624. Twitter: Henry Jenkins on Twitter

http://henryjenkins.org/2009/08/the_message_of_twitter.html

616. Thinkbox link

http://www.thinkbox.tv/server/show/nav.1168

514. Magazine and gender – AS Media and Georgia L

Notes on ‘The Gaze’

 

Daniel Chandler

 

Laura Mulvey on film spectatorship

 

Whilst these notes are concerned more generally with ‘the gaze’ in the mass media, the term originates in film theory and a brief discussion of its use in film theory is appropriate here.

 

 As Jonathan Schroeder notes, ‘Film has been called an instrument of the male gaze, producing representations of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view’ (Schroeder 1998, 208). The concept derives from a seminal article called ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ by Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist. It was published in 1975 and is one of the most widely cited and anthologized (though certainly not one of the most accessible) articles in the whole of contemporary film theory.

 

 Laura Mulvey did not undertake empirical studies of actual filmgoers, but declared her intention to make ‘political use’ of Freudian psychoanalytic theory (in a version influenced by Jacques Lacan) in a study of cinematic spectatorship. Such psychoanalytically-inspired studies of ‘spectatorship’ focus on how ‘subject positions’ are constructed by media texts rather than investigating the viewing practices of individuals in specific social contexts. Mulvey notes that Freud had referred to (infantile) scopophilia – the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as (particularly, erotic) objects. In the darkness of the cinema auditorium it is notable that one may look without being seen either by those on screen by other members of the audience. Mulvey argues that various features of cinema viewing conditions facilitate for the viewer both the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters and also the narcissistic process of identification with an ‘ideal ego’ seen on the screen. She declares that in patriarchal society ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’ (Mulvey 1992, 27). This is reflected in the dominant forms of cinema. Conventional narrative films in the ‘classical’ Hollywood tradition not only typically focus on a male protagonist in the narrative but also assume a male spectator. ‘As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look onto that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence’ (ibid., 28). Traditional films present men as active, controlling subjects and treat women as passive objects of desire for men in both the story and in the audience, and do not allow women to be desiring sexual subjects in their own right. Such films objectify women in relation to ‘the controlling male gaze’ (ibid., 33), presenting ‘woman as image’ (or ‘spectacle’) and man as ‘bearer of the look’ (ibid., 27). Men do the looking; women are there to be looked at. The cinematic codes of popular films ‘are obsessively subordinated to the neurotic needs of the male ego’ (ibid., 33). It was Mulvey who coined the term ‘the male gaze’.

 

 Mulvey distinguishes between two modes of looking for the film spectator: voyeuristic and fetishistic, which she presents in Freudian terms as responses to male ‘castration anxiety’. Voyeuristic looking involves a controlling gaze and Mulvey argues that this has has associations with sadism: ‘pleasure lies in ascertaining guilt – asserting control and subjecting the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness’ (Mulvey 1992, 29). Fetishistic looking, in contrast, involves ‘the substitution of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous. This builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself. The erotic instinct is focused on the look alone’. Fetishistic looking, she suggests, leads to overvaluation of the female image and to the cult of the female movie star. Mulvey argues that the film spectator oscillates between these two forms of looking (ibid.; see also Neale 1992, 283ff; Ellis 1982, 45ff; Macdonald 1995, 26ff; Lapsley & Westlake 1988, 77-9).

 

 This article generated considerable controversy amongst film theorists. Many objected to the fixity of the alignment of passivity with femininity and activity with masculinity and to a failure to account for the female spectator. A key objection underlying many critical responses has been that Mulvey’s argument in this paper was (or seemed to be) essentialist: that is, it tended to treat both spectatorship and maleness as homogeneous essences – as if there were only one kind of spectator (male) and one kind of masculinity (heterosexual). E Ann Kaplan (1983) asked ‘Is the gaze male?’. Both Kaplan and Kaja Silverman (1980) argued that the gaze could be adopted by both male and female subjects: the male is not always the controlling subject nor is the female always the passive object. We can ‘read against the grain’. Teresa de Lauretis (1984) argued that the female spectator does not simply adopt a masculine reading position but is always involved in a ‘double-identification’ with both the passive and active subject positions. Jackie Stacey asks: ‘Do women necessarily take up a feminine and men a masculine spectator position?’ (Stacey 1992, 245). Indeed, are there only unitary ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ reading positions? What of gay spectators? Steve Neale (1983) identifies the gaze of mainstream cinema in the Hollywood tradition as not only male but also heterosexual. He observes a voyeuristic and fetishistic gaze directed by some male characters at other male characters within the text (Stacey notes the erotic exchange of looks between women within certain texts). A useful account of ‘queer viewing’ is given by Caroline Evans and Lorraine Gamman (1995). Neale argues that ‘in a heterosexual and patriarchal society the male body cannot be marked explictly as the erotic object of another male look: that look must be motivated, its erotic component repressed’ (Neale 1992, 281). Both Neale and Richard Dyer (1982) also challenged the idea that the male is never sexually objectified in mainstream cinema and argued that the male is not always the looker in control of the gaze. It is widely noted that since the 1980s there has been an increasing display and sexualisation of the male body in mainstream cinema and television and in advertising (Moore 1987, Evans & Gamman 1995, Mort 1996, Edwards 1997).

