ICT S212

Media ANd
Information
Literacy
Analyzing representations in media
texts
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Identify representations in media and information texts.

Analyse cultural, religious, and gender representations in

media and information texts.
Watch this video:
MediaXINDIGENOUSPEOPLE:
ACADEMIC RESOURCE FOR MEDIA
LITERATE FILIPINOS
Reflect on these questions:
• Why do we need to study media representations?
• Can you think of any form of media that portrays inaccurate
representation of Filipinos?
Basic principles for critical
analysis of media messages:
• Media messages are constructed.
• Messages are representations of reality with embedded value and
points of view.

• Each form of media uses a unique set of rules to construct

messages.

• Individuals interpret media messages and create their own

meaning based on personal experience.

• Media are driven by profit within economic and political contexts.

STEREOTYPING
the labels in media messages that audience usually refers to
due to previous exposure to the portrayal of characters

Examples:
• Filipino time implies that Filipinos are always late on
meetings/appointments.

• Tagalog (as a dialect) and Filipino (as a language) are just

the same.

• Mindanao is a dangerous place.

Representation
“the ways in which the media portray particular groups,
communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular
ideological or value perspective”

(Beach, n.d.)
Ways in analyzing
representations
Images | Sound/Music | Intertextuality | Language
Images
reflect certain positive versus negative value orientations baed
on cultural codes and archetypal meanings
What are the things that
you can think of
whenever you see the
colors, Red and yellow?
What does this image
mean to you now?
sound/music
focuses on the use of sounds and music to represent certain
social worlds and create certain moods
What does these sounds imply to
you?
1. Alarm?
2. Heartbeat?
3. Gong?
4. Suspense Music?
5. Silence?
Intertextuality
refers to the audiences’ knowledge of intertextual links
between the current texts and other previous texts using the
same images, language, sound or logos

refers to how the current text is understood in relation to other

texts in the past or in the future
 Familiar with these
films?

How did their then & now roles

affect you as a viewer?
Language
deals with the use of language to construct realities or worlds

may directly refer to the use of words and texts or indirect use
of images to construct new realities
Any thoughts
on these?