This document discusses several key concepts in media representation theory, including stereotypes, archetypes, countertypes, and how media representations of groups can impact social attitudes. It also covers genre theory and how genres act as shorthand for audiences. Finally, it discusses audience theory, including effects models and uses and gratifications theory, which proposes that audiences actively consume media to fulfill certain needs like diversion, personal relationships, identity, and surveillance.

1. Media representation theory
Saffron Evans

2. definitions
Stereotypes:
Media institutions use stereotypes because they know the audience will understand the
representation that they are trying to make. Stereotypes are like a ‘visual’ shortcut, and they are
repeated so often that we assume that they are ‘normal’ or true.
Archetypes:
This is the ultimate stereotype, with all stereotypical features.
Countertype:
A representation that challenges the traditional stereotypical associations of groups, people or
places.

3. Key areas of representation
• Age
• Gender
• Social class
• Ability/Disability
• Ethnicity
• Regional Identity
• Sexuality

4. Representation theory
What does ‘representation’ mean?
The easiest way to understand the concept of representation is to remember that watching a TV
programme is not the same as watching something happen in real life. All media products re-
present the real world to us; they show us one version of reality, not reality itself. So the theory
of representation in Media Studies means thinking about how a particular person or group of
people are being presented to the audience.
Audience Identification
In a film, the director wants the audience to be on the side of the protagonist and hope that the
antagonist will fail. This means that the audience has to identify with the protagonist – so, they
have to have a reason to be on ‘his/hers side’. But directors only have a couple of hours to make
you identify with the protagonist – so, they have to use a kind of shorthand. This is known as
typing – instead of each character being a complex individual, who would take many hours to
understand, we are presented with a typical character who we recognise quickly and feel we
understand.

5. Character typing
There are three different kinds of character typing:
1. An archetype is a familiar character who has emerged from hundreds of years of fairytales
and storytelling.
2. A stereotype is a character usually used in advertising and marking in order to sell a particular
product to a certain group of people. They can also be used ‘negatively’ in the Media – such
as ‘Asylum seekers’ or ‘hoodies’.
3. A generic type is a character familiar through use in a particular genre (type) of movie.
Why is representation theory useful?
The way certain groups of people are represented in the media can have a huge social impact, for
example: would people’s attitudes to asylum seekers change if they were presented differently in
the media? When media producers want you to assume certain things about a character, they
play on existing representations of people in the media. This can reinforce existing
representations. At other times, media producers can change the way certain groups are
presented, and thus change the way we see that particular group. Changing these
representations can also create a depth in a character.

6. Genre theory
A genre is, according to David Duff in his MODERN GENRE THEORY, “a recurring type or category
of text, as defined by structural, thematic, and/or functional criteria”. Genre theory occurs when
we try to understand genres as forming “a coherent system of some kind; … a theoretical model
that offers a comprehensive list of genres and an explanation of the relations between them.
What is genre?
Genre means type. All films and TV programmes can be split into different genres, as with
representations, genres draw on pre-existing patters as ‘shorthand’ for the viewer. For example,
Westerns being set in a desert town, with six-guns and ten-gallon hats). But sorting film and TV
into genres is problematic. There are no set standards for each genre; and there are as many
genres as there are ways of describing them. Genre is usually used in broad terms. For example,
Action movies, Westerns, or Soaps. There are also Sub-genres within each genre. For example, in
the genre of ‘action’, we also find ‘adventure’ movies as well as ‘martial arts’ action movies.
Main genres:
Action/adventure
Comedy
Crime/gangster
Drama
Family

7. Audience theory
Audience theory is the starting point for many Media Studies tasks. Whether you are constructing
a text or analysing one, you will need to consider the destination of that text, i.e. its target
audience and how that audience (or any other) will respond to that text.
For A level you need a working knowledge of the theories which attempt to explain how an
audience receives, reads and responds to a text. Over the course of the past century or so, media
analysts have developed several effects models, i.e. theoretical explanations of how humans
ingest the information transmitted by media texts and how this might influence (or not) their
behaviour. Effects theory is still a very hotly debated area of Media and Psychology research, as
no one is able to come up with indisputable evidence that audiences will always react to media
texts one way or another. The scientific debate is clouded by the politics of the situation: some
audience theories are seen as a call for more censorship, others for less control. Whatever your
personal stance on the subject, you must understand the following theories and how they may be
used to deconstruct the relationship between audience and text.

8. Uses and Gratifications
During the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television became grown ups, it became
increasingly apparent to media theorists that audiences made choices about what they did when
consuming texts. Far from being a passive mass, audiences were made up of individuals who
actively consumed texts for different reasons and in different ways. In 1948 Lasswell suggested
that media texts had the following functions for individuals and society:
• surveillance
• correlation
• entertainment
• cultural transmission
Researchers Blulmer and Katz expanded this theory and published their own in 1974, stating that
individuals might choose and use a text for the following purposes (i.e. uses and gratifications):
• Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.
• Personal Relationships - using the media for emotional and other interaction, e.g.)
substituting soap operas for family life
• Personal Identity - finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from
texts
• Surveillance - Information which could be useful for living e.g.) weather reports, financial
news, holiday bargains