Cambridge Technicals study of Digital Media - Analysing representation and stereotyping

1. Media Representation Theory
• The term refers to the processes
involved as well as to its
products.
• For instance, in relation to the
key markers of identity - Class,
Age, Gender and Ethnicity (the
'cage' of identity) - representation
involves not only how identities
are represented (or rather
constructed) within the text but
also how they are constructed in
the processes of production and
reception.

2. Representation and gaze
– Who is doing the looking?
How do men look at images
of women?
How do women look at
images of men?
How do men look at images
of men?
How do women look at
images of women?

3. Representations as
constructions
A key concern in the study of representation is with the
way in which representations are made to seem ‘natural’.
All texts, however 'realistic' they may seem to be, are
constructed representations rather than simply
transparent 'reflections', recordings, transcriptions or
reproductions of a pre-existing reality.
However, representations which
become familiar through
constant re-use come to feel
'natural' and unmediated.

4. Representations are judged
Representations require interpretation -
we make judgements about them based
upon our own experiences and
backgrounds.

5. Representation involves
selection
Representation is
unavoidably
selective,
foregrounding
some things and
back grounding
others.

6. Key Questions about Specific
Representations
• What is being represented?
• How is it represented? Using what codes?
Within what genre?
• How is the representation made to seem
'true', 'commonsense' or 'natural'?
• What is foregrounded and what is
backgrounded? Are there any notable
absences?

7. Key Questions about Specific
Representations
• Whose representation is it? Whose interests does
it reflect? How do you know?
• At whom is this representation targeted? How do
you know?
• What does the representation mean to you? What
does the representation mean to others? How do
you account for the differences?
• How do people make sense of it? According to
what codes?
• With what alternative representations could it be
compared? How does it differ?

8. Typing in representation
• The director wants the audience
to be on the side of the
protagonist and hope that the
antagonist will fail.
• This means that the audience
has to identify with the
protagonist – they have to have
a reason to be ‘on his/her side’.
• But directors only have a couple
of hours to make you identify
with the protagonist – so, they
have to use a kind of
‘shorthand’.
• This is known as typing – instead
of each character being a
complex individual, who would
take many hours to understand,
we are presented with a ‘typical’
character who we recognise
quickly and feel we understand.

9. Character typing
There are three different kinds of
character typing:
An archetype is a familiar character
who has emerged from hundreds of
years of fairytales and storytelling.
A stereotype is a character usually
used in advertising and marketing in
order to sell a particular product to a
certain group of people. They can also
be used ‘negatively’ in the Media –
such as ‘asylum seekers,’ or ‘hoodies’.
A generic type is a character familiar
through use in a particular genre
(type) of movie.

10. Why is Representation Theory
useful?The way certain groups of people
are represented in the media can
have a huge social impact. For
example, would people’s attitudes to
asylum seekers change if they were
presented differently in the media?
When media producers want you to
assume certain things about a
character, they play on existing
representations of people in the
media. This can reinforce existing
representations.
At other times, media producers can
change the way certain groups are
presented, and thus change the way
we see that particular group.
Changing these representations can
also create depth in a character.

11. Key Point - Selection
Everything in the media is a representation –
everything we see is being represented.
The selection process is:
The decision over what is chosen to be represented
and what is rejected;
The choices made when organising the
representation:
The options taken to focus the audience in a certain
way.

12. Questions we would ask when
analysing representations:
WHO or WHAT is being represented?
HOW is the representation created?
WHO has created the representation?
WHY is the representation created in that
way? What is the intention?
WHAT is the effect of the representation?

13. Gatekeeping
A theorist called White (1961) spoke of the
‘gatekeepers’ - that is the people who are
part of the decision making process in the
construction of media texts.
Who do you consider to be gatekeepers?

14. The Constructionist Approach
A useful way of thinking about representation is that the meanings
are created by the relationship between the producers, the text and
the audience:
The representation is constructed with a set of ideas and values
(producer’s intent/intended meaning)
The context of the representation is part of the representation
(media language choices, anchorage, media form, placement/
location, genre expectations etc.)
The audience reacts to this representation and this depends on
their own personal interpretational context: age, gender, political/
religious beliefs, nationality etc. (negotiated meaning)

15. Richard Dyer - The Matter Of
Images
Dyer said: ‘How we are seen determines
how we are treated, how we treat others is
based on how we see them. How we see
them comes from representation.’