Representation in the media

Representation

- Representation is concerned with the way that people, ideas and events are presented to us.

- This could be representation in magazines, news soap operas, films and so on.

- It may include representation of people, places, events.

This means media texts are intentionally written, framed, cropped, captioned, branded, targeted and censored by producers, and that they are entirely artificial versions of the reality we perceive around us.

Elements that create representation

• Mise-en-scene
• Sound
• Editing
• Camera shots, angles, movements and positions

Social groups in terms of representation

• Gender
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Sexuality
• Class and status
• Physical ability/disability
• Regional Identity

Example; goths - trashy, lonely, love for darkness/death, plain, shy/introverted, rude, sensitive, love for rock music, disrespectful

Stereotypes

• A commonly held public belief about specific social groups or types of individuals
• A simplified representation of a character, appearance and beliefs
• Sometimes representations can turn into stereotypes 
• A countertype is a positive simplified widely held view but is still not the whole truth

The representation of Men and Women in the media:

Women - Feminism has been around for 30 years yet media representations of women are worryingly the same.

Representations of women across all media tend to highlight the following:

- Beauty
- Size/Physique
- Sexuality
- Emotional Dealings

Women are often represented as being part of a team such as family, friends, colleagues etc. And in drama they tend to take the role of the helper, passive rather than active.

Men are still represented as TV drama characters up to 3 times more frequently than women, and tend to be the predominant focus of news stories.


Men - Representation of men across all media tend to focus on the following:

- Strength, physical and intellectual
- Power and success
- Sexual attractiveness, physique
-Independence
- Masculinity



Representation of age:

- Rebellious teen
- Senile old man/woman
- Cradle robbing woman
- Male in a mid-life crisis
- Middle-age woman clinging to her youth
- Silly old man
-Social group in school (nerd, cheerleader, goth etc)


And the list goes on.

Old people are often subject to the most rigid stereotypes of all (old= ugly, weak, stupid, grumpy, boring).

Ethnicity:

• Ethnicity is defined by a set of genetic and cultural characteristics.
• Representation of ethnicity in the media can consist of rigid stereotypes that are similar to gender portrayal.
• There is a need for a more accurate portrayal of the diversity of different races is a priority for political agendas.

In recent years, the success of actors such as Denzel Washington, Whoopi Goldberg, Laurence Fishbone and Morgan Freeman in a diversity of roles has meant that black characters in movies and on TV are no longer 'stock' types.

However, there are many negative representations of black people in the media, portrayals which seem deliberately designed to inflame the hatred and fear.

People of African descent

- Nigerian mum, big woman who loves food and music and family
- Boys in hoodies, aggressive, part of a gang, urban, criminal
- Famine victims, they are starving and poor 
- Rappers, guns, bling, weed, grill teeth, tattoos


People of asian descent

- Intelligent, extremely clever
- Broken english, can't speak english
- They eat dogs
- They are very culturally exclusive, put their own first
- Martial artist, ninja, karate
- Obsessed with electronics
- Obsessed with anime 
- Lack emotion
- Wealthy and love Chinese food


People of Arabic (middle-eastern) descent

- Terrorists, violent, killers
- Religiously devout, strict, serious
- Villains, make the victims, victims
- Physically strong, hates jewish people


People of White British/American descent

- Powerful, physically and intellectually
- Often the hero, can be the killer
- In charge, the dominant race
- The lead role, the protagonist


Representation of sexuality-
Heterosexual women

- Loving, respectful, monogamous
- Promiscuous, flaunt their body about
- Frigid, sexually uncomfortable
- Pure, virginal, innocent, naive
- Gold digger, cougar, pregnant teen

Representation of sexuality-
Heterosexual men

- Loving, respectful, monogamous
- Promiscuous for women is bad, but for men it is considered ok
- 'Ladies man', 'heart throb', player
- Bumbling man  who has trouble speaking to women


Representation of sexuality- 
Lesbian women

- Monogamous, faithful and loving
- Promiscuous, flaunts their body about
- Embarrassed (in the closet)
- 'Butch', dresses masculine or looks masculine

Representation of sexuality- 
Homosexual males

- Young promiscuous men
- Older monogamous men
- Overbearing and in your face
- Embarrassed (in the closet)
- Obsessed with makeup
- Vanity and very self absorbed


Class and status:
- Poor, moneyless, bum
- Lower class
- Lower middle class
- Working class
- Upper middle class
- Upper class
- Elite, rich, millionaire


Status symbols
- Clothing or lack of it
- Cars
- Jewellery 
- Brands
- Houses or mansions
- Gadgets

Physical ability/Disability

- Physically disabled, paralysed, deaf, blind
- Those who are limited in how much they can do
- Those who are in good shape, star athletes, superheroes, average



Regional identity

- This constitutes the representation of individuals from a certain geographical area
- Costume
- Setting
- Staging/acting
- Depiction
- Accent


Key terms:

- Selection: whatever ends up on the screen or in the paper, much more will have been left out. Any news story has been selected from hundreds of others which the producers decided for you were less interesting. Any picture has been chosen from an enormous number of alternatives.

- Construction: Media texts have been created in a specific way to portray a message/representation

- Mediation: Mediation is the process by which a media text represents an idea, issue or event to an audience. We are given a version of reality which has been altered.

- Dominant representation: A dominant representation is one which is repeated across the media over time.

In this video, the differences between the two sexes are very obvious. The girls like makeup, clothes, doing their hair and the men picking up the bill. The boys seem dominant and manly while being strong and a ladies man.