Representation

• Stuart Hall - Representation

  • Representation is the production of meaning through media language
  • Relationship between concepts and signs is governed by codes
  • Stereotyping: reducing large groups into simple characteristics
  • Stereotyping occurs through inequality of power; excluded groups represented as ’other’
• David Gauntlett - Identity

  • Media texts provide tools to construct personal identity
  • The media no longer convey straightforward ideas about identity
  • The media encourages diverse exploration into identity
• Liesbet van Zoonen - Feminism

  • Ideas about gender are constructed through cultural and historical contexts
  • Western patriarchal culture views the female body as an object to be looked at
  • Mainstream culture constructs the male body as a spectacle
  • Visual codes used to objectify the female body differ to those used to construct the male body
• bell hooks - Feminism

  • Feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal domination
  • Feminism is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle
  • Race, class and sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited
• Judith Butler - Gender Performativity

  • Identity is constructed through repetition of gender-specific expressions
• Paul Gilroy - Postcolonialism

  • Colonial discourses still exist to inform contemporary attitudes towards ethnicity
  • Society constructs racial hierarchies and sets up binary oppositions based on notions of ‘otherness‘