 

 Gender is not the only important factor in determining what Jane Gaines calls ‘looking relations’ – race and class are also key factors (Lutz & Collins 1994, 365; Gaines 1988; de Lauretis 1987; Tagg 1988; Traube 1992). Ethnicity was found to be a key factor in differentiating amongst different groups of women viewers in a study of Women Viewing Violence (Schlesinger et al. 1992). Michel Foucault, who linked knowledge with power, related the ‘inspecting gaze’ to power rather than to gender in his discussion of surveillance (Foucault 1977).

 

MORE ABOUT  MORE!: THE SEXUAL LANGUAGE OF YOUNG WOMEN’S MAGAZINES

 

On this page (by David Gauntlett) we consider whether the sexual freedom and assertiveness encouraged by magazines like More (and its sisters, like Cosmopolitan and Glamour) is a good thing for young women – basically, I argue that it is – and then we see what some actual teenagers think about this, via the results of some brand new qualitative research conducted over the internet.

 

More is a British magazine aimed at older teenagers and twentysomething women, although it is also enjoyed by younger teenagers eager to read a more ‘grown up’ magazine. International viewers might think of an even more youthful and zesty version of Cosmopolitan, with even more emphasis on sex and enthusiastic discussion of how you can make men submit to your sexual will.

 

The content of More is a clear-cut positive rejection of the stuffy old conservatism about sexual matters that was around 10 or 20 years ago. It is emphatically post-traditonal – or, indeed, anti-traditional (in terms of its exuberant celebration of female desire). Like other ‘girl power’ texts, it emphasises that women should be able to get what they want from men, when they want it; that men should not dictate the terms of a relationship; that a woman has the right to look and dress however she likes, for her own pleasure; and that a woman has the right to demand satisfaction in sex, in work, and in every other area of life.

 

Of course, there are some problems with this recipe. It is emphatically heterosexual (in a way that is not really undermined by the occasional feature on the joys of lesbianism). Some people complain that the magazines reduce women to sex-obsessed predators, and objectify men as ‘eye candy’ – but this is a blatant reversal of the traditional ‘male gaze’, and remains powerful politically. Also, like all women’s magazines (and to a lesser extent, men’s magazines) they may promote an ideal of attractiveness which readers may be unable or unwilling to attain.

 

Angela McRobbie has argued that feminists should not dismiss magazines such as More out of hand. She admits that such magazines may not exactly reflect feminist ideals, but points out that, as far as many young women are concerned, academic feminism is part of the world of middle-aged authority figures – and we cannot really expect young people to simply ‘do what they are told’ by the establishment. Nevertheless, McRobbie says that ‘feminism exists as a productive tension’ in the magazines. More and  Cosmo do promote the kinds of confidence, self-awareness and assertiveness that feminism was always calling for: woman are encouraged to know their own bodies and their needs, to articulate what they want, and to make well-informed decisions based on their own interests and desires, and not what other people want them to do. As I say in Media, Gender and Identity (2002):

 

In the magazines for older teenagers and young women, the encouragement of women to be sexual actors – even predators – rather than sexual objects or victims, reflects a ‘feminist’ turning of the tables. Feminists never really suggested that having sex with lots of men was a goal in itself, but the rejection of passive femininity, and the  freedom to openly desire others, is feminist progress.

 

So that’s one view, but really we need to check it out by talking to actual teenagers. To that end, I spent a lot of time on internet message boards for teenagers, such as Teenfront.co.uk, sending messages and emails to young people from the UK and further afield. (Being a 30 year old man hanging out on teen websites for research purposes raises ethical concerns, of course – I was always careful to say who I was, what I was doing, and reminding teenagers not to disclose their address or other personal details to anyone on the net).

