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Representation in the Media - Coggle Diagram
Representation in the Media
Gender
Symbolic Annihilation
Tuchmann
Women’s achievements are subject to omission, trivialisation or condemnation.
Cult of Femininity
Ferguson
Women are encouraged to conform to he feminine ideal focused on appearance and relationships rather than careers.
Male Gaze
Wolf/Mulvey
Women are presented as sec objects that are viewed from a male perspective to conform to the ‘beauty myth’
Hegemonic Gender Identity
Connell
Envourages socialisation into gender norms based around hierarchy, behaviour, appearance, language, and social position
McNamara
metrosexual male- in touch with emotional feminine side, especially through fatherhood.
Retributive Masculinity
Gauntlett
The backlash against metro sexuality has encouraged more media content that attempts to regain hegemonic gender identities in the face of toxic masculinity.
Theoretical perspectives on media representation
Feminist
Mass media plays a role in construction of gender roles
Limiting effect on young females’ behaviour and aspirations, especially in adolescence.
Liberal feminists: media is slow to change, to reflect women’s achievements.
Mills
argues that the newsroom is a very male culture.
Lauzen
Only 27% of creators, directors, writers, producers, editors were women working in prime-time TV. Also paid less.
Marxist feminist: Media professionals mainly men looking for profit, so reflect social consensus of men and women occupying tradiitonal gender roles
Women who do not fit these stereotypes are excluded because tradiitonal audiences will be turnt off.
Media owners also promote false needs to gain from adverts.
Radical feminists:
McRobbie
‘popular feminism’ rejection of traditional feminism embracing ‘girl power’ which focused on patriarchal forms of exploitation
Develop own language for dealing with sexual inequality.
Now mainstream culture whereas the former was marginalised.
Postmodernist
Gauntlett
focused on the relationship between mass media and identity, where men and women no longer are suggested one ideal.
New emphasis on men’s emotions and problems
Pluralist
Argue that symbolic annihilation underestimates women’s ability to see through gender stereotyping and manipulation.
Sexuality
The dominant view is heterosexual to reflect that of the owners and editors.
Homosexuals are viewed as deviant or a threat.
Gay men are seen as camp, macho or deviant
Craig
Gay women are either butch or over-sexualised for the pleasure of men (
Stonewall, 2010
)
Historic representation of gay men was shaped by the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the 1908s which caused a threat and moral panic.
Fear of a loss of revenue.
Cowan and Valentine
found that gay people were five times more likely to be represented negatively.
Gross
media often symbolically annihilates gays and lesbians by excluding them altogether, or trivialised.
Stonewall
they are underrepresented in the media, whilst 36% were represented in negative ways.
Representations appeal to certain news values creating a titration for an audience that view homosexuality as abnormal or perverse sex.
Example
George Michael- as lead singer in ‘Wham’ was not openly gay as he was recognised as a heterosexual ideal for women.
Disability
Barnes
Argues mass media representations of disability have been generally oppressive and negative.
People with disabilities are rarely presented as people with their own identities.
Pitiable and pathetic
Sinister and evil (James Bond villains)
Atmospheric- unease and mystery.
Super-cripples (Blind people as visionaries)
Roper
Suggests mass media representations of disability focus on pity. IN particular, telethons can create problems for people with disabilities.
Telethons are not representative of the range of disabled people and focus on ‘cute’ children to monetise off givers.
There is a greater need for public entertainment, which capitalised off of audience viewership.
Media representations confirm social prejudices about the disabled.
Sancho
Reported on the representation and portrayal of disabled people in peak-time programmes on five UK terrestrial TV channels using content analysis, focus groups and questionnaires.
Disabled people were identitified in 11% of programmes in 2002 but contributed to 1% of the overall television population.
Sancho found that 60% of appearances portrayed the impairment as central to the character rather than showing a story line about a character who happens to be disabled- this is now changing EastEnders character Donna Yates.
Broadcasting Standards Commission and Ofcom
Found 80% of disabilities portrayed were related to mobility, sensory impairment and disfigurement.
The wheelchair is seen as an icon from disability bu those wishing to represent disability in the media.
The media can be used positively for disability representation.
