Media and Representation

Media and Representation Revision

Representation is the process by which members of a culture use language to produce meaning.
Objects, people, and events do not have fixed, final, or true meaning in themselves.
Meaning is assigned by people within societies and cultures.
Meanings change across different cultures and time periods.

Signs consist of two components:
- Signifier: The material object (e.g., petals, stem, color of a rose).
- Signified: The intangible meanings given in the name (e.g., R-O-S-E representing romance, love, Valentine's Day).
Perception of reality is constructed and shaped by the words and signs used in social contexts.

Hall defines ideology as “the mental frameworks - the languages, the concepts, categories, imagery of thought, and the systems of representation - which different classes and social groups deploy in order to make sense of, define, figure out and render intelligible the way society works” (1986: 26).

Ideology is the idea(s) behind the media text.
Different ideological discourses can be identified in a media text (e.g., a photograph).
Ideology is a body of ideas or a set of beliefs that underpins social relations.
These beliefs are held by groups within society.
Prevalent ideologies are often held by dominant groups.

Snow White had “red flags” due to a whiter-than-white heroine at a time when Hollywood is moving away from that.
Featured being rescued by Prince Charming, considered a chauvinist trope, and seven dwarves, where the word dwarf is a negative.
Peter Dinklage questioned the inclusion of the characters while Snow White was cast diversely: “It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way, but then you’re still making that f*cking backward story about seven dwarves living in a cave together?”

Described as empowerment for women, feminist, ‘mother earth’ type language.
Yet – environmental damage, elitism, labour exploitation.
Prioritizing space selfies over sustainability, while drought, cyclone, and flash flooding occured.

'In formally democratic class societies, the exercise of power and the securing of domination ultimately depends… on popular consent. This is consent, not simply to the interests and purposes but also to the interpretations and representations of social reality generated by those who control the mental, as well as the material, means of social reproduction' (Hall et al., 1978: 219)

'The media do not simply and transparently report events which are ‘naturally’ newsworthy in themselves. ‘News’ is the end-product of a complex process which begins with a systematic sorting and selecting of events and topics according to a socially constructed set of categories' (Hall et al., 1978: 54)

Language Utilisation: Emotive language describes Israelis as victims of attacks 11 times more than Palestinians.
Framing of Events: Most TV channels overwhelmingly promote “Israel’s right” to defend itself, overshadowing Palestinian rights by a ratio of 5 to 1.
In broadcast TV, Israeli perspectives were referenced almost three times more than Palestinian ones.
In online news it was almost twice as much.
Contextual Framing: 76% of online articles frame the conflict as an “Israel-Hamas war,” while only 24% mention “Palestine/Palestinian,” indicating a lack of context.
Misrepresentation and Undermining: Pro-Palestinian voices face misrepresentation and vilification by media outlets, perpetuating harmful stereotypes.
Right wing news channels and right-wing British publications were at the forefront of misrepresenting pro- Palestinian protestors as antisemitic, violent or pro Hamas.

How might algorithms shape who (or what) is represented on social media?
- The ‘filter bubble’ – stops us seeing a diversity of voices.
- Common representations are repeated to us, making them seem more pervasive.
- Search engines are not just machines, but systems designed by humans in ways that replicate power structures and inequalities of the Western countries where they were built (so they replicate systems of sexism, racism, which structure human designers’ experiences of the world)

Stuart Hall (1997): Identities are defined through difference, focusing as much on what we are not as what we are.
The Other is someone different to ourselves, and is often imagined as being somehow less.
They are often represented through binary extremes, e.g., good/bad, civilized/primitive.

Said explains how orientalism developed shortly after European powers had first travelled to the East.
Europeans believed Eastern cultures were strange and exotic, because they were not like their own, and were therefore seen as ‘inferior’.
Orientalism = construction as the ‘Other’, either through fear or fascination.
Based on essentialised difference and stereotyping.

'More specifically, examining media representations in tandem with robust critique of the material realities that propel them and which they reflect and reframe, can be one of, or, part of, many effective means of examining past and contemporary hierarchical dynamics—such as who has power and control over media production processes and how this is made manifest in media depictions' (Sobande, 2020: 137)

Sinners (2025) – Michael B Jordan as twin brothers who return to their Mississippi hometown to set up a bar in the 1930s Jim Crow–era South, but are attacked by vampires.
Features Black history, Black music Black culture.
The supernatural as an allegory for racism.