Media Representations Flashcards
What are representations of age in general?
Different age groups tend to be represented in different ways in the media. The media gaze is filtered through the eyes of Young to middle aged male adults, and this influences the representation of children, young people (youth) and older people. Overall, older people are underrepresented in the media, and youth are over-represented.
How are children represented?
Children (up to the age of 14) are generally represented in a positive way, and often figure as consumers of toys and games in advertising, or as comedy sources in sitcoms. Researcher’s found seven deadly stereotypes of children:
- Kids as victims - children portrayed as good children led astray by bad influences, or as victims of crimes committed against them by others.
- Cute kids - providing the feel good factor in advertising and other stories.
- Little devils - stories of evil children and young hooligans, often in comedies or dramas.
- Kids as brilliant - exceptional children who excel in some way, like getting into Oxford or Cambridge universities at age 10, or donating their pocket money to the Third World.
- Kids as accessories - used to enhance their parents’ image like those of celebrities.
- Kids these days! - stories which show adults’ nostalgia for the past, with which includes stories of children being corrupted by computers and ‘pretty pupils getting off with a choir master with adults commenting that it didn’t use to be this way/happen in their day’.
- Little angels - children who can do no wrong; children who endure terrible illness or disability with a smile, or risk their lives by hauling a toddler back from a cliff edge.
Such stereotypes are often generated by the gaze of the adult middle class media establishment and media stories based around these stereotypes often do not take into account the views of the children they write about.
How are youth represented?
Youth are often the subject of negative media stereotyping. They are frequently portrayed as a rebellious and selfish problem group in society: as troublemakers, layabouts and vandals, fuelled by drugs and alcohol, and depicted in the context of crime, gang, knife and gun culture, anti-social behaviour and binge drinking. Such images are particularly associated with young working class males. A 2005 analysis of the local and national press conducted by MORI for Young People Now magazine showed that the majority of stories about young people were negative (57%), with just 12% positive, with 40% of articles about young people focused on crime, vandalism and anti-social behaviour. Journalism in 2009 that teenage boys most frequently appear in media stories about crime, and were most commonly described using terms like yobs, thugs, sick, feral, lout, evil, frightening, and scum. White et al (2012) found broadcasters negatively stereotyped young people, and more than 40% of young people were dissatisfied with the way they were portrayed on TV.
How are old people represented?
Either invincible in the media or presented in quite negative ways. Cuddy and Fiske (2004) showed that, in the US, TV portrayed just 1.5% of its characters as elderly, with most of them in minor roles, and that older adults were more likely than any other age group to appear in television and film as figures of fun and comic relief, usually based on impaired mental, physical or sexual capacities.
How are classes generally represented in media?
The mainstream media gaze means representations of social class are filtered through the eyes of the rich and powerful upper class media owners and the middle class media professionals who produce media content. This results in: more favourable stereotypes of the upper and middle classes than the working class or the poor. An over- representation of the upper and middle classes and an under representation of the working class. The portrayal of the working class in a more restricted range than the middle class.
How are the working class represented?
- As dumb and stupid buffoons: Butsch in a study of US TV programmes, argues there is a persistent image of the working class as buffoons or figures of fun: people who are well intentioned but flawed individuals, who are immature, irresponsible etc. One example in the UK is ‘The Royal Family’ in the UK. Buts h argues this reinforces the do,infant ideology in popular culture and justifies existing patterns of inequality as the middle classes are seen as needing to have more power to supervise the working class.
- As a source of trouble and conflict. Working class people are often presented as a source of trouble. They tend to be presented as welfare scroungers etc who cannot cope with their uncontrollable, delinquent children. One example is ‘Shameless’.
- As living in idealised/romanticised working class communities. This is what the working class tend to be portrayed positively as respectable and hardworking who struggle to overcome adversity in their lives. One example is ‘Eastenders’. This portrays close-knit communities and hegemonic masculinity. Former Eastenders script writer David Yallop said Eastenders was ‘created by middle class people with a middle class view of the working class which is patronising, idealistic and untruthful’.
- As white trash/chavs. Demonisation of the working class.
Criticisms: Positive portrayals of the working class, e.g. ‘The Full Monty’ and ‘Made in Dagenham’.
How are the middle class represented?
Over represented: There is more exposure of middle class lifestyles than is justified by their proportion as a whole.
Positive portrayals: In control to the representation of the working class, the middle is generally presented in a positive light as educated and successful and middle class lifestyle is presented as the norm to which everyone should aspire.
How are the upper class represented?
Monarchy
How are
