Representation Theorists

Question 1

Hall - Theories of Representation

Answer 1

The media uses stereotypes (stereotypes reduce people down to oversimplified cliches, being negative)

Sterotypes result from an imbalance of power stemming from dominant hegemonic groups

Representations of ‘others’ tend to be sterotypical

Question 2

Guantlett - Identity

Answer 2

• We have a choice of identity
• Media helps us create that identity (offers a route to self-expression)
• People build identities through creative practice

Question 3

Van Zoonen - Feminist Theory

Answer 3

Patriarchal culture represents women’s bodies as objects in the media and male bodies as spectacles.

Gender is performative, it is ‘what we do’, not ‘ what we are’

Question 4

bell hooks - Feminist Theory

Answer 4

-Feminism is the movement to end the patriarchy

Intersectionality: combination of gender, race, class and sexuality to create a ‘white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy’ whose ideals are seen in the media

Question 5

Butler - Gender performativity

Answer 5

• Gender is created in how we perform our gender roles (not a singular act but a repetition)
• Feminism concerned with only male and female excludes other forms of gender and sexuality

Question 6

Gilroy - Ethnicity and post-colonial theory

Answer 6

Transatlantic culture is simultaneously African, American, Caribbean and British as the ‘Black Atlantic’

‘Postcolonial melancholia’ is an attachment to an airbrushed version of British colonial history; criminalising immigrants and an ‘us vs them’ approach to the world