Stuart Hall was a British cultural theorist influential in racial thinking in the UK. He argued that black representation has gone through two phases - challenging racist stereotypes and asserting a positive identity through history, and then being considered as produced within systems of representation. Hall was concerned with media power in propagating social values and stereotypical portrayals of minorities. He criticized the media's tendency to only portray black people in relation to issues or as stereotypes, rather than exploring their full experiences.