Representation Theorists Flashcards
How many representation theorists are there?
6
What is Hall’s theory?
Representation Theory
Within a media text, there will not be a “true” representation of events, and different media texts represent people/events/places/history differently due to factors such as political bias.
Producers produce meaning within texts in order to communicate their own personal beliefs and ideas within representations, often through the form of stereotypes.
Stereotypes are created by the hegemonic group in western society (white, male, heterosexual, middle aged, upper class, wealthy) in order to inaccurately categorise minority groups and reduce them down to a few simplified cliches which do not accurately represent them as a whole.
The stereotypes often become “common sense” knowledge through the constant, repeated use of them in popular media products such as newspapers.
These stereotypes come about as a result of close-mindedness and lack of education about different social groups.
What is Gauntlett’s theory?
Identity AKA Pick and Mix Theory
The modernisation and evolution of the media has allowed people to be more free and outspoken with their identities.
Active audiences construct their own identities based on the media they consume.
The phenomenon of “late modernity” means that audiences can now pick and choose which parts of their identities they want to adopt from existing characters due to consuming a wide variety of TV shows, movies, video games and books, even if these traits do not align with their stereotypical gender/social roles.
What is van Zoonen’s theory?
Feminist/Gender Theory
Women are objectified within the media and oversexualised by the patriarchy. Women’s bodies are often represented as object, only existing to please the male population. Women are often represented as submissive secondary characters with little to no importance.
Gender is a social construct; our ideas about gender are influenced by social, cultural and historical contexts, as well as the media we consume.
Gender is more about conforming to contextual expectations, than it is about what you are “born as”.
What is hooks’ theory?
Feminist/Intersectionality Theory
Argues that society is controlled by a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.
Sexist oppression is linked to intersectionality; many different factors such as racism, classism and colonialism (slavery) influence sexism.
Modern feminism is dominated by white middle class women who ignore the experiences of black lower class women. modern feminists are more interested in “first world problems” such as the gender pay gap, when worse issues such as the forced marriage of underage females exists in countries consisting of marginalised groups (black, asian, arab etc)
Black women are more oppressed than white women because their race adds another layer of discrimination.
What is Butler’s theory?
Gender Performativity Theory
Gender is a ritualistic performance of certain actions and behaviours which construct our idea of what it means to be masculine or feminine e.g. wearing makeup, dresses and high heels to feel feminine or playing football, playing with cars and wearing t-shirt/jeans to feel masculine
What is Gilroy’s theory?
Postcolonialism Theory
The aftermath and effects of British colonial rule in the Caribbean (e.g. slavery) and how these effects are evident in today’s media, particularly within right-wing newspapers such as The Daily Mail which represent previously the colonised groups as “racial others” who don’t belong in British society.
Britain’s inability to accept the end of the British Empire and colonial rule over countries such as India has resulted in “postcolonial melancholia” and “Albionic nostalgia”.
White people are represented as being at the top of racial hierarchy, and adopt a “white saviour complex” where they feel as if they are “heroic” and “powerful” for having the ability to “save” ethnic minorities from their “miseries”, although it was white colonisers who created these miseries in the first place.
What is Albionic nostalgia? (Gilroy/Postcolonialism)
A representation of Englishness that is marked by nostalgia and generally produces a whitewashed version of an idealised/imagined rural England
