, but also a symbol of many things which some in the media think is positive and negative: fashion icon, adulterer etc.

Society, the individual and representation

Of course it is too simple to talk just about the media mediating reality and creating representations; we need a more subtle understanding of the process. To get this I will look briefly at some different ideas people have had about how representation works. You could broadly separate these into three:

 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 view As 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.

1. There must be some British If youve seen the film Independence people who the producers either encountered in reality or in other Day, you may have been amused or annoyed at the way that British People media texts. were represented as upper class idiots. 2. They formed an opinion of them If you consider the different parts of that they were stuck up idiots the Constructionist approach to which they used as the basis of representation, they would work their like this: representation. 3. As an individual watching this, you chose whether to believe the representation was valid or not. 4. In doing this, you were influenced by the fact that you are yourself British an American watching the film would probably have come to a different conclusion.

Society?
Influence of society on what representations we receive. a multitude of views so how can we say that society has an influence on our views of someone? We call views about how things should be and how people should behave an ideology and if an ideology is shared by the majority of people in a culture it is called the dominant ideology.

Dominant ideology in Britain

Used to be opposed to homosexual practises. Over time, however, opposition has changed to tolerance and then to acceptance for the majority, allowing openly gay men to present news and entertainment programmes and enter civil partnerships with one another.

Create a list of generally agreed dominant ideologies in Britain

People should put their families first. What others?

 David Beckham having an affair with another woman behind Victorias back, you may be shocked and disappointed because his behaviour goes against what the dominant ideology suggests married men and fathers should do. Also because representations often act as symbols of other things, you will also be likely to think that his behaviour shows exactly what is wrong with celebrity culture / footballers egos etc.

Constructionist view of representation

 Many constructionists believe that this itself has an effect on what the dominant ideology actually is after all the dominant ideology is only the belief of the majority of people so if you and others like you end up even more sure that rich people shouldnt flaunt their wealth as a result of seeing the article, then the dominant ideology has become a bit stronger. You could see the whole process that the constructionists describe as being a kind of negotiation. Over the years representations are accepted or rejected by the majority of people and the dominant ideology is gradually changed.

3. Ideologies behind representation

Tim OSullivan 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 medias role may be seen as : Circulating and reinforcing dominant ideologies (less frequently) undermining and challenging such ideologies.

Hegemony v Pluralism

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.

Pluralism
The pluralistic model comes from the opposite perspective to Marxism. Pluralism says that the media is diverse, with a wide range of available choices for consumers. Rather than the media influencing consensus, consensus values influence media representations. If particular representations are dominant, pluralists argue, it is because they are popular among the audience, not because powerful media institutions are pushing a particular ideology. After all, the main function of the mass media is to entertain to please their audience: to provide representations that meet audience expectations. This is where stereotypes come in: they pander to the views of the audience. The more media institutions pander to their audiences, the more money they can make.

Stereotypes
Read handout and do task

Milestone 2

4. Stereotypes and Countertypes

OSullivan 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 wasnt 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 groups 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 arent 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 womens interests and rights.

 Particularly in relation to music video and film objectification of womens bodies in the media has been a constant theme. Laura Mulvey (1975) argues that the dominant point of view is masculine. The female body is displayed for the male gaze in order to provide erotic pleasure for the male (vouyerism). Women are therefore objectified by the camera lens and whatever gender the spectator/audience is positioned to accept the masculine POV.

 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 nonwhite 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?

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.

 Barthes (1977) suggests that the newspaper photograph is an object that has been worked on, chosen, composed, constructed, treated according to professional, aesthetic or ideological norms which are so many factors of connotation.

 Bignell (1997) suggests, the caption underneath the picture enables the reader to load down the image with particular cultural meanings and the photograph functions as the proof that the text's message is true. Anchors (Barthes, 1977) the meaning. Link to binary opposition hero/criminal this can link to Levi-Strauss (1958) and Propp (1928).

Music Videos In terms of music videos do we aspire to emulate the artists shaman as defined by Carlsson (1999) through the representations? Does this lead to a further analysis of subcultures (Dick Hebdige, 1979) representations in videos actually provide identities - ideological basis for fans. Sarah Thornton (1995) described subcultural capital as the cultural knowledge and commodities acquired by members of subcultures raised their status and helped them differentiate key to representations.

 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. Look at the idea of the Collective Identity. David Gauntlett (2007) argues that Identity is complicated. Everybody thinks theyve got one. Artists play with the idea of identity in modern society.

 Documentary As part of stereotyping to create meaning in factual texts such as news, television theorist John Hartley (1982) argues that aspects such as the presenters voices are stereotyped in order to create shorthand meanings for audiences at a particular but of drama, action, light-heartedness etc. This means they are personalised and this personalisation creates characteristics which become stereotyped for the audience.

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 nonaggressive.

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.

 We can apply this to texts that claim to represent reality documentary, news. Merrin (2005) argues that the media do not reflect and represent the reality of the public but instead produce it, employing this simulation to justify their own continuing existence.