Mass Communication & Media Literacy 06

Mass Communication & Media Literacy 06 : 

Mass Communication & Media Literacy 06

Slide 2: 

http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/campaigning/takeaction/campaigners_pack/press_myths

Slide 3: 

Identify/outline issues involved in thinking about representation and media Define the concepts of representation, stereotyping and associated sub-categories Use rhetorical, semiological, genre and narrative analysis to analyse media representations Examine debates around the depiction of individuals and social groups

Questions : 

Questions What kind of groups feature in your text? How would you categorise the individuals and/or groups depicted? What kinds of ideas and feelings about them do you have as a result of your media consumption?

Why Representation : 

Why Representation Media forms have their own rhetoric and language that position us as audience members for entertainment purposes, they are not divorces from the social, cultural, political and historical contexts of their making. Representation informs our understanding and outlook on various groups and individuals – which can affect how social relations are played out.

Represent : 

Represent Equivalence/corresponding to Proxy/substitute for something or someone else Typify/epitomise

Representation : 

Representation To represent something is to describe or depict it, to call it up in the mind by description, portrayal or imagination. To represent also means to symbolise, to stand for, to be a specimen of or substitute to.

Slide 8: 

All media forms contain only a fraction of what could have been presented – they are selective in their portrayals and are thus abstractions in the way they work at emphasising or inflections limited elements or characteristics of what is on show or known.

Representation : 

Representation Media forms actively construct their worlds

Depicting individuals : 

Depicting individuals Trevor MacDonald TV Newsreader Middle class Man What else does this media figure ‘represent’?

Depicting individuals : 

Depicting individuals George Michael Pop star in concert What other ideas does the media figure represent?

Slide 13: 

The campaign to find Madeline McCann What do such images come to represent beyond the literal identification of a lost child?

--types-- : 

--types-- Types A grouping based on shared characteristics; a class. An individual that represents the ideal for its class; an embodiment. Archetypes A perfect or idealised person or thing that exhibits such core values and identities that offer a model or pattern for the way in which a culture is viewed Stereotypes Stereotyping is a process involving the expression of an exaggerated belief about a group that serves to qualify or justify the conduct towards that group of those who hold and express that belief.

Slide 15: 

The wealth of music Curtis Jackson released and his 2000 shooting conspired to turn 50 Cent the rapper into a local legend before his debut album had even been released. In some senses, he represents the latest incarnation of an archetype that crops up time and again in popular music. Early blues singers often retold in song the story of a deadly confrontation between Billy Lyons and a pimp called Lee Shelton ( known variously as Stagger Lee or Stagolee), two real-life characters from the Deep South whose 1895 shoot-out resulted in Lyons's death. In Stagolee Shot Billy, a book about the social history of the myth, writer Cecil Brown describes how Stagolee's persona as the 'bad black hero' feeds into our perception of characters as varied as Puff Daddy, OJ Simpson, Malcolm X and Huey Newton.

Stereotypes : 

Stereotypes Stereotypes Stereotyping is a process involving the expression of an exaggerated belief about a group that serves to qualify or justify the conduct towards that group of those who hold and express that belief.

Functions of stereotypes in media texts : 

Functions of stereotypes in media texts Functions for stereotypes in media texts relate them to broader social and historical contexts An ordering function – a short-cut to meaning in the face of the messiness of reality A metonymic function - an index of a wider reality and set of values about the group (one person ‘stands for’ the group) Is there a ‘grain of truth’ in stereotypes?

Slide 18: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4WGe12ZT64