1. Mass Communication & Media
Literacy 06

2. http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/campaigning/takeaction/campaigners_pack/press_myths

3.  Identify/outline issues involved in thinking about
representation and media
 Define the concepts of representation, stereotyping
and associated sub-categories
 Use rhetorical, semiological, genre and narrative
analysis to analyse media representations
 Examine debates around the depiction of individuals
and social groups

4. Questions
 What kind of groups feature in your text?
 How would you categorise the individuals and/or
groups depicted?
 What kinds of ideas and feelings about them do you
have as a result of your media consumption?

5. Why Representation
 Media forms have their own rhetoric and language
that position us as audience members for
entertainment purposes, they are not divorced from
the social, cultural, political and historical contexts
of their making.
 Representation informs our understanding and
outlook on various groups and individuals – which
can affect how social relations are played out.

6. Represent
 Equivalence/corresponding to
 Proxy/substitute for something or someone else
 Typify/epitomise

7. Representation
To represent something is to describe or depict
it, to call it up in the mind by description,
portrayal or imagination. To represent also
means to symbolise, to stand for, to be a
specimen of or substitute to.

8. All media forms contain only a
fraction of what could have been
presented – they are selective in
their portrayals and are thus
abstractions in the way they work at
emphasising or inflections limited
elements or characteristics of what
is on show or known.

9. Representation
 How the media shows us things about society –
through a careful process of mediation – hence, re-
presentation.
 For representation to be meaningful to audiences
there needs to be a shared recognition of people,
situations, ideas etc.
 All representation therefore have ideologies behind
them. Certain paradigms are encoded into texts and
others left out in order to give a preferred meaning.

10. Representation
 When analysing media representations in general it’s
useful to ask a few questions posed by Richard Dyer
(1983):
1. What sense of the world is it making?
2. What does it imply?
3. Is it typical of the world or deviant?
4. Who is it speaking to? For whom? To whom?
5. What does it represent to us and why? How do you respond?

11. Representation
1. What sense of the world
is it making?
2. What does it imply?
3. Is it typical of the world
or deviant?
4. Who is it speaking to?
For whom? To whom?
5. What does it represent to
us and why? How do you
respond?

12. Ideology and representation
 A hegemonic view of society – fundamental
inequalities in power between different groups.
Groups in power exercise their influence culturally
rather than by force (‘soft’ power)
 This concept has its origins in Marxist theory – it
explains how the ruling class can protect economic
interests.
 Representations are therefore encoded into mass
media texts in order to do this – to reinforce
dominant ideologies in society.

13. Ideology and representation

14. Ideology and representation
 Ideology refers to a set of ideas which produces a
partial and selective view of reality. The notion of
ideology entails widely held ideas or beliefs which
are seen as ‘common sense’ and become naturalised
(Tim O’Sullivan, 1998).
 What is important is that the media’s role can be
seen as:
 Circulating and reinforcing dominant ideologies
 Undermining and challenging such ideologies (less often)

15. Ideology and representation
 Ideologies are never simply ideas in people’s heads
but are actually myths that we live by and which
contribute to our self worth. (remember Barthes?)
 Think about documentaries: how are our national,
regional and historical identities constructed
through the mediation of a text?
 ‘Identities are not ‘given’ but are constructed and
negotiated.’ (David Gauntlett, 20020)

16. Postmodernism and representation
 Life becomes a soap opera. The trial’s
of OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson
are examples - neither real nor a
simulation
 The Gulf war as hyper-real - it never
happened
 Reality mixes with ‘art’, a supposed
reflection of postmodernism’s
‘slipperiness’ when it comes to truth.
 Politics as entertainment - the
projection and consumption of hyper-
real images.
 Collapse of boundaries between classes,
high and low culture, politics and news
and entertainment but ultimately
between reality and simulation.
 This has led to a collapse of meaning.
The ‘real’ society that existed before the
takeoff of this latest stage of mass
consumer capitalism has disappeared
into a black hole - replaced by the
terminal of the hyperreal - the TV
screen.

17. Postmodernism and representation

18. Depicting individuals
 Trevor MacDonald
 TV Newsreader
 Middle class
 Man
 What else does this
media figure ‘represent’?

19. Depicting individuals
 George Michael
 Pop star in concert
 What other ideas does
the media figure
represent?

20.  The campaign to find
Madeleine McCann
 What do such images
come to represent
beyond the literal
identification of a lost
child?

21. Types
 Types
 A grouping based on shared characteristics; a class.
 An individual that represents the ideal for its class; an embodiment.
 Archetypes
 A perfect or idealised person or thing that exhibits such core values
and identities that offer a model or pattern for the way in which a
culture is viewed
 Stereotypes
 Stereotyping is a process involving the expression of an exaggerated
belief about a group that serves to qualify or justify the conduct
towards that group of those who hold and express that belief.

22. The archetype
The wealth of music Curtis Jackson released
and his 2000 shooting conspired to turn 50
Cent the rapper into a local legend before his
debut album had even been released. In some
senses, he represents the latest incarnation of
an archetype that crops up time and again in
popular music. Early blues singers often
retold in song the story of a deadly
confrontation between Billy Lyons and a
pimp called Lee Shelton ( known variously as
Stagger Lee or Stagolee), two real-life
characters from the Deep South whose 1895
shoot-out resulted in Lyons's death.
In Stagolee Shot Billy, a book about the social
history of the myth, writer Cecil Brown
describes how Stagolee's persona as the 'bad
black hero' feeds into our perception of
characters as varied as Puff Daddy, OJ
Simpson, Malcolm X and Huey Newton.

23. Stereotypes
 Stereotypes
 Stereotyping is a process involving the expression of an
exaggerated belief about a group that serves to qualify or
justify the conduct towards that group of those who hold and
express that belief.
 Stereotypes are a form of shorthand narrative

24. Building stereotypes
 Appearance
 Behaviour
 Fit
 Implicit/explicit comparison

25. Functions of stereotypes in media texts
 Functions for stereotypes in media texts relate them
to broader social and historical contexts
 An ordering function – a short-cut to meaning in the face of
the messiness of reality
 A metonymic function - an index of a wider reality and set of
values about the group (one person ‘stands for’ the group)

26. Stereotypes: difficulties
 According to Tessa Perkins (1979):
 Stereotypes aren’t always negative (French good cooks)
 They aren’t always about minority groups or those less
powerful (upper class twits)
 They are not always false – they may be supported by
empirical evidence
 They are not always rigid and unchanging

27. (new) Media Representations
 With the development of ubiquitous, cheap and easy
to use equipment and the electronic networks for
distribution, media representations have proliferated
over the last ten years.
 The following are some experiments that are
harnessing those developments.

28. (new) Media Representations
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/network/
 http://www.mappingmainstreet.org/
 http://www.youtube.com/user/lifeinaday
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00kqz5p
 http://dziga.perrybard.net/
 http://www.onedayonearth.org/
 http://www.18daysinegypt.com/
 http://globallives.org/en/