This lesson covers, disability, age and regional identity.

1. AS Media Studies
Exam – Section A
Representation (2)

2. WALT
 Understand key terminology to use for the exam.
 Be able to anlalyse the Disability
 Age
 Ethnicity

3. Starter
 Your presentations of sexuality should have been
emailed to me.

4. Media Key Terms
 Ideologies – these are a system of ideas and ideals, these
could be social or political and could be conscious beliefs or
unconscious beliefs. These beliefs are established by the
dominant class and are accepted by low classes often used
as a form of control.
 Hegemony – This word refers to a dominant set of
ideologies represented by the Media that are presented as
normal / staus quo and are therefore accepted by society.
These ideologies are often used as a form of control as a
power structure so the structure could enforce status of the
middle class over the working class.

5. Gender
 What are the hegemonic ideologies of Gender?
Discussion
 What are the hegemonic ideologies of Sexuality?
Discussion

6. Disability
Key facts about disability.
 There are 770,000 disabled
children in the UK under the age of
16.
 Nearly one in five working adults in
Britain have a disability – 7 million
or 18.6%
Identify what are the potential types of disabilities we may discuss?

7. Representation of Disability

8. Characters with disability
 Which of the stereotypes are being represented by
these characters with disability?

9. Sinister or Evil - amputee
 He has metallic hand because he lost his natural hands due to
radiation.
 He is a ‘mad’ scientist working for SPECTRE, the criminal
organization dedicated to terrorism and extortion.
 A common viewpoint of the character Dr No, is that he is
sinister and Evil. obviously he is meant to be portrayed as the
Antagonist, but as the film is from 1962, it suggests that people
who have a physical disability are easy to be shown as the Bad
guy, and it adds to the reason why we are meant to disapprove
of this particular character.
 It says quite a lot that the first Bond Villain has a physical
disability, suggesting at the time of the making of the film, to
pick/choose disabled people to be the villains was an easy
choice, and quite a common view of the main population to go
against/disapprove of physically disabled people on a public
level?

10. Laughable - dwarfism
 ‘Life’s Too Short’- writer Ricky Gervais
 Potrayed as laughable and pitiful often
his own worse enemy.
 ‘Warwick is a dwarf but he’s still a person
and it wasn’t a nasty joke’.
 ‘It’s not chasing controversy; it’s making
light of a real-life situation. It’s just
entertainment. A bit of fun

11. Pitiful and Pathetic - Deformity
 Joseph Merrick, he suffered from proteus syndrome
which according to Wikipedia “causes skin overgrowth
and atypical bone development, often accompanied by
tumours over half the body”.

 As Shakespeare said (1999;64) “impairment is made
the most important thing” and disabled characters are
“objectified and distanced from the audience”. John is
portrayed as a pitiable human being, in one of the
scenes he screams “I’m not an elephant, I’m not an
animal, I’m a human being” which is his biggest dream
to be perceived as a human not weird creature.
Character of John Merrick is shown as a laughable one
– he’s treated like a thing by an owner of a ‘Freak
Show’

12. Example Scenes
 Forrest Gump
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJh59vZ8ccc
 Inbetweeners
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obfpDPxP0cA
 Hannibal
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zfqh2OxGFg

13. Controversy
 Glee has been getting a lot of
negative attention for casting a
non-disabled actor to play
paraplegic Artie. This is, of course,
nothing new, though it would be
nice if we were actually making
progress towards hiring more
actors with disabilities. Kevin
McHale, the actor who plays Artie,
has defended the show saying that
it is the same as a straight actor
playing a gay character.

14. Terminology
 Ableism
 Ableism – are the practices and dominant attitudes in
society that devalue and limit the potential of persons
with disabilities.
 a set of practices and beliefs that assign inferior value
(worth) to people who have developmental, emotional,
physical or psychiatric disabilities.
 This term is used to describe a hegemonic ideology – a
dominant view point within society.
Should this attitude be stopped?

15. Representation
 The next subject we are going to explore is:
Age

16. Childhood
 There are 8 stereotypes:
 As victims of horrendous crimes – some critics of the media have suggested that White children who are victims of
crime get more media attention than adults or children from ethnic minority backgrounds.
 As cute – this is a common stereotype found in television commercials for baby products or toilet rolls.
 As little devils – another common stereotype especially found in drama and comedy, e.g. Bart Simpson.
 As brilliant – perhaps as child prodigies or as heroes for saving the life of an adult.
 As brave little angels – suffering from a long-term terminal disease or disability.
 As accessories – stories about celebrities such as Madonna, Angelina Jolie or the Beckhams may focus on how their
children humanise them.
 As modern – the media may focus on how children ‘these days’ know so much more ‘at their age’ than previous
generations of children.
 As active consumers – television commercials portray children as having a consumer appetite for toys and games.
Some family sociologists note that this has led to the emergence of a new family pressure, ‘pester power’, the power of
children to train or manipulate their parents to spend money on consumer goods that will increase the children’s status
in the eyes of their peers.

