Cambridge Technicals study of Digital Media - Analysing representations

1. Representation
L.O: to consider how media texts represent
characters, identities, topics and groups in
particular ways.
What does it mean to represent something?
Connotations? Initial ideas?

2. Re-presentation
• The representation of something is not a
mirror image.
• It is purposefully constructed to show us
certain ideologies, beliefs and values.
• It’s a re-presentation.
What choices are used to help represent a
person, place or thing?

3. Questions to ask for each text
• Who produced the text?
• Which person or group is being represented?
• How are they portrayed?
• Why was this specific representation selected?
• How are the audience being asked to identify or
distance themselves from the representation?
(due to age, gender, social status, nationality,
lifestyle?)
• What has been left out of the representation?
• Who is in power?

8. Top tips
• Step back from the person or place you are
deconstructing.
• Don’t just think about how they represent
themselves but how they have been ‘put
together’ (camera angles, shots, music,
clothes, body language etc) and represented
by the text itself.
• Consider the intended or preferred reading of
the person or place by the target audience.

9. • Stereotypes in the media are constructed through dress
and appearance, behaviour, codes and conventions of
construction and opposition.
• Stereotypes more common as a shorthand for quick
identification in TV and advertising. Soap Operas for
example may begin with stereotypical characters but may
develop these over time.
How to use it…
‘The characters in the advert highlight Medhurst’s theory of
stereotypes allowing quick identification. We can quickly see
the roles of mum, dad and teenage son established in the
opening shot’.
Stereotypes (Medhurst)

10. Stereotypes (Perkins)
• Stereotypes are not always false but contain elements
of truth.
• Stereotypes occur because there are limited
representations of diverse groups.
• They can sometimes be positive but this is usually
because it is beneficial for the dominant power group.
How to use it…
‘the representation of Andre in this sequence
demonstrates Perkin’s theory that not all stereotypes are
false, and our belief of celebrities: that they do have
fantastic lifestyles and only a few can achieve that status.’

11. Hyperreality (Baudrillard)
• In the media saturated world a state of hyperreality
exists, where our reality is based upon the reality
presented to us through the media.
• A different representation is shown through media
texts.
How to use it…
‘Baudrillard’s hyperreality theory would suggest that the
view of teenager as lout, yob and criminal has become so
normal and ‘real’ for us that it is hard to know what a
teenager ‘is’ or what a teenager wants from life’.

12. Character tropes (Propp)
• Propp argued that there are only 7 character
types (reflected from fairy tales and folk tales).
• The villain; the donor; the (magical) helper; the
princess and her father; the dispatcher; the hero;
the false hero.
How to use it…
‘The film represents the female lead as a typical
“princess” character who must be saved by the hero
from the villain.’

13. Binary opposites (Levi Strauss)
• Representations constructed through
oppositions (i.e. hero/villain; sane/insane).
How to use it…
‘The characters of Harry and
Voldermort are represented
as good and evil in opposition
to each other.’

14. Represents social class?

15. Represents Britain?

16. Represents gender?
Challenge: what
different
representations are
we seeing here?
Gender?
Class?
Wealth?
Race?
Beauty?
Intersecting
representations

17. Represents race?