Representations Flashcards
1
Q
Hall - Theories of Representation
A
- Representation is not about whether media reflects or distorts reality, because there is no objective ‘true’ reality.
- Meaning can be contested
- Representation implicates an audience in creating its meaning
- Power tries to fix the meaning of a representation in a ‘preferred meaning’
- Creating deliberate anti-stereotypes is still to attempt to fix the meaning (albeit in a different way)
2
Q
Gauntlett - Identity Theory
A
- In the modern world it’s now expected that individuals make choices about their identity and lifestyle
- Online media offer people a route to self-expression, and therefore a stronger sense of self
- People still build identities, but through everyday, creative practise
3
Q
Van Zoonen - Feminist Theory (Patriarchal culture)
A
- Female bodies as objects vs Male bodies as spectacle
- Gender is contextual - its meaning relies on cultural and historical contexts
- VZ disagrees that the internet is a tech close to women and femininity; these views are too simple and based on the idea of an essential femininity, whereas there is a rich diversity of ways this can be expressed.
4
Q
bell hooks - Feminist theory (Intersectionality)
A
- Intersectionality refers to intersections of gender, race, class and sexuality to create a ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’
- She argues that black women should develop an ‘oppositional gaze’ that refuses to identify with characters.
5
Q
Butler - Gender Performativity
A
- Gender is in how we perform our gender roles - there is no essential gender identity
- Performativity is a repetition that becomes naturalised with the body
- ‘Gender trouble’ for those who do not fit heteronormative sensibility
6
Q
Gilroy - Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Theory
A
- The African diaspora via slave trade has now constructed a transatlantic culture that is simultaneously African, American, Caribbean and British - the ‘Black Atlantic’
- Britain has failed to mourn its empire - ‘post-colonial melancholia’ is an attachment to an airbrushed version of British colonial history, which causes criminalising immigrants and an ‘Us/Them’ mentality
