Representation and Buckingham, Stereotypes and Perkins

Pipe:

To start we have an image of a pipe which we must describe. Alrighty then.

Well...I mean it's well lit from above...

aaaaand it's the only thing there is in terms of mise-en-scene...

I guess it's arguably somewhere between a mid-shot and a closeup.

This is relevant because as we know ceci n'est pas une pipe. This is just a representation of a pipe though this painting.

Representation overview:

•       Key terms:

•       Representation

•       Mediation, construction and selection

•       Stereotype and countertype

•       Audience positioning

•       Underrepresentation and misrepresentation

•       Five relevant theorists:

•       Dave Buckingham

•       Tessa Perkins

•       Laura Mulvey

•       Stuart Hall

•       Manuel Alvarado

•       As with narrative and genre, an exam question might ask you how an aspect of media language (e.g. mise en scene or editing) helps to create representations or stereotypes, for an explained 12-mark answer.

 

Media texts do not present reality to us. They re-present it.

Representation is the ways in which things are portrayed in the media.

We will focus on how…

·         Groups of people (Social groups, determined by many factors, like gender, ethnicity and age)

·         Issues (Specific topics, such as climate change, knife crime, drug abuse, the economy.)

·         Events (Things that happen, such as an election, royal wedding, flood or terrorist attack.)

…are represented in the media.

Mediation

David Buckingham, media theorist, says:

The Media don’t present the world, but construct representations, re-present versions of reality, by selecting and combining various elements of media language, like the images and text in newspaper articles or adverts, or the camera shots, sounds, dialogue and music used in television dramas and news broadcasts. This process of interpreting and presenting aspects of reality is called mediation.

Two news media shots of Donald Trump. What representations have been constructed and how? How has the audience been positioned?

Here he appears more professional and powerful, with a large table and fancy chair. He is the largest part of the image and his sitting in a serious and thoughtful position.

Here he looks very small and powerless. A small man sitting at a small table dwarfed by the otherwise power-suggesting flags in the background of the image and the disproportionately large badge thing on the desk.

Both of these photos could be used to cover the same story but paint Trump in completely different ways - mediation.

We can credit this idea, that different media products produce differing representations, to Stuart Hall, who wrote an entire book entitled Representation.

So, Fox News and right-wing media tend to represent Trump positively whilst The New York Times and left-wing media tend to represent him negatively.

The same can be applied based on age, race, gender, etc.

Stereotypes:

Things associated with groups resulting in the assumption that all members of this group fit these parameters.

Tessa Perkins Time:
Stereotypes are:
1. Not always negative.
2. Not always about minority groups or the less powerful.
3. Able to be held about one's own group.
4. Not rigid or changing, at least not easily. But can change over time.
5. Not always false (often linked to a historical truth even if untrue generally now)

All stereotypes must have or at some point had at least a small amount of truth to them or they wouldn't have come into being.

People's past experiences are more important than the true features of the actual thing they are currently faced with:
'traits exist more in the eye of the beholder than in reality'
                                                    - some person on the internet

The media can, of course, build stereotypes very easily. Within every group there are numerous things that can be used to fuel them. Although - thanks to stereotyping being heavily simplified generally speaking - it's usually just the most obvious things that are used, namely:
1. Appearance
2. Behaviour
3. The stereotype being constructed in such a way so as to fit a particular medium
4. There always being a comparison either real or imaginary against what the judging in individual perceives to be 'normal' behaviour.

Tessa information stolen from: Representation theories - A2 Media (weebly.com)

Now there was some information here about the Old Spice 'The Man Your Man Should Smell Like' advert but for the first time in my life Windows decided it wanted to fully die and bluescreen on me:

 Thank you, Microsoft.

So instead I shall add what was in the PowerPoint because it was basically the same thing anyway:

• Here’s a past question:
• Explain how mise en scene elements
  create stereotypes in a media product
  you have studied.
• Suppose we were to answer a 12-point answer to this using the Old Spice advert. (There might not be enough here for a full answer.) Let’s bullet point the ideas we might write about:
• Old Spice ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ TV advert, 2010
• Bullets should give stereotype AND how mise-en-scene constructs it
• Stereotype of masculinity: strength and muscularity – constructed by the casting of a muscular man, shirtless, central in shot throughout the whole advert.
• Stereotype of man as the provider:  Constantly having things that are meant to be appealing to women.  These often appear in his hand or are somewhere else in the scene and seem to be his and he is offering them to the audience, who is positioned to be female.
• Stereotype of women as reliant or passive and men knowing what women want:  Women have no agency in this (as the audience) and are just given things, suggesting they have no control over it.  Furthermore, these things are not requested – the man is assuming that is what they want.
• Stereotype of women as materialistic and shallow – The suggestion is that women want these things and that is what they expect a man to provide.