This document provides an overview of key concepts regarding representation in media texts. It discusses how representation is a fluid process influenced by both producers and audiences. Media representations are a combination of the object/subject itself, the opinions of the producers, how individuals react to the representation, and the societal context. The document also notes that while media can influence audiences' views of reality, most accept media texts are fictional with elements of truth. It provides an example using the film Independence Day to illustrate the constructionist view of representation. Students are then assigned tasks to analyze representations of British youth in the television show The Inbetweeners.

1. What is a British film?
List as many films you consider British
as possible, justifying why (five min).

2. Key Theory 1
Foundation Theory
As a class read through Representation in the media highlighting
important sentences.

3. Key points to remember
• All media texts are re-presentations of reality
• Representation is a fluid two-way process;
– Producers place text somewhere in relation to reality.
– Audiences assess the text on its relationship to reality.
 Media texts extend an audiences experience of reality.
 Producers restrict this experience by selecting the information we
receive.
 The influence the media exerts has a major impact on the way we view
the world.
 Most audiences accept that media texts are fictional with elements of
truth.
 We have come a long way from mass manipulation of the 1920s and
1930s.

4. Always ask yourself
• Who produced it?
• What/who is represented in the text?
• How is that thing represented?
• Why was this particular representation (this
shot, framed from this angle, this story
phrased in these terms, etc) selected, and
what might the alternatives have been?
• What frame of reference does the audience
use when understanding the representation?

5. Task
• Find examples of media mass manipulation in
the 1920s and 1930s.
• Can you find any examples of media mass
manipulation being used in the 21st century
You have 10 minutes
Discuss findings as a class.

6. Society, the individual and
representation: MEDIATING
• The reflective view
• The Intentional view
• The Constructionist view – The one to use!
 Any representation is a mixture of:
1. The object/subject itself.
2. The opinions of the people doing the representation.
3. The reaction of the individual to the representation.
4. The context of the society in which the representation is
taking place.

7. Here is an example of how this works
• If you've seen the film Independence Day, you may have been amused or
annoyed at the way that British people were represented as a
stereotypes; ‘upper class idiots’.
• If you consider the different parts of the Constructionist approach to
representation, they would work like this:
1. There must be some British people whom the producers encountered
either in reality or in other media texts.
2. They formed an opinion of them that they were ‘stuck up idiots which’
they used as the basis of their representation.
3. As an individual watching this, you chose whether to believe the
representation was valid or not.
4. In doing this, you were influenced by the fact that you are yourself
British - an American watching the film would probably have come to a
different conclusion, a person from somewhere more remote would
have, again, a different conclusion.

8. Society and DOMINANT IDEOLOGY
• Some kind of ideas dominate and are shared
by the majority of people.
• The group that makes up the dominant
ideology are not static.
• The constructionist process can be seen as a
negotiation

9. Constructionism applied to Youth
Culture in British film and Television.
• As stated on the previous slide representation is a mixture of:
1. The object/subject itself.
2. The opinions of the people doing the representation.
3. The reaction of the individual to the representation.
4. The context of the society in which the representation is taking place.
Thus your reading of the characters, actions, plots and
narratives of The Inbetweeners is different to mine, to each
other, to someone in another country, to someone of a
different social class, background, era, etc. There is no
single reading, interpretation or representation. No such
thing as a single media truth, though there’s no credibility
in suggesting that everything in the media is an absolute lie.

10. Quiz time
• Make a five question Quiz on today’s lesson
• The questions must have definite right and
wrong answers. (multiple choice, true/false
etc).
• You can also include extra bonus questions on
film in general (no more than 10 Qs in total).
• Print out or email your quiz to kstark@bluecoat.uk.com

11. Task -Analyse how British youth are
represented in The Inbetweeners.
• Season 1 episode 2 – Can be view on Channel 4oD
• Use the theories we have looked at today, make sure you can answer:
– Who produced it?
– What/who is represented in the text?
– How is that thing represented?
– Why was this particular representation (this shot, framed from this angle, this
story phrased in these terms, etc) selected, and what might the alternatives
have been?
– What frame of reference does the audience use when understanding the
representation?
• Use the Constructionist view.
• To be completed as homework for next week