 

Most of the young women liked More‘s openness about sexual matters:

 

I get every issue of More magazine and I think it is good that they talk about sex in the way that they do. I think that More is aimed at people in their late teens (e.g. 15/16 to early twenties or older) so the majority of these people are probably sexually active and the information they give you is good for these types of people. I am 16 and have been getting More for about a year now, before that I got Bliss magazine but I felt that I was growing out of it a bit. I still buy other mags too though like Bliss and J17. I personally think that if someone is reading More magazine and their parents are not happy with the content, they should not let them buy More magazine. But I think that More has a lot of information to offer about sex, and young people need educating about the facts, the more information you have the more you are going to know. Magazines are another source of information. My mum said she did disapprove at first of me reading More magazine because of the men on the centre pages and the sex position of the fortnight etc, but she was just finding it hard to believe that I was growing up – she still let me read it though. I don’t think my mum has any problem with me reading it now though. So basically I think that More is good for the right age group.

 

(Sarah, age 16, UK)

 

I think they should have a bit about sex in them, because some people don’t know properly about sex and stuff, but are too embarrassed to ask at home about it, but if they see it in a mag it might help them a bit… But if there’s too much it does get boring.

 

(Angie, 16, UK)

 

I think it’s good that magazines discuss sex… I’m 17, and I think it would be unrealistic to expect a magazine aimed at my age group not to discuss sex, as it’s already ‘part of our lives’ if you know what I mean. Personally, I think that sex being discussed in magazines makes me feel more confident, as the stuff you read in magazines is probably more reliable that the stuff people tell you, and so, if you know facts about getting pregnant or whatever, you are more likely to make ‘informed choices’ about sex etc.

 

(Clare, 17, UK)

 

Some responses made direct and indirect reference to changing gender roles and historical taboos:

 

I agree that with magazines discussing sex help us teens realise not only that we have to be careful, but I think it has made me more confident. With girl power and all, it has changed the roles a lot – not long ago the men were the bread winners and the women stayed at home looking after the children. Now it has all changed, a lot of women are the main money bringers, which would have seemed odd, back then.

 

(Charlie, 16, UK)

 

It’s good that magazines write about sex and boys. You learn so much, and it’s pretty interesting too. Boys are still ahead of us girls with lust and stuff. If a girl has sex with some guys, people call her a slut, and if a boy does the same thing people consider him cool. It’s not totally equal, yet. But I hope it will be some day. In relationships it’s more equal, I guess. I think it’s great that magazines brings the ‘girl power-message’. It makes you feel more confident, and it helps you 2 stand up for your rights as a girl!

 

(Camilla, 13, Sweden)

 

I reckon its great about equality, that something I feel strongly about everyone should be equal. however, I do think that sex is still a bit of a taboo subject hence all the teenage pregnancies. I think nowadays it is more open but not completely. in relationships girls are being the more dominant role and I reckon thats great we should all have a chance, but I think it tends to be the boys with the more dominant role.

 

(Kate, 16, UK)

 

This woman was supportive of sex coverage in general, so that readers would be well informed, but raised concerns about the tone of the writing:

 

I think it’s good that sex can be discussed in magazines as other types of media are a lot less willing to do it. However, More is slightly worrying as it focuses on the sex itself rather than the emotion, like younger mags (e.g. J17), and it only carries a small thing at the bottom of the page about contraception. If we’ve got one of the highest pregnancy rates then why aren’t mags constantly promoting ‘safe’ rather than ‘fun’ sex? Kids need to be clued up and with the prudish society we live in, mags are sometimes the easiest way to get it. As long as the content is aimed at the audience and is informative, I see no problem whatsoever. In my opinion, if parents aren’t willing to talk openly to their children about sex then they’re in no position to criticise mags that give them the information they need.

 

(Jane, 17, UK)

 

Others were less certain that a lot of material about sex was a good idea:

 

I think that you should have not too much about sex, but you should have some of it but just the right amount, as if there’s too much it gets really boring.

 

(Holly, 15, UK)

 

And some found the repetitive emphasis on sex rather oppressive:

 

I’m a virgin and don’t really understand what the point in underage sex is to be honest! I think I’d want to have sex when I’m settled with someone I love, not just to lose my virginity. … I think mags inform people about safe sex and I agree that all these ‘Sleeping with my best mate’s boyfriend’ stories are quite funny.

