Newman Chapter 5: Representation

Question 1

how does representation socially construct reality?

Answer 1

• it constructs the production of ideas about the real world that the people who live in it
• every representation includes some things and excludes others

Question 2

Representation

Answer 2

• a process of stories, people, and ideas showing up again and again in media—it is about showing up and being recognized and acknowledged
• representation, as faces and voices, stand in for identities—they function as extensions of people and of cultures

Question 3

what’s “the work of representation”?

Answer 3

• the productive quality of representations to make meaning rather than merely to convey, however transparently, an already existing reality
• representation can make cultural values appear to be natural properties of the world, such as LBTQIA+ values

Question 4

Visibility

Answer 4

• making different identities visible through representation, which is an antidote to symbolic annihilation
• representation shapes the social world and has the power to change people’s minds and create a more equal world

Question 5

Symbolic annihilation

Answer 5

• describes how a particular identity present in the social world can be absent from media representation, effectively disappearing the people who get no representation
• representation matters because the presence or absence of different groups of people in media is recognized to carry symbolic power

Question 6

Token representation

Answer 6

• refers to the practice of, instead of including more meaningful diversity in a representation, some difference has been sprinkled in to anticipate criticism and deflect attention
• “token black guy”

Question 7

Burden of representation

Answer 7

• it is on the minority of an Othered identity to represent their whole group, while dominant or majority groups are, by contrast, free of such a burden
• normative identities are often taken for granted as typical or average, while non-normative identities are “marked” as a statement on what the group looks like based on their representative character
• pressure for the representation to be positive

Question 8

Regimes of representation

Answer 8

• the idea that when one keeps seeing the same symbols and images over and over again, this creates power towards those groups
• representations are highly conventional and systematic, occurring in regular and predictable patterns (think of the re in representation)
• if we see groups associated with certain symbols, we associate them with those symbols—this is a patterning of representation (negative steryotypes)

Question 9

Intertextual

Answer 9

• the ways that one text, one representations, is the product of many texts and representations, an interweaving of discourses and meanings
• Ex: The Simpsons associates present moments with bigger meanings/ context
• one representation never stands alone, and the power of representation often comes from its repetition—this reasserts dominant power relations, the inequality of social groups, and the othering of those with less power

Question 10

Representation’s mode of address

Answer 10

• the quality of speaking to some audiences or of constructing an audience can be called the representation’s mode of address
• many representations implicitly construct an audience of a particular gender or race or age, sometimes in subtle ways that can easily go unnoticed
• ex: “the male gaze”

Question 11

Interpolation

Answer 11

• different pieces of media call out to, attract, and target certain audiences
• ex: Chick flick
• ex: Dear White People
• all kinds of representation are addressed to particular audiences, or have an ideal audience implied by their representation