Representation

Representation

Definitions:

Stereotypes – Media institutions use stereotypes because the audience will instantly understand them. Think of stereotypes as a ‘visual shortcut’. They’re repeated so often that we assume they are normal or ‘true’.

Archetypes - This is the ‘ultimate’ stereotype. 

Countertype -A representation that challenges traditional stereotypical associations of groups, people or places.

Representation – the way in which people, events and ideas are presented to the audience. To break it down, the media takes something that is already there and re-presents it to us in the way that they choose.

These representations are created by the producers (anyone who makes a media text) of media texts. What they choose to present to us is controlled by Gatekeepers…

Gatekeepers-A media ‘gatekeeper’ is a person involved in a media production with the power to make a decision about something the audience are allowed to read, hear or see – and, of course, not get to see; for instance, a newspaper editor has the final say on what goes into his or her newspaper, where it goes within the pages, next to what other piece, with which pictures, strap-lines and headlines, etc.

E.g. in a newspaper the reporter would be the producer and the editor would be the gatekeeper. However the owner of the company would have the final say.

Moguls-But in the example of the newspaper editor’s decision, this will not be made freely: it will have been affected by technical issues, by the kind of person who owns the newspaper, for example (i.e. the so-called media moguls, such as Rupert Mudorch), and by many other things.

Who, What, Why, Where?

When you’re analysing representation, think about the following questions:

-          WHO or what is being representing? Who is the preferred audience for this representation?

-          WHAT are they doing? Is their activity presented as typical or atypical? Are they conforming to genre expectations or other conventions?

-          WHY are they present? What purpose do they serve? What are they communicating by their presence? What’s preferred reading?

-          WHERE are they? How are they framed? Are they represented as natural or artificial? What surrounds them? What is in the foreground and what is in the background?

Representation Theory

The Male Gaze (Laura Mulvey)

The cinema apparatus of Hollywood cinema puts the audience in a masculine subject position with the woman on the screen seen as an object of desire. Film and cinematography are structures upon ideas.

Protagonists tended to be men. Mulvey suggests two distinct modes of male gaze – “voyeuristic (women as whores) and fetishistic – women as unreachable Madonna’s”. (Also narcissistic – women watching the film see themselves reflected on the screen).

How we treat people (Richard Dyer)

Dyer argues that how we are seen determines how we are treated and how we treat other people is based on how we see them. This comes from our understanding of representation.

He believes that stereotypes come down to power. Those who have power stereotype those who don’t. 

Myths (Roland Barthes)                                                                                                    
Barthes theory looks quite closely at the idea of mythology, usually in regards to people and places. He suggested that the media often gives us mythic representation or a fairy tale like portrayal or a particular place