Media representation✅
Media representations and stereotyping
One of the issues that has interested media sociologists has been the categories and images that are used to portray social groups to media audiences, such as images of minority ethnic groups, men and women, the disabled, gays and lesbians, and different social classes and age groups.
These portrayals are known as media representations.
Media representations very often conform to and create stereotypes - generalised, oversimplified views of the features of a social group, allowing for few individual differences between members of the group.
Media stereotypes act like codes that give audiences quick and easy to understand images of groups, while at the same time they construct meanings and interpretations, and such stereotypes may form the basis for treating members of some groups differently than others.
The media gaze
The term ‘gaze’ was first used in a media context to describe the way men look at women as sexual objects (the male gaze), but it can equally well be used to describe a ‘media gaze’ of the media establishment on society.
This gaze of the establishment means that media content does not reflect the social diversity that characterises our society, but the perspective of the predominantly male, able-bodied white upper and middle class who own and control the media, and produce media content.
Symbolic annihilation
One of the recurring themes in media representations is the way that some groups are omitted, condemned or trivialised in the media, under-represented (not appearing as much as they should given their proportion in the population) or only appear in a limited number of roles.
Gerbner and Gross referred to this process as symbolic annihilation and suggested that this could give a distorted impression of some social groups, or erase them from public consciousness altogether.
There is a diversity of media, diversity of representations and a diversity of audiences, and it therefore can’t be assumed media representations will either be consistent or have the same effects on audiences.
People may ignore, accept or reject media representations, or even in the postmodern age, pick ‘n’ mix media representations in a creative way to forge their own identities.
Nonetheless, such media representations, whether true or distorted, can become realities for many people, particularly when they have no experiences of their own by which to judge media imagery.
In a media-saturated society, Baudrillard suggests media representations can become a form of hyperreality, which become more real than reality itself. In this sense, the media don’t reflect reality, but actively create it.
The GMG point out that media representations and stereotypes are formed within the context of the dominant ideology of society. This means they generally reinforce the cultural hegemony of the dominant social class in society, and justify existing patterns of inequality in wealth, power and social status.
Media representations: Categories and images that are used to present groups and activities to media audiences, which may influence the way we think about these activities and groups
Media gaze - The way the media view society and represent it in media content
Symbolic annihilation - Refers to the lack of visibility, under-representation and limited roles of certain groups in media representations, as they are omitted, condemned or trivialised in many roles