Guidance for the OCR A2 Media exam (G325)

1. Representation in Media Products
Representation can be broken down into areas:

Age

Race

Gender

Disability

Class/statu
s
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.
How someone or
something is
represented is
communicated to us
by codes. It is
encoded by the
sender (producer),
and decoded by the
receiver (audience).

2. Planning a response
Representation can be broken down into areas:

Age

Race

Gender

Disability

Class/status
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.
Start by establishing
whether some or all of
these representations are
present in your two
productions. Don’t just
dwell on ‘other’; you can
represent Caucasians as
well as other races, for
example.
Now decide which product to
focus on, on the basis of
which has the ‘meatier’
representations.

3. Planning a response
Selection of theory – read the ‘Quick Reader’ and
identify the theories that relate most closely to the
representation in your chosen production.
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.
Start with one or two more obvious theories – e.g. Star
Theory for your music video; then begin to select a
couple more that perhaps say opposite things. You
should end up with a range that you either conform to
or challenge (or, more accurately, your product is
evidence for the theory being right, or it isn’t).

4. Planning a response
Selection of examples – this is the real skill in
writing the response; ensuring there is evidence in
your product for/against the theory.
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.
Match one clear example to each theory, as evidence
for conforming to it or challenging it. Maybe you had a
rough idea when you chose the theory.
Next develop a short paragraph plan – at this point you
should read the Level 4 exemplar (which deals with
narrative) to give you an idea of structure.

5. Application
Q: How is representation addressed in
your media product?
• Freud (Scopophilia)
• Barthes (Signs reinforce cultural beliefs)
• Althusser (Mis-recognising your self)
• Mulvey (Male gaze, cinema screen enhances
voyeurism)
• Dyer – simplistic stereotypes create easily
identifiable meanings in a promotional text
such as a music video.
• Dyer also argued a process of star image
construction.
• Perkins argued stereotyping is complex and
negotiated.
Remember!
How have you
conformed to
theories? How
has have you
challenged
them?
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.

6. Barthes and Myths
Codes also function at the symbolic and
ideological level.
These interpretive frames or linking grids were
termed "myths" by Roland Barthes in his seminal
collection of essays called Mythologies.
The nearly automatic and unconscious use of
codes pervades all aspects of culture from basic
verbal communication to mass media. We have
codes for all kinds of popular culture genres, all
the symbolic moves in advertising, political terms,
race, and identity.
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.
Mythologies, 1957.

7. LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.
• These are accepted views constructed via the media, which
according to Marxism are created by the ruling classes to
‘hypnotise’ the masses.
• Many other representation theories plus into this, such as
Mulvey’s notion of the Male Gaze, which argues that women are
sexualised in the media because it is male dominated and that
is the ideology it wants the audience to accept.
• What dominant ideologies might be present in a music video?
What about a thriller?
• Answering these successfully requires you to think in terms of
stereotyping.
Dominant ideologies

8. LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.
Stereotypes
• O’Sullivan et al (1998) details that a stereotype is a label that involves a
process of categorisation and evaluation.
• Theorists such as Dyer (1977) argue that stereotypes act are a kind of
narrative shorthand and are therefore simplistic in order to quickly
communicate ideas to an audience – e.g. in a horror film, the audience quickly
know who is good and who is evil. Their suggestion is that stereotyping is, by
definition, a negative process.
• Others such as Perkins (1979) argue that stereotyping is actually quite a
complicated process, in which meanings are a negotiation between media
producer and media consumer. She argues that consumers find a
representation of themselves in stereotypes.
• This also linked to Althusser, whose theory is used to suggest that consumers
often mis-represent themselves in constructed stereotypes. A loose example
would be people seeing a superhero film and identifying with the super
humans, thus mis-representing themselves.

9. LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.
Star Text (Dyer, 1979)
Dyer specifically talks
about the use of
stereotypes in
constructing artist image –
in a process that typically
involves four stages.
Whatever style of video
you have chosen for your
A2 project, you have
represented the star in a
way which either conforms
to or challenges
stereotypes.
The stages:
1.Star is a real person
2.Star is a performer, we encounter them
through the ‘role’ they play.
3.Star is a persona – a merging of the real
person and the role they play.
4.Star is an image, a cultural signifier – a
concentration of desired/expected attributes.

10. Gender Representation
Gender is perhaps the basic category we use for sorting
human beings, and it is a key issue when discussing
representation.
Essential elements of our own identity, and the identities
we assume other people to have, come from concepts of
gender - what does it mean to be a boy or a girl?
Many objects, not just humans, are represented by the
media as being particularly masculine or feminine -
particularly in advertising - and we grow up with an
awareness of what constitutes 'appropriate'
characteristics.
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.

11. Laura Mulvey
Male Gaze, 1975
A theory about how men in films are represented as 'bearers of
the look' which is usually directed at physically desirable, sexually
submissive female characters who connote 'to-be-looked-at-ness'
and are denied a female gaze.
Viewers often see films from a 'male
perspective'

Gendered and sexist

Male controlling characters who do
the looking are who the audience
identify with

Femme fatales buck this trend.
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.

12. Janice Winship
On magazine covers (DigiPacks):
“The gaze between cover model and
women readers marks the complicity
(involvement in crime) between
women seeing themselves in the
image masculine culture has defined”
“A magazine is like a club. Its first
function is to provide readers with a
comfortable sense of community and
pride in their identity”
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.

13. Freud - Scopophilia
Simply put – deriving pleasure from
looking.
The foundation for other theories
such as Male Gaze and Goodwin.
Also defined as voyeurism – deriving
gratification from observing or
seeing others. This can be sexual
gratification, but it can also mean
identifying with or seeing yourself in
a character on screen (link to
Barthes and Althusser).
LO: To analyse a self made piece of media video by applying
theory where appropriate.