Strictly Come Dancing 2021 winner Rose Ayling-Ellis, 11 million people watched the first deaf winner. Later campaigned for British Sign Language to be recognised as an official language.
Ethnicity
Hegemonic Marxism
Not about racism- but economics.
Majority of the population is white- the largest audiences attract the greatest profit so white opinion is reflected.
White experts are seen as the most credible.
Tabloidisation of news leads to highlighting issues of race- but does not address full complexity.
Journalists ignore non-institutional or ethnic minority sources in reporting.
Reflect identity of owners
Media professionals do not want to risk alienating their white audience which means other groups are marginalised.
Marxist
Hall
ethnic minorities are criminalised in the media as folk devils and subsequent moral panics.
Media presents ethnic minorities are represented as more problematic than extreme inequalities in income distribution or poverty.
Media is an ideological state apparatus which functions to divide and rule the working class.
Pluralist
Newspapers act in the interest of the readers by demanding those in power take action to control ethnic minority groups.
Media content is shaped by the market
If they do not give the audience what they want, they will go out of business.
Representation of ethnic minorities in the media reflect real fears in society.
Van Dijk
Minority groups as
criminal, a threat, or unimportant
Criminal
Back
reporting of inner-city race disturbances are referred to as ‘riots’ rather than ‘uprisings’ as this indicates social injustice.
Wayne et al
50% of news coverage of Black young people were about crime
A Threat
Van Dijk
Immigrants, refugees, Muslims due to large numbers, abusers of the welfare state and the enemy within.
Poole
Islam has always been demonised and distorted by the western media.
Homogenised as ‘backwards, irrational, unchanging fundamentalists and misogynists’
Moore- Identified 4 negative ideological messages of Islam
Islam is dangerous
Multiculturalism is allowing the spread of extremism
Clash of civilisations between the west and Muslim world
Major threat to British way of life with the focus of Sharia law.
Unimportant
ligali
black victims of crime are not given as much coverage as other groups.
Shah
Tokenism is causing a number of ethnic minorities to get visible jobs in the media whether they are the right person or not.
Social Class
Representations of the Upper Class
Neo Marxists argue mass media representations celebrate hierarchy and wealth, hardly posed critically.
They do not want to draw attention to inequalities so as not to become focus of social debate.
TV programmes and films portray members as eccentric or nostalgic
Downton Abbey: ideologies don’t picture represented by honour, high-culture and good breeding.
Representations of Wealth
Newman
argues media focus positively on lifestyles of wealthy and privileged.
Focus on consumerism only th wealthy can afford.
Highlight focus on economic and financial section of broadsheets and news programmes, in the interest of investors, not the inequities of capitalism
Pluralists
argue that these representations can be justified by
Meritocracy
Motivation for ordinary people to succeed
Reflect importance in society.
Representations of the Middle Class
They and their concerns are overrepresented in the media. In TV programmes, they are concerned about manners, decency and decorum, social respectability and so on.
British newspapers predominantly target middle class audiences, assigned to their consumption, also incite moral panics on issues such as immigration.
Most creative personnel in the media are middle class: gatekeeping their own issues, highlighting other groups’ fallings short.
Representations of the Working Class
Marxists argue representations are part of the capitalist ideology.
Newman
notes very few situation comedies on everyday lives of working class, despite constituting large section of society.
Jones
argues media coverage of working class constitutes a middle-class assault on working class values, institutions and communities.
Many middle class journalists suffer from a ‘liberal bigotry’ assuming all working class people are feckless, promiscuous, racists, with reporting of poverty, unemployment of single-parenting suggesting personal inadequacy.
Curran and Seaton
argue newspapers aimed at working classes assume they are uninterested in politics or social organisation with debate limited to simplistic conflict.
Newspapers’ content is aimed to distract the working class from inadequacies of capitalism
Pluralists
argue that tabloid readers do not want to read about politics, and broadsheets are available to them.
Emergence of more sympathetic views, portraying issues in a dignified, realistic and supportive way, commenting on wider structural social inequality.
Pride (2014)
Representations of Poverty and the Underclass
McKendrick
et al concluded coverage of poverty in the UK was marginal, causes and consequences of poverty are rarely explored.
Cohen
argues media concerned about ‘trumping good fortune’ of capitalism opposed to its ‘casualites’,arguing