Representation

 Imagine 5 people

Scottish person

Wearing a Quilt with red hair and a bushy beard. Bagpipes, Iron Bru.

An avid computer gamer

Basic clothes, over weight, acne, likes games, dislikes going outside

French person

Wearing black and white top with a beret, Everything French, hates everything that isn't French

A sinister bad guy

Bald head, facial hair, wearing all black

A successful businessman

A tailored suit with a clean shaven face and a new hair cut

What is Representation

How the media portray events, issues, individuals and social groups

You cannot think about anything in media without thinking about representation. Representation works by enforcing stereotypes, a stereotypes is characterization of an individual or group that has certain features. Work as symbolic codes or signs. They are more acceptable in society due to frequency their used.

Barthes, the creator of semiotics, the study of signs, suggests that the values attributed to these stereotypes are not real but are used to reinforce dominant groups in society. Middle-class, educated, white men will always be seen in a positive light

Stuart Hall: Representation theory

The dominant hegemonic position a ' preferred reading' that accepts the text's messages and the ideological assumptions.

Negotiated position: Reader accepts text's assumptions but disagrees with aspects

Oppositional position: Rejects all the text's assumptions

Representation

Class

Age

Gender

Ethnicity

Disability

ASA- Advertising standards agency

The new rules, introduced at the beginning of the year, ban the depiction of men and woman engaged in gender- stereotypical activities to help stop 'limiting how people see themselves and how others see them and life decisions they take'.

Hyper real simulacra

That people who have only experienced things through media, where they are overexaggerated and simply not accurate, will find only disappointment when met with real life versions of such things. A great example of this is the comparison of the Disney castle, which is very grand, with 14th century castles found in England being broken down stone buildings that are mostly rubble.

If your reality is permeated with hyperreal images, your reality becomes distorted. You live in an unobtainable hyperreality in which the unreal world is more real than the real world.

Lizbet Van Zoonen

Van Zoonen suggests that we live in a patriarchal society dominated by men. Women are represented as accessories to men, and are often objectified, rather than admired, as with the male body.

In this Jimmy Choo advert the woman is represented as a simple accessory for the man, first by literally being on his shoulder. As well this conveys a sense of ownership and that the woman is a possession of the man that is highlighted by the de personalization of the woman with the woman's head cut out of the mid shot with the full focus on the male model. The man's grip on the woman's leg amplifies the ownership aspect. On the other hand, the man is represented to be a dominant classic masculine trope, with a stern facial expression and wearing a dark outfit with a leather jacket to make him look stronger and more powerful.

This is done with the purpose of selling products and not with malicious intent as men will buy it as they want to be like him.