THEORY - Representation Theory

REPRESENTATION 

Representation refers to the construction in any medium of aspects of 'reality' such as people, places, objects, events,  cultural identities and other concepts. Such representations may be in speech, writing as well as still/moving pictures. 

Representation is the ability of texts to draw upon features of the world and present them to the viewer, not simply as reflections but more as constructions. The images do not portray reality in an unbiased way with 100% accuracy but present 'versions of reality' influenced by culture and peoples habitual thoughts and actions. 

In a world dominated by print and electronic media, our sense of reality is increasingly structured around narrative. Feature films and Documentaries tell us stories about ourselves and the world around us. Television speaks back to us and offers us a form of reality. Print journalism turns daily life into a story and advertisements narrate our fantasies and desires. 

SOCIAL GROUPS 

• age
• disability
• gender
• economic grouping
• race
• nationality
• sexuality

IDEOLOGY

An ideology is a belief system that is constructed and presented by a media text. Media texts represent the world in order to support a dominant ideology. 

Example - Newspapers often promote the dominant ideology of patriotism through their representation of race and nationality. 

Some dominant Ideologies include - 

• Capitalism - The production of a capital and consumption of surplus value as a life goal.
• Patriotism - To love, support and protect one's country and it's people.
• Marriage and Family - The "right way" to live is to marry a person of the opposite sex and to have children. 
• Male Superiority - Men are more suited to positions of power and more suited to decision making at work and home. 

There is many examples of dominant ideologies around the world and they are extremely culture-specific like Christian fundamentalism as a political force in the USA, Shariah law in some Muslim countries, the principle of individual freedom in the Netherlands. 

Dominant ideologies are central to people's belief systems. It is often difficult or impossible to challenge them effectively. 

HEGEMONY

This is the way in which those in power maintain their control. Dominant ideologies are considered hegemonic - power in society is maintained by constructing ideologies which are usually promoted by mass media and examples of this include: 

• The police are always right
• It is important to be slim 
• A credit card is a desirable status symbol
• Mass immigration is undesirable
• The poor are lazy and deserve what they get
• Men are better drivers than women 

A man that was heavily involved in the theoritical side                   

was Antonio Gramsci (right) who was an Italian political theorist. 
A founding member and leader of the Communist Party of Italy 

however he was imprisoned by a Facist regime. He is renowned

for his concept of cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining 

the state in a capitalist society. His theory meant that a diverse 

culture can be ruled or dominated by one group or class and 

that everyday practices and shared beliefs provide the foundation 

for complex systems of dominations. 

STEREOTYPES

Stereotypes are characters in a media text who are "types" rather than people and are often defined by their role (bad cop, nice old lady etc.). Children's media text often uses stereotypes so a young audience can quickly identify with the characters. Stereotypes are usually negative representations considered to be too reductive. Many are considered offensive (drunken Irishman, over-emotional woman.)

PROCESS AND PRODUCT
Representation involves not only how identities are represented within text but how they are constructed in the process of reception also. 

"The Gaze" is a technical term used in Media. It refers to how the audience views the way people are represented. The gaze can be characterised by who is doing the looking - 
   
The Spectator's Gaze
- The spectator who is viewing the text.

Intra-Diegetic Gaze 
- Where one person depicted in the text is looking at another person
or object (two characters)




Extra-Diegetic Gaze 
- Where the person depicted in the text looks at the spectator or an
acknowledgement of the 'Fourth Wall'





The Camera's Gaze 
- Which is the gaze of the camera and is often equated to the 
directors gaze. 





Intra-intra-Diegetic Gaze 
- such as the example to the left. 

ANALYSING AN IMAGE FOR REPRESENTATION 

• Is the tone friendly? On edge? 
• A positive or negative portrayal of the subject?
• Is the subject of the image the subject of the text or just accompany it?
• Connotation & Symbolism
• Does the image attempt to reflect or construct reality?
• Is the image associated with a commodity or brand?
• Use of colour and lighting - realistic or ideal?
• Representaion of lifestyle - realistic or aspirational? (material wealth/body image/beauty/social & personal relationships)
• Assumption or stereotypes regarding class, race, gender, age or sexual orientation.

THE MALE GAZE - LAURA MULVEY

She was a feminist theoriest. She wrote an essay on Visual Pleasuer and Narrative Cinema and was wirtten in 1975. The cinema scene in Hollywood put the audience in a masculine subject position with the woman on the screen protraying the desired object. Protragonists tended to be men and Mulvey suggested that there was 2 distinct modes of male gaze - voyeruristic (women as whores) and fetishistic (women as unreachable).  
However people have critisiced her ideas by saying that she is ignoring the fact that both genders want to feel dominated and overwhelmed by the experience. She also doesn't acknowledge the fact that men are able to view the film from the perspective of a woman.

PHYCHOANALYSIS AND 'THE MIRROR' - LACAN
Lacans theory of 'the mirror' is an idea around identity. He considers the point at which a person develops a sense of self and conscious idenitity. He also considers the point at which a child recognises their own relflection and begin to consider how others percieve them which may result in modifying their appearance to fulfil the perceptions of how others see them. 

QUEER THEORY - JUDITH BUTLER
This challenges the idea that gender - male or female - is part of the essential self and is fixed basically meaning our gender doesn't control all aspects of our identity or our perception of other peoples. Gender, especially the way it is representated in performance (TV, Film etc) is flexible depending on the context. For example, A male playing a "straight" character however they may have very 'gay' or 'queer' attributes. The theory combats the idea that people should be divided and categorised (marginalised) due to their sexual orientation. It asks us to consider how the media construct  gay representation. 

SUBCULTURE - REPRESENTATION OF GROUPS - DICK HEBDIDGE/KEN GELDER
Hebdidge said that subculture is a group of like minded individuals who may feel neglected by social standards and who develop a sense of identity which difffers to the dominant that they belong to. Gelder came up with 6 ways subculture can be recognised: 

1. Negative relationship to work
2. Negative relationship to class
3. Associations with territory (the street/hood/club)
4. Their stylistic ties to access
5. Through their movement out of the home into non-domestic forms (social groups not family)
6. Their refusal to engage with the banalities of life. Symbolism attached to clothing, music, tattoos etc. Subcultural values often associated with being 'cool'.

TRADITIONAL VS POST TRAD VIEWS ON SOCIETY - ANTHONY GIDDENS

Media representations of society can be seen as traditional or post tradionalist. Traditional socities are ones that the invididual choice was limited by it's dominant customs and traditions. Post traditional societies are ones that the ideas which are set by previous generations are less important than the individuals. They no longer feel dependent and limited to time and place. We are living in a post traditional society where we are much less concerned with precedents that are set by previous generations and our options are limited to what law and public opinion says we can do. We have replaced discreet systems with remote systems - institutes/corporations.

INTERCONNECTIVITY OF RACE, CLASS AND GENDER - BELL HOOKS

Focused on the perpetuation of systems of oppression and domination inn the media paying particular attention to the devaluation of black womanhood. The idea of 'lack' or 'otheress' refers to the way that woman and ehtnic minorities are usually represented. Their primary purpose is simply to be anything but normal (tends to be a white male). They are more known by the context of lack than by a recognised identity. The theory can be linked to ideas of monstrous feminine found in feminist analysis.