 

(Claire, 14, UK)

 

More! is not really a ‘teenage’ magazine of the same category as stuff like Bliss, Sugar,  J17 etc. I’m 17, and so technically still a teenager, and it’s one of the ones we most read now. Some of my friends actually keep the ‘position of the fortnight’ bits, either for current use with their boyfriends, or for future ideas! I think it aims to make women feel more powerful about sex, like they’re in control etc, which is a good thing. As a 17 year old who is still a virgin, however, I do sometimes get a bit depressed by it. I find the ‘younger’ mags I’ve mentioned before too immature for me, but reading about all these people and their various romps does sometimes make me think ‘what’s wrong with me, why aren’t I doing this?’ The paradox is that I tell myself I’m happy being a virgin, that in the end it’ll be worth it, and anyway, it’s not like there’s been any great opportunity for me to lose it. But sometimes it seems to be implying that what goes on in their stories etc is ‘normal’ and a positive thing to be encouraging, and that those of us who aren’t doing it are missing out. The publishers will probably argue that it isn’t aimed at our age group, it’s meant for a bit older, but everyone reads it, and so is influenced by it.

 

(Helenia, 17, UK)

 

I’m 14 and even though I don’t often read magazines like that, when I do I find it annoying. It seems to put pressure on teens to have sex, which I think is stupid.

 

(Louise, 14, UK)

 

Overall, then, teenagers were well able to think critically about the magazines. Although some young and not-quite-so-young readers found the repeated sex themes to be rather claustrophobic, most readers recognised that they were  useful in information terms, and also somewhat empowering, particularly when considered in contrast with gender roles and attitudes of the past.

 

Of course, it could be argued that teenagers themselves are not best qualified to say what they should and should not be reading – shouldn’t that be left to psychologists, teachers, politicians, social scientists? Well, maybe these authority figures can make a contribution, but we have seen (here and elsewhere) that young people are relatively cautious and sensible about their media choices – even surprisingly conservative at times.

 

The self-assured ‘girl power’ messages of magazines like More give young women a language of empowerment and self-fulfillment which is a vibrant element to stir into the mix of influences that teenagers face every day. This only makes sense within certain limits, of course – sexual power is not the same as power in other arenas, such as the workplace, and an emphasis on sexuality is often (though not necessarily) linked to certain notions of glamour and beauty. Nevertheless, the positive, confident message of magazines like More is surely a refreshing change from the subservient feminine lifestyle models of the past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

508. AS Media Task for After Easter

Click here – this is a really good site with representation theories and examples. On your blog, create a summary of the main theories around representation, using this blog and mine.

504. OCR Media Studies – Past papers link

click here

462. Media terms for revision

AUDIENCE
http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/audience.htm
http://www.stevewlb.zen.co.uk/Frame.htm
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/audience.html
http://www.mediaed.org.uk/posted_documents/Audience.html

INSTITUTION

http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/institution.htm
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/Institution.html

GENRE
http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/genre.htm
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/genre.html

REPRESENTATION

http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/representation.htm
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/representation.html
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC30820/represent.html

NARRATIVE

http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/narrative.html
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/narrative.html

SEMIOTICS
http://www.robertsmyth.co.uk/media/semiotics.htm

IDEOLOGY
http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/ideology.html

460. Women and horror

This site offers some insight into important feminist theories around Women and Horror films including Carol Clover’s exploration of representations of women in Horror. You should be making reference to these theories if you want the A-C grades! 

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1775841

Another theory based site this time drawing upon the work of feminist theorist Laura Mulvey

http://www.helium.com/items/132886-women-in-horror-films-ripley-the-alien-and-the-monstrous-feminine

Top 25 Women of Horror – useful maybe

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/816579/top_25_women_of_horror.html?cat=40

433. AS Media Representation Revision task Christmas 2008

Please read following document about representation. there will be questions in the mock exam covering the main ideas. Happy Christmas!

 

Media Studies

Key Concepts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

REPRESENTATION

By Steve Baker

Adapted for Sandringham by David Allison and Simon Wallace

2007 edition

2

3

Table of Contents

Mediation ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..1

Mediation — three things to look for ……………………………………………………………………………. 2

Representation……………………………………………………………………………………………………2

What is representation?……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

TASK………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3

TASK………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3

Society, the individual and representation……………………………………………………………………… 3

The Reflective view of representing……………………………………………………………………………… 3

The Intentional view…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 4

The Constructionist view…………………………………………………………………………………………….. 4

Society? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5

Stereotypes………………………………………………………………………………………………………….6

Representation — How we stereotype: …………………………………………………………………………. 6

The four parts of a media stereotype …………………………………………………………………………….. 7

Changing representations – Countertypes ……………………………………………………………………… 8

Can we ever avoid stereotypes?……………………………………………………………………………………. 9

Hegemony versus Pluralism……………………………………………………………………………….9

Hegemony………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 9

Pluralism………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 10

4

1

ITV’s

 

 

 

The Bill

is one representation of the police

Representing reality

Mediation

Every time we encounter a media text, we are not seeing reality, but someone’s version of it.

