The document discusses various concepts related to representation in media, including: - Stereotypes and how they can positively or negatively represent social groups; - How meaning is constructed through signs and their interpretation; - Arguments that representations do not always have to be negative or false stereotypes; - Identities as constructed rather than innate; - Baudrillard's concept of the simulacrum - that representations can become more "real" than reality itself.

1. A2 Exam Q1b
Representation
How the media shows us things about
society through careful mediation of
representing a shared view of the world.

2. • Gender
• Age
• Nationality
• Sexuality
• Locations
• Genres
What different representations could we consider?
Connect

3. Q. Who or what is represented in
your coursework?
Representations Positive or
negative
How is this constructed?
(specific evidence)
Title sequence Men Negative (serial killer) • Over the shoulder shot.
• Fast pace editing to create
enigma codes.
• Costume – dark, blood stained
Women Negative (victim) • Close up of eyes (crying –
connotes fear and upset).
Music video
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4. Stuart Hall
In our modern world our life is saturated with
visual representations
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5. Ferdinand de Saussure -
Semiotics
• Meaning is constructed through the
interpretation of signs.
– Signifier = the physical/visual object i.e. A
knife
– Signified = the meaning it creates i.e.
Threat, aggression, violence/self-defence
and protection
• Representations are created through signs
which signify meaning. Like the knife, signs
can have more than one meaning leading to a
polysemic reading of signs
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6. Richard Dyer
Stereotypes
• Stereotype (first used as a term by Walter
Lippmann in 1956)
• Has come to be defined as a negative
representation or over-simplification of a
category of people in a group
• Dyer explains that stereotypes reinforce ideas
of differences between people which are
natural – i.e. Criminals are represented as low-
lifes, untrustworthy...
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7. Counter argument – Tessa
Perkins (1979)
• Stereotypes are not always negative
• Are not always about minority groups
• Stereotypes are not always false
• Apply this to your characters in your films
– E.g. What social group(s) do your characters
belong to? How is this made clear?
– What age group do your characters belong to (e.g.
Nervous, unsure teenagers...)
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8. Counter Argument – David
Gauntlett and Martin
Barker
• Identities are not given but are constructed
and negotiated (Gauntlett)
• Martin Barker condemned stereotypes for
mis-representing the real world by reinforcing
false stereotypes
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9. Baudrillard
• Postmodern theorist
• Argues that representations no longer refer to reality or real things
• The representation has become more real to us than the reality – i.e. The
representation of mob bosses as Italian Mafia men instilled through The
Godfather, Goodfellas, The Sopranos
• This is re-presentation of reality is termed a simulacrum – a copy of reality
• For Baudrillard, these images have become hyperreal – have no
relationship to the real. CSI and Silent Witness as examples of forensic
science investigations that through their popularity seem to typify our
perception of what that reality is like
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