Media Studies - Representation Theorists

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6 Terms

1
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Representation Theory - Stuart Hall

Concept 1: Media Representation Processes

  • The media does not mirror real world events but produces an edited version of the events depicted

  • Media representation are constructed through codes - through the use of language, imagery, layout, sound, and editing

  • The media plays a vital role in the shaping of our views of the world

Concept 2: Stereotypes and power

  • Stereotypes are used by media producers to create instant characterisation

  • Stereotypes reduce social groups to a few traits or visual cues and suggest that those groups are naturally inclined towards a specific set of negative behaviours

  • Stereotypes are mostly found where there are huge inequalities. They exclude and demonize groups in a manner that both reflects and reinforces social hierarchies

  • Social groups can internalise the behaviours inferred by stereotypes

  • Stereotypes can be contested through transcoding strategies

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Gender Performativity - Judith Butler

Concept 1: Our gendered identities are not naturally given by constructed through repetition and ritual

  • Our bodies or sex do not define our gendered identities

  • Genders are not fixed by childhood experience

  • Gender is constructed through the continuous repetition of micro-rituals

Concept 2: Contemporary culture reinforces a traditional gender binary - identities that fell outside of that binary are constructed as subversion

  • Heteronormativity is entrenched within society

  • Non-heteronormativity identities are marginalisation of subversive identities through absent representations, abjection, and parody

  • The performance of gender trouble is difficult, sometimes painful, process given the entrenched nature of heteronormativity

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Intersectionality - bell hooks

Concept 1: Interconnected oppression

  • Representation of black women (and men) have been shaped by historical forces

  • Feminist movements of the twentieth century have largely been dominated by a white viewpoint

  • A social hierarchy exits that places white men at the top followed by white women, male ethnic minorities, and, last, female ethnic minorities

  • Oppression of minority groups (racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia) are constructs of a white male dominated social hierarchy

  • The lack of black female power results in absent representations and a range of negative stereotypes that some black women have internalised

Concept 2: From evaluation to action, bell hooks’ call to action

  • hooks’ intersectional work does not just provide us with an analytical tool, but also prompts media producers to fashion their products in ways that draw attention to social inequality

  • Intersectional media foregrounds the interconnected nature of inequality

  • Intersectional media celebrated the social diversity and gives voice to social groups that have been marginalised by white male power

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Feminist Theory - Liesbet van Zoonen

Concept 1: The female body as a spectacle

  • The roles that females are expected to play within society vary enormously across different cultures and historical periods

  • The dominant representational mode in Western culture positions women as an erotic spectacle

  • Second wave feminists have challenged the dominance of men in society

  • Their wave feminists have reasserted the right of women to occupy traditional female roles

  • Fourth wave feminists continue to challenge male privilege using both mass media and social media forms

Concept 2: Masculinity in the media

  • Masculine depictions are not subject to the same objectification processes and females

  • Male social dominance is reinforced using active representations of masculinity

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Postcolonial Theory - Paul Gilroy

Concept 1: Racial binaries, otherness, and civilisation

  • Black communities are constructed as an ‘other’ to white culture and are associated with criminal activity and lawlessness

  • The media reflect civilisationist attitudes through simplistic reportage and the demonisation of Muslims - media products nurture fear and the idea that Muslims and Europeans are incompatible

Concept 2: The enduring legacy of the British Empire on the English identity

  • A deep-seated postcolonial melancholia infects the media as a result of Britain’s diminishing global importance

  • Postcolonial melancholia prompts a nostalgic construction of Englishness

  • Postcolonial melancholy produces a sense of English rootlessness as an anxiety surrounding British identity

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Media and Identity - David Gauntlett

Concept 1: Traditional and post-traditional media consumption

  • Gauntlett’s ideas build upon Anthony Giddens’ assertion that society has progressed to a stage that Giddens calls ‘late modernity’

  • The conditions of late modernity enable audiences to escape the prescriptive identities that are constructed for them through localised social norms and traditional viewpoints

  • Gauntlett argues that contemporary media has brought audiences into contact with a wider range of representations - and, importantly, that audiences can consciously shape their own sense of self

Concept 2: Reflexive identity construction

  • The media provides a variety of role models and lifestyle templates that audiences use to guide their own outlooks

  • Audiences are engaged in a continuous revision of their identities

  • Media narratives mirror the process of identity transformation

  • Audiences are in control of the media - adapting and assimilating ideas about themselves through the various representations that the media presents