This document analyzes how a media product represents various social groups through its use of micro-level techniques. It discusses how the film represents: - Age groups like children and mothers through characters and visual techniques that conform to stereotypes of innocence and domesticity. - Gender, with all female characters that play into horror conventions of victimized women. - Race and ethnicity, with an all-white cast that mirrors mainstream media despite subverting some expectations. - Social class, with a middle-class family and home that provides relatability while also subverting expectations of happiness. - Region, with a setting that conforms to stereotypes of southern English households.

1. HOW DOESYOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL
GROUPS?
By AdamTyrrell

2. Representation of
Particular social
Groups
■ This evaluation demonstrates
how our media product
represents the social groups
of age, gender, race and
ethnicity, class and region.
■ This presentation will show
you how we manipulated the
micro features of mise-en-
scene, cinematography,
editing and sound to
represent particular social
groups by conforming to
their conventions,
stereotypes and ideologies.

3. AGE - KATIE
• The social group of children are often
perceived as innocent and flipping this
stereotype on its head and making
children the antagonist provides an
interesting and creepy character.This
has been done before in films such as
the Shinning (our inspiration for our
antagonist). To show this innocence the
antagonist Katie Jones is shown through
sepia and black and white images of her
smiling to represent her as a sweet
innocent girl.

4. AGE - SUSAN
• Our media product also represents the social groups
of mothers and conforms to the stereotype of
middle aged mothers being house wife's who do all
the house hold jobs.To show this we included subtle
actions of the protagonist such as polishing the
photo frames, putting the laundry away and taking
the dog for a walk.
• Additionally we used mise-en-scene of a long green
dress and a beige cardigan as these colours apply to
the stereotype of stay at home mothers only
wearing dull, functional clothing.
• Our inspiration for Susan originated from the
character Annie in Rob Reiner’s film, Misery.This
character also has traits of a mental illness.

5. GENDER
• One social groups which our media text
represents are females. For our media
product we have only used female
characters as females often play the victim
in horror films as this is a convention of the
horror genre as audiences are often more
sympathetic towards females rather than
men.This is why men are often the
antagonist as audiences are not as
sympathetic towards men.
• Women are often perceived as vulnerable
and weak and we represent this by making
the character isolated and lonely by
incorporating no other characters and
using high angle shots to show that she is
vulnerable. Additionally we used close ups
to show the protagonist is in fear and
shock making the audience empathetic
towards her.

6. RACE & ETHNICITY
• Middle class families are predominantly white
in main stream media which is a stereotype
that we conformed to. Conventionally in
mainstream horror movies the main cast are
often white where as the peripheral and often
the antagonists are racial minorities.This can
be seen from a study conducted byThe
Women’s Media Center.This study revealed
that “74% of all female characters where
white with 11% being black and 4% Latina,
3% Asian and 6% being from other
locations”. Our media product conforms to
this majority but does subvert the majority of
only 12% of protagonists being female as all
our characters are female in our media piece.
• However we subverted the stereotype of the
villain being a racial minorities which is often
seen in other horror films as we used a white
middle class girl as the antagonist.
• Resources:
https://wmc.3cdn.net/7d039991d7252a5831_0
hum68k6z.pdf

7. CLASS
• Our media product also represents a
middle class household.This is shown
through the location and the considered
'normal' size of the house which is
related to the middle class. Additionally
the setting has a modern interior with a
large flat screenTV (ideologies of the
middle class lifestyle)
• Typical representations of the middle
class include a 'normal' lifestyle and
'happy attitude'. However we subvert
this ideology as we have a grieving
mother and loss in the family.
• Other horror movies such as Paranormal
activity represent middle class families –
one reason for why we chose this type
of class as it is relatable to our target
audience.

8. REGION
• We did not make an effort to conform or
subvert any representations of social
groups depending on region as we did
not have the budget to relocate our
setting.
• Although our setting does conform to
the stereotype of southern English
households being modern, rich and
posh with a modern interior and being
located in the countryside.