This may seem like an obvious point, but it is something that is easily forgotten when we get

caught up in enjoying a text. If you see a picture of a celebrity kissing her boyfriend, you may

find it unsurprising that the picture has been altered and does not show the reality of the situation,

but in fact we should bear this in mind whatever we encounter in the media. The media

place us at one remove from reality: they take something that is real, a person or an event and

they change its form to produce whatever text we end up with. This is called mediation. You

should be looking for this with any media text.

Think about a new album by your favourite group, for example: this is not just the sound of a

few musicians playing together in a studio. Instead, the reality of the sound that they might

make has been mediated before it reaches you. Engineers and producers have re-modelled the

sound and artists have packaged the album. Newspapers and magazines have reported the

group and created a context for the album so that most people probably had an opinion about

it before it came out. Once again, whatever sound the group made in the studio has been

highly mediated before it gets to you.

If you ever go to see a comedy show

recorded for the television, you will see

the process of mediation in action. What

might end up as a half hour broadcast,

will be recorded over an entire evening

— jokes that might seem spontaneous

when watched on the TV will have been

endlessly repeated until “just right”. The

studio audience will have been trained

into laughing in exactly the right way by

warm up men and the text that finally

reaches the public will also be given

context by use of soundtrack music and

computer graphics. The whole experience

of hearing a few jokes will have been

mediated.

Of course, most of us are aware of this — we know that what we are seeing in a film or a

Soap isn’t real — we just allow ourselves to forget for the time that the programme is on that

it is a fiction. At the same time, we all have ideas in our heads of some kinds of texts which

might be somehow less mediated — it is obvious that a fictional programme isn’t real, but

when we encounter something like the television news, we are more likely to believe in the

straightforward nature of the “truth” we are receiving. In fact, the News is just as sure to be

mediated as anything else — someone has decided that these are the few news items that are

the most “newsworthy” and has chosen the shots that are used to tell the stories, the graphics

that will go with them and the tie that the presenter will be wearing which will distract you so

much while you are watching. Whatever version you get of what has gone on will end up being

highly mediated — very different from the experience of someone who was at the scene

— as you will know if you have ever seen a news event taking place.

2

Mediation — three things to look for

1. Selection:

 

 

Whatever ends up on the screen or in the paper, much more will have been left

out — any news story has been selected from hundreds of others which the producers decided

for you were less interesting, any picture has been chosen from an enormous number of alternatives.

 

2. Organisation:

 

 

The various elements will be organised carefully in ways that real life is

not: in visual media this involves mise-en-scene and the organisation of narrative, in the recording

of an album the production might involve re-mixing a track. Any medium you can

think of will have an equivalent to these. This organisation of the material will result in …

 

3. Focusing:

 

 

mediation always ends up with us, the audience being encouraged towards concentrating

on one aspect of the text and ignoring others. If you are watching a film the camera

will pan towards an important character, in a tabloid the headlines will scream, for your attention.

It can be easy to ignore how different from our everyday lives this is. If you are walking

through a field, you are unlikely to see a sign saying “look at this amazing tree.” You make

your own decisions about what is worth our attention. The media text, through mediation,

tries to do this for us.

This kind of task is actually very important because in the hands of experienced media professionals

the practice of mediation can be transparent — we do not notice it happen and are

fooled into thinking that we are experiencing some kind of reality. Once again remember:

 

All media texts involve mediation which you should train yourself to look for.

Representation

The result of this process of mediation is that we are given a version of reality which is altered:

those are never the real people that we are seeing but representations of them which

have somehow been created. It is time now to look at this idea of representation and how it

happens.

What is representation?

The Oxford English Dictionary gives two definitions of the word:

1. To represent something is to describe or depict it, to call it up in the mind by description

or portrayal…..; to place a likeness of it before us in our mind.

2. To represent also means to symbolise, stand for, to be a specimen of or to substitute

for; as in the sentence, “In Christianity, the cross represents the suffering and crucifixion

of Christ.”

It is worth thinking about each of these for a moment: the first one is the more straightforward

— the media are in the business of describing things to us — they represent people and types

of people to us so that we end up feeling that we know what they are like.

3

TASK

What, if anything, are the following people used as symbols of?

Nelson Mandela Britney Spears Madonna David Beckham

Can you think of any other examples of people who have become symbols?

TASK

What is your opinion of any of the following

Paris Hilton Jennifer Lopez The Duchess of Cornwall* Star Trek fans Immigrants

In most of these cases it is unlikely that you know these people personally — what impression

that you have of them must come from the media. They have given us descriptions that have

affected our views of these people. The second of the two dictionary definitions is slightly

more difficult but also useful. A representation is something that symbolises something else.

