The document discusses several theories of gender representation in media. It first discusses Berger's statement from the 1970s that "Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at." It then asks if gender representations have changed since the 1970s, and if so how. It also discusses Richard Dyer's theory from 1985 about how media uses language and conventions to represent the world to audiences. It notes media often relies on stereotypes and is influenced by the institutions that create the content. Finally, it prompts the reader to discuss representations in their own media product compared to an existing one in terms of characters, concepts, elements, and whether it conforms to dominant ideologies.
2. Gender representation Berger (1972) “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” Do you agree with Berger’s statement from the 1970s ? Do you think gender representations have changed since then? -And if so how? Can you relate it to representations of gender from your Teaser and compare it to another existing real media product?
3. Richard Dyer’s Typography (1985) Re-presentation -this consists essentially of media language, the conventions which are used to represent the world to the audience; Being representative of- -the extent to which types are used represent social grou(consider stereotypes); Who is responsible for the representation (Institution creating the text’s influence) This is controversial as it is mostly the men in the Industry responsible for the gender representation; What does the audience think is being represented to them? -as we see with our preferred readings, audiences often make different readings from the same text.
4. Representation In response to the theories of representation you have looked at answer the following questions with regards to your own product juxtaposed to a real media text: Identify characters within the product to discuss (event / issue ) What representation concepts are highlighted? (e.g. race, gender, cultural attitudes etc.) What representations have been generated? Discuss the specific elements of character representation (i.e. mode of address, facial expression clothing, behaviour etc.) Are there any stereotypes? Does the product conform to or go against dominant ideologies
