Representation in media

By definition, all media texts are re-presentations of reality. This means that they are intentionally composed, lit, written, framed, cropped, captioned, branded, targeted and censored by their producers, and that they are entirely artificial versions of the reality we perceive around us. When studying the media it is vital to remember this - every media form, from a home video to a glossy magazine, is a representation of someone's concept of existence, codified into a series of signs and symbols which can be read by an audience. However, it is important to note that without the media, our perception of reality would be very limited, and that we, as an audience, need these artificial texts to mediate our view of the world, in other words we need the media to make sense of reality. Therefore representation is a fluid, two-way process: producers position a text somewhere in relation to reality and audiences assess a text on its relationship to reality.


> Hypodermic needle theory (very contraversial) = the idea that the media can ‘inject’ ideas and messages straight into the passive audience. This passive audience is immediately affected by these messages.

> Stuart Hall (1950) created this audience thoery- encode and decode.want us to read media text in their 'preferred' way. If we Decode their encoded TV texts, it will make us more likely to agree with what were being shown or being told.
example:
Yorkie chocolate bar, advertised it was a chocolate bar not for girls. this caused controversay and made women want to go and buy a yorkie bar even more just because its a chocloate bar for 'men'.


In order to fully appreciate the part representation plays in the media text, you must consider:

• Who produced it?
• What/who represented the text?
• How is that thing being represented?
• Why was this partticualr representation(this shot, framed from this angle, this story phrased in these terms etc..) selected and what might the alternatives have been?
• What frame of reference does the audeince need to use when understanding the representation?

Representations of women across all media tend to highlight the following:

• beauty (within narrow conventions)
• size/physique (again, within narrow conventions)
• sexuality (as expressed by above)
• emotional (as opposed to intellectual) dealings
• relationships (as opposed to independence/freedom)

Representations of masculinity:
'masculinity' is a concept thats is made up of more rigid stereotypes than 'feminimity'. Representations of men across all media tend to focus on the following:

• strength- physical and intellectual
• power
• sexual attractiveness (which may be based on the above)
• physique
• independence (of thought, action)