The example the dictionary gives of the cross is an obvious one, but in the media you can find

plenty of others. David Beckham, as he is represented in the media is not just a football

player, but also a symbol of many things which some in the media think is positive and negative:

fashion icon, adulterer etc.

* aka the former Camilla Parker-Bowles, second wife of Prince Charles.

Society, the individual and representation

Of course it is too simple to talk just about the media mediating reality and creating representations;

we need a more subtle understanding of the process. To get this I will look briefly at

some different ideas people have had about how representation works. You could broadly

separate these into three:

The Reflective view of representing

According to this view, when we represent something, we are taking its true meaning and trying

to create a replica of it in the mind of our audience — like a reflection. This is the view

that many people have of how news works — the news producers take the truth of news

events and simply present it to us as accurately as possible.

4

The Intentional view

This is the opposite of the Reflective idea. This time the most important thing in the process

of representation is the person doing the representing — they are presenting their view of the

thing they are representing and the words or images that they use mean what they intend them

to mean. According to this theory, if you see a picture of an attractive person drinking a can of

Coke in an advert, it will have the same meaning to you as the advertiser intended — go away

and buy some!

The Constructionist view

This is really a response to what have been seen a weakness in the other two theories — constructionists

feel that a representation can never just be the truth or the version of the truth that

someone wants you to hear since that is ignoring your ability as an individual to make up your

own mind and the influences of the society that you live in on the way that you do so. This

booklet will broadly be taking a Constructionist approach to representation so it is worth me

spelling out this idea again.

Any representation is a mixture of:

1. The thing 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.

Here’s 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

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

who the producers either encountered

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.

5

Society?

The last two parts of this equation — the individual and society are an enormously difficult

area which you will cover in more detail later in the course. You may find that you end up

covering them in your other subjects as well — the study of personality and the individual is

Psychology and the study of Society is Sociology and you should feel free to try to apply anything

that you learn in these subjects to the media.

For now it is worth thinking about the influence of society on what representations we receive.

If you think of one of someone like the Duchess of Cornwall, you can see that the idea

of

 

 

society

having a view of her is obviously a simplification. In society there are ardent royalists

and committed republicans, people who hate anyone involved in the collapse of a marriage

and those who believe that relationships are complicated and personal to the people involved

— a multitude of views — so how can we say that society has an influence on our

views of someone?

The truth is that amid all this confusion of opinions, some kinds of ideas dominate and are

shared by a majority of people. We call views about how things should be and how people

should behave an ideology and if an ideology is shared by the majority of people in a culture

it is called the dominant ideology.

The group of ideas that make up the dominant ideology in Britain are not something that remains

static — they change as new ideas are encountered and people discuss them. For example

the dominant ideology in Britain used to be opposed to homosexual practises. Over time,

however, opposition has changed to tolerance and then to acceptance for the majority, allowing

openly gay men to present news and entertainment programmes and enter civil partnerships

with one another.

Here are some things that are generally agreed to be part of the dominant ideology in Britain:

 

•

 

 

 

People should put their families first.

•

 

 

 

People should work for their money and not show off too much about how much they

have.

•

 

 

 

Women should behave modestly.

•

 

 

 

Women should look after their appearance.

You may not agree with all of these morals, but if I am right that they are part off the dominant

ideology, the chances are that they are the feelings of most people.

Let’s relate this back to the Constructionist view of representation. If you see an article in one

of the tabloids about David Beckham having an affair with another woman behind Victoria’s

back, you may be shocked and disappointed because his behaviour goes against what the

dominant ideology suggests married men and fathers should do. Also because representations

often act as symbols of other things, you will also be likely to think that his behaviour shows

exactly what is wrong with celebrity culture / footballers’ egos etc.

Many constructionists believe that this itself has an effect on what the dominant ideology actually

is — after all the dominant ideology is only the belief of the majority of people so if

you and others like you end up even more sure that rich people shouldn’t flaunt their wealth

as a result of seeing the article, then the dominant ideology has become a bit stronger. You

could see the whole process that the constructionists describe as being a kind of negotiation.

Over the years representations are accepted or rejected by the majority of people and the

dominant ideology is gradually changed.

6

Stereotypes

It’s worth now looking in more detail at what is going on in the other parts of the process —

the individuals and the media and their relationship with what is being represented. This

brings us on to the question of stereotypes — another word which is maybe worth a dictionary

definition:

A standardised, often simplified, mental picture or attitude that is held in common

by members of a group.

