Read the Media Magazine feature 'Representation old and new'. This is in MM51 on page 6 - go to our Media Magazine archive to find the article. Complete the following tasks:
1) Why is representation an important concept in Media Studies?
"Understanding how representations are created, and how they create meaning, is central to an understanding of the media, as everything that appears in the media is in fact a representation."
2) How does the example of Kate Middleton show the way different meanings can be created in the media?
Select images can be chosen during the editing process in order to fit a select narrative the editor wants to achieve. The first image of Kate Middleton drinking from a large wine glass could be used to create a scenario where she has a drinking problem.
3) Summarise the section 'The how, who and why of media representation' in 50 words.
Producers consider the expectations of the target audience, genre codes, the type of narrative they want to convey and institutional merit. All representations are the cumulative effect of a collection of media language choices that producers want to communicate ideological meaning with. Repetition of values and ideologies makes them seem natural to an audience, resulting in audiences not recognising it in the first place.
4) How does Stuart Hall's theory of preferred and oppositional readings fit with representation?
If an ideology is clear and the audience is of the targeted culture, age, gender ect, the audience is likely to take the preferred reading that the producer intended for. Audiences may take the oppositional reading if they disagree with the ideologies of the producer. How audiences respond to texts can depend a lot on their race, gender and age. For example, some media texts perhaps having unflattering representations of minority groups that would likely not bother a white male audience.
5) How has new technology changed the way representations are created in the media?
Social media allows for anybody to have a voice and construct their own representation. We now have a way to reject representations from media outlets that we don't think are accurate.
6) What example is provided of how national identity is represented in Britain - and how some audiences use social media to challenge this?
During the 2014 World Cup, The Sun sent a free newspaper to 22 million households in England which represented its own concepts of ‘Englishness’ by symbolic references – queuing, the Sunday roast, Churchill and The Queen – to heroes, values and behaviours that the paper (and its owners, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corps) defined as appropriate expressions of ‘English identity’. Social media forums and comment pages allowed many people to voice their rejection of the messages.
7) Finally, think about this week's representation theories. Watch the trailer for classic action movie Taken and write an analysis of the representation of people, places and groups in the trailer using terminology and theories you have learned this week:
The Taken trailer thoroughly supports Dyre's theory of stereotyping and power, representing women as vulnerable and emotional side characters for a white male protagonist to save. Medhurst's view that stereotypes are used for shorthand identification can also be applied, as the trailer attempts to convey to the audience that the foreigner's voice on the phone is intimidating and not to be trusted due to the accent. John Berger's belief that “Men act and women appear” can also be supported by this trailer we see the female characters in great distress and the male characters in positions of leadership and action. Levi-Strauss's theory concerning ideology can also be applied, as the producers have chosen to present the white male protagonist as powerful and the women as weak in order to suggest that women are in need of protecting, especially daughters.
No comments:
Post a Comment