17. Childhood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmbXGLF5-TY

18. Youth
 There is a whole media industry aimed at socially constructing
youth in terms of lifestyle and identity. Magazines are produced
specifically for young people. Record companies, Internet music
download sites, mobile telephone companies and radio stations all
specifically target and attempt to shape the musical tastes of young
people. Networking sites on the Internet, such as Facebook, Bebo
and MySpace, allow youth to project their identities around the world.
 Youth are often portrayed by news media as a social problem, as
immoral or anti-authority and consequently constructed as folk
devils as part of a moral panic. The majority of moral panics since
the 1950s have been manufactured around concerns about young
people’s behaviour, such as their membership of specific ‘deviant’
sub-cultures (e.g., teddy boys, hoodies) or because their behaviour
(e.g., drug taking or binge drinking) has attracted the disapproval of
those in authority.

19. Youth
 Most common words to describ youth in UK
Newspapers in 2008 were yobs, thugs, sick feral,
hoddie, louts, evil, frightening, scum.
 Over half the stories in the paper were crimes
committed by teenagers.
 Consider how shows / films present youth.

20. Youth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLRNXJa_buU

21. Youth examples
 Clip Montage
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC-u1vA7_qo
 Lauren
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV1zK8zRCPo
 This is England 86
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df1Zcec1qBs

22. Elderly
There are a range of stereotypes used to describe them:
 As grumpy – conservative, stubborn and resistant to social change.
 As mentally challenged – suffering from declining mental functions.
 As dependent – helpless and dependent on other younger members of the
family or society.
 As a burden – as an economic burden on society (in terms of the costs of
pensions and health care to the younger generation) and/or as a physical and
social burden on younger members of their families (who have to worry about
or care for them).
 As enjoying a second childhood – as reliving their adolescence and
engaging in activities that they have always longed to do before they die

23. Elderly

24. Example Clips
 Nan
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCklKO1_jPs
 Skins
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSsGuh4Ajhk
How is age being depicted is this a positive or negative
representation?

25. Representation
 The next subject we
are going to explore is:
Regional
Identity

26. Regional Identity
 What kind of regional identities do you know?

27. Regional Identity refers to the part of
the United Kingdom someone is
from. It could refer to a general area
such a “north” or “south”, a country
such as “English” or “Scottish” or
specific towns such as “London” or
“Manchester.”

28. There are several
regional stereotypes
widely seen on
television:

29.  Scottish – often shown as being money obsessed,
won’t pay for anything, drinks a lot of alcohol, loves the
outdoors, wears kilts, eats haggis, quite aggressive and
violent

30.  Welsh –Often shown as living in the middle of the
countryside, with people making jokes about them
“shagging sheep”

31.  Irish – often shown as living in the countryside, working
in rural areas such as farms, being very religious, being
good at dancing and singing, very friendly but less
intelligent

32.  English – often shown as being racist, obsessed with
beer and football living in London. Sometimes the
stereotype goes in the opposite direction of showing
English people as very rich, posh, happy, living in
castles and being very “royal.”

33.  London – There are 2 main stereotypes of
Londoners. One is that they are often shown as being
rich, posh, snobby, upper class, Hugh Grant types
from central or west london. The other is that they
often shown as being from north, east or south
London, poor, common, lower class, criminalistic,
violent “Kidulthood” style

34.  Manchester / Newcastle / Liverpool – Often shown as
being “chavs”, wearing fake designer labels, or
tracksuits, drinking a lot, being aggressive,
uneducated, criminals

35.  Essex – often shown as being glamourous but cheap,
footballer’s wives, lots of partying, being quite stupid

36.  Yorkshire – Often shown as living in rural countryside,
with rolling hills and cobbled streets, being quite old
fashioned

37.  Cornwall / Somerset – Often shown as being
“backwards”, living in rural areas, working on farms

38.  South England – often shown as being the centre of
culture, modern, classy, clever, sunny, richer, doing
middle class jobs such as managers etc

39.  North England – often shown as being poorer, bad
weather, lower class, aggressive, less culture, less
clever, doing working class jobs such as builders etc

40. If you get “regional identity” as an
issue in the exam, you should be
considering the way that region is
being shown is it positive or
negative depiction also consider
the hardships being faced y the
characters