A stereotype is a simplification that we use to make sense of a real person or group which is

much more complicated. In reality there are many different kinds of Germans who are all individuals,

but it is much easier to fool ourselves into believing that all Germans cheat with

beach towels and eat strange sausages. The example that I have just given may seem harmless,

but in fact it is arguably racist. Stereotypes are potentially highly dangerous but stereotyping

itself is impossible to avoid — it is a natural function of the human mind — something

that we all do in order to survive mentally in the confusing world around us. The following

theory explains how it works.

Representation — How we stereotype:

The fact that we naturally see the world in this kind of shorthand way, with connections between

different character traits, allows the media to create simplistic representations which we

find believable. Implicit personality theory explains this process.

•

 

 

 

As humans we use our own unique storehouse of knowledge about people when we

judge them.

 

•

 

 

 

Our past experience is more important than the true features of the actual personality

that we are judging — traits exist more in the eye of the beholder than in reality.

 

•

 

 

 

We have each a system of rules that tells us which characteristics go with other characteristics.

•

 

 

 

We categorise people into types (e.g. workaholic, feminist etc.) to simplify the task of

person perception.

 

•

 

 

 

Once we have in our minds a set of linked traits which seem to us to go together, they

form a pattern of connections that can be called a prototype. In other words the mix of

traits that we may consider “typical” of feminists are a prototype of what a feminist is

like to us.

 

•

 

 

 

If we encounter someone in reality or in the media who seems to fit neatly into a prototype,

we feel reassured. It confirms our stereotyped view — we do not need to think

further.

 

•

 

 

 

Also once a few of the traits seem to fit our prototype, we will immediately bundle

onto the person the rest of the traits from the prototype even if we do not know if they

fit them in reality.

 

•

 

 

 

Research has shown that if we find people who do not fit into our prototypes, we will

form very strong often impressions of them — it is surprising to us and disconcerting

— it forces us to think more deeply.

 

•

 

 

 

On the other hand, if it is at all possible, we will try to twist the truth to fit in with our

prototype, often ignoring traits which do not fit into our neatly imagined pattern of

characteristics. This will particularly happen as time passes and we have time to forget

7

things that do not fit in. This can lead to enormous differences between our perceptions

of people and the reality.

 

•

 

 

 

All of this distortion happens naturally in our minds before the media have had their

chance to simplify and distort. We do a lot of the business of stereotyping ourselves. It

is almost as if we conspire with the media to misunderstand the world

So stereotyping is something that we all do — a natural part of the way our minds work and

not in itself necessarily a bad thing. If, for example, you were a teacher attempting to plan out

a course which would be suitable for your class, you would need to work from the basis of a

kind of stereotype of the needs of “typical” students. Having said this, even in cases where

stereotypes are valuable like this, the good teacher would have then tried to go beyond the

stereotype and looked for exceptions.

This is probably something we should all do when we encounter stereotypes — be aware that

just as with the process of mediation the stereotypes involve selection, organisation and focusing

of the complicated reality.

 

The four parts of a media stereotype

How can the media build a stereotype? With any group of people, there will obviously be an

enormous number of things that can be used in a stereotype, but because stereotyping is a

form of simplification, normally the most obvious things are used. These are:

1. Appearance — this can include, physical appearance and clothing as well as the sound of

the voice. e.g. “all teachers wear dreadful old clothes”

2. Behaviour — typical things that people in this group might do. “Grannies like to knit”

These first two features of media stereotypes are the same when we make our own stereotypes.

They simply involve us thinking of something that may be true of some of the group in

question and applying it to all.

The third feature of media stereotyping is peculiar to the media:

3. The stereotype is constructed in ways that fit the particular medium.

This is more difficult to understand but it is crucial for you to look for it. If you watch a film

such as

 

 

Silence of the Lambs

and then look at the tabloid coverage of Fred West, you are seeing

the same stereotype (the typical Serial Killer) being used, but there are obviously big differences

which will depend on the specifics of the media used:

The film will use close ups of the killer’s leering face, soundtrack music and reaction shots of

terrified victims to create their version of the stereotype.

The newspaper will use emotive headlines, blurred pictures of victims and police mug-shots

of the killer along with shocking text and interviews with survivors.

In each case the text will create a stereotype which it’s audience will find familiar, but it will

do it in very different ways.

