Representation

Representation

Representation- (re)presentation because it is basically how things are presented to people for example the news on the telly and the way characters are seen within films or television. It depends on who is presenting the information as different news stations will present different information in different ways to make the audience see things how they want them to.

For us as ,media students, we concentrate on who has produced a text, what the text is saying and how it is saying it. 

David Chandler (2006)- "Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of reality such as people, places, objects, events and cultural identities". 

Walter Lippman- Character typing- using shortcuts in the construction of characters to make meaning. such as:

• Archetypes- A familiar character that has emerged from hundreds of years of story telling (Hero, Villain, Trickster)
• Stereotypes- A very shallow representation of a type of person or social group, based on behaviours or appearance. 
• A genre type- a character that is common in a genre (e.g tired old detective in thrillers) 

Objectification (of women):

Women are seen in films as something for the male character to either save or have sex with, without building up their characters to just keep the as a blank character almost like an object.

Male gaze 3 perspectives:

• Producer
• Audience 
• Male characters

Tim O'Sullivan et al (1998)- refers to a set of ideas which produces a partial and selective view of reality. Notion of ideology entails widely held ideas 

Richard Dyer (1983) asked questions:

• What sense of the world is it making?
• What does it imply? Is it typical of the world or deviant?
• Who is it speaking to? For whom? to whom? 
• What does it represent to us and why? How do we respond to the representation?