Representation

case study - disability, black Hollywood or teens

which would you choose?
Theory
When you write about Representation you will need:
Examples: Texts from all three platforms ideally.
Analysis of these texts using Media concepts focussed not
exclusively on Representations
Contextual factors: how the representations fit with the
society and politics of the time and how this might
influence or be influenced by economics and the texts’
place in history.
To help you do this things you will need theorists.
What
representations?

Write about the

denotation first
Then move on to
explore the
connotations
Monaco
This unusual ability of film to “validate” reality is its most
important mimetic political function. (2000)
It is still rare for a casting director to hire an African-
American to play a role that isn’t specified as “Black”.
(2000)
Racism pervades American film because it is a basic stain
in American history.

How could you apply Monaco to the poster we have just

examined? Write a paragraph applying one or more of
these quotations.
Mehki Phifer
(actor in ER)

Does this representation

provide contrary
evidence?

Can we criticise
Monaco?
 jacker

Does this clip reveal anything about the

use of stereotypes by film makers?

Does the representation reinforce of

challenge the stereotype and how?
 How do film makers play
with stereotypes?

The Tragic Mulato? Caught between black and white?

Gramsci
Gramsci used the term hegemony to denote the predominance of one
social class over others (e.g. bourgeois hegemony).

This represents not only political and economic control, but also the
ability of the dominant class to project its own way of seeing the world,
so that those who are subordinated by it accept it as 'common sense'
and 'natural'.
How might we apply Hegemony to the representations we have
studied?
Write a few sentences applying Gramsci’s theory to you favoured
representation.
5 minutes
Bamboozled
Consider the role Dayon Wayans
plays

How does Spike Lee use Wayan’s as

a voice for his own outrage at racial
stereotyping in TV?

Lee wants to confront how black

people have been stereotyped by
Hollywood head on. The language
including the use of the ‘N’ word
provokes outrage but does he
ironically further re-enforce prejudice
through the narrative?
Fiske 10 minutes

'Consent must be constantly won and re-won, for people's material

social experience constantly reminds them of the disadvantages of
subordination and thus poses a threat to the dominant class ...
Hegemony ... posits a constant contradiction between ideology and the
social experience of the subordinate that makes this interface into an
inevitable site of ideological struggle'

Fiske application of Hegemony reveals that it isn’t a constant but

something is subject to threat and must be ‘re-imposed’.

Write a further paragraph developing your ideas about Gramsci BUT

using a different and contrasting representation.
Bamboozled
The boss claims ‘blackness’ because he
has a black wife and black iconography
in his office, his choice to be a “wigger’
further reenforces his status. He is
shown as a fool but a fool with power.

Is Lee pointing fun at the white majority

who emulate black culture and have
done so for centuries. The boss claims
blackness but his blackness is shown
through ‘ownership’. The modern day
‘slave’ owner perhaps?
Stuart Hall
argues that the media appear to reflect reality whilst in fact
they construct it.
argued that the dominant ideology is typically inscribed as the
'preferred reading' in a media text, but that this is not
automatically adopted by readers.
The social situations of readers/viewers/listeners may lead
them to adopt different stances.
'Dominant' readings are produced by those whose social
situation favours the preferred reading;
'negotiated' readings are produced by those who inflect the
preferred reading to take account of their social position;
and 'oppositional' readings are produced by those whose
social position puts them into direct conflict with the preferred
reading
Crash (2004)
Terence Howard’s character Cameron
conforms to stereotype Tom by refusing
to stand up to his white producer Boss.

Consider how the

black stereotypes are
used in Crash.
 Theory
Integrate theory into your essay through short quotations
Hall’s codes
dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the text's code and
accepts and reproduces the preferred reading (a reading which may not have been
the result of any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)) - in such a
stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent’.

negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts
the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which
reflects their own position, experiences and interests (local and personal
conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule) - this position involves
contradictions.

oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose social situation

places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands
the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading,
bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.) (e.g.
when watching a television broadcast produced on behalf of a political party they
normally vote against).
Adorno and Horkheimer
The Cultural Industry Theory

Media texts and produced in the same way as other goods and services in a capitalist
economy. Production is marked by standardisation and repetition.

Media texts, as a consequence, inauthentic, repetitive and communicate at the level of

the lowest common denominator.

Media texts are loaded with a dominant ideology which works to justify and naturalise
social differences in the real world.

Media texts produce a mass, passive and obedient audience of consumers who are luled
into accepting the dreams and hopes offered.
Freedom

Freedom is another irony. It is key to Western democracy, an ideal much-vaunted and

often claimed as reality. But freedom here is subjective stuff, in that it is under the thumb
of the overarching ideology. Free time, for example, is defined in opposition to work
time: a worker in work is not free. Further, not only does work decide leisure, but also
the means of pursuing it. The culture industry performs a vital role in this cyclical
manipulation of freedom: work evokes certain desires for escape, and the escape, when it
comes, is underpinned so much by the ideology that it fits the leisuring worker to work
once more. (Brian Grant)

Consider this theory with regards to audience and industry.

Special People
Disability reps
View the text.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHT3Tmi_hQg
Who is represented, how are they represented?
What is the context?
What are the politics involved?
How does it use stereotype and counter-type?
Contrast with another text: which one?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/messageboar
ds/
Look at the disability forum website.

What representation do we get here?

Homework essays
Representations in the Media

1 (a) It has been said that media representations often reflect the social and political concerns of the age in which they are
created. Discuss.

(48 marks)

OR

1 (b) ‘Media representations favour those with power at the expense of those without’. To what extent do you think this
statement is true?

(48 marks)

research one of these essay titles and prepare ALL the resources you need to write the essay. Collect the texts you will
use, the theory you can apply, critical debates.

Think about how you use secondary texts: from news, magazines, art, history etc.