 

4 There will always be a comparison whether real or imaginary with “normal” behaviour.

The features which make up a stereotype are always those which seem somehow different

from every-day behaviour. In fact you could almost start any stereotyped description by saying:

“this group are different because they…”

Of course the idea of what is normal in any society is an absurdity and therefore in order to

make it clear to us that the stereotyped characters are not behaving “normally” there will fre8

Independence Day:

 

 

 

To what extent does Jeff Goldblum’s

character

 

 

 

also

represent a countertype?

quently be “normal” people used to act as a contrast to them. So, in a film like

 

 

Silence of the

Lambs

 

 

, Jodie Foster is used to give the audience someone to compare Lecter’s behaviour

with. On the news, tales of striking workers (another stereotype) are always contrasted with

interviews with “normal” people who are suffering as a result of their actions.

The ‘normal’ person will act as a representative of us in the text — at the same time reflecting

what we might feel, or telling us what to feel depending on your point of view.

 

TASK

Create your own chart of stereotypes based on those that you have encountered in two or

more different media (for example, television and newspapers)

Stereotype Appearance Behaviour Media example

Changing representations – Countertypes

You may have seen the blockbuster film

Independence Day

 

 

. In this film there is a

character played by Will Smith who is

clearly intended to be a positive and

strong hero. As such, he goes against

many of the previous negative stereotypes

of black people in American films. In one

crucial scene from the film we see him

responding to the danger of an alien’s

attack by simply kicking it.

You may also have seen another film

released around the same time:

 

 

Mars

Attacks

 

 

. In this there is also a black hero

who also responds to the attack of a bunch

9

of aliens by punching one of them. Both of these films were made virtually simultaneously:

how can we explain the fact that they end up containing what are almost identical scenes? In

both cases, the representation of black people in these films has probably resulted from the

very best of intentions. The films’ producers were probably tired of years of negative stereotyping

of black people in the movies and wanted to create a new representation. So, instead of

showing black people as criminals or as animals they have represented them as noble heroes

who get straight to the point and take no nonsense. They have also emphasised the humour of

these characters and have made sure that they are attractive enough to act as macho role models.

One analysis of this would be to say that they have created a new kind of stereotype — a positive

stereotype which could be called a

 

 

countertype

. In the same way as a traditional stereotype

was made by selecting the negative behaviour of some members of the group, the

countertype homes in on some features which are positive. However the countertype is still

very much a stereotype — it is still a simplification of the enormous diversity that must exist

in the population of black Americans. As such, although it is an improvement on a negative

stereotype, it is still not the whole truth and many black people would probably still find it

very annoying in the way that it limits their behaviour.

 

Can we ever avoid stereotypes?

You will probably be able to find Countertypes whenever there is a group being represented

positively for the first time by the media. It seems as if the media find it difficult to adapt to

change and will always use the old techniques of simplification even if they’re trying to be

nice about someone. This has led some people to question whether it is ever possible to create

a representation that is free of stereotypes. If you think back to implicit personality theory, it

should be clear how natural the process of stereotyping is to us and how attractive we find this

simplified view of the world. However, if we are aware of this tendency in our own minds, we

must be able to at least try to avoid it and to recognise it in the media texts that we are presented

with.

Hegemony versus Pluralism

There are few ‘facts’ in Media Studies. The more you read, the more you will discover that

academics from different ideological starting points draw different conclusions about the way

the media works, and its relationship with its audience. Representation can be considered

from two very different ideological standpoints.

Hegemony

The hegemonic model says that the ruling classes maintain their power through control of

ideas and culture rather than force. In hegemony, the ruling classes govern by consensus: they

control the way the media represents the world so as to influence the way people think about

the world, and the ruling classes. This can become a running battle between rivals.

A more sophisticated approach to hegemony argues that the mass media adopt a consensus of

what is normal; a commonsense which is actually an ideology. The very nature of common

sense means that the audience does not question it. You might think of it as a kind of civil religion:

a set of values that the majority of people subscribe to without thinking about it.

An Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, developed the idea of Hegemony, suggesting that the

power that lies at its heart is constantly being negotiated, rather than enforced.

10

Pluralism

The pluralistic model comes from the opposite perspective to Marxism. Pluralism says that

the media is diverse, with a wide range of available choices for consumers. Rather than the

media influencing consensus, consensus values influence media representations. If particular

representations are dominant, pluralists argue, it is because they are popular among the audience,

not because powerful media institutions are ‘pushing’ a particular ideology.

After all, the main function of the mass media is to entertain – to please – their audience: to

provide representations that meet audience expectations. This is where stereotypes come in:

they pander to the views of the audience. The more media institutions pander to their audiences,

the more money they can make.

11

Steve Baker

 

(with additional material by Simon Wallace and David Allison)

 

 

269. Media issues and debates – follow these links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLdHWng-3v8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2sZPOFSu1o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Lu3My1GbI&feature=related

 

229. Help with magazine

foundation_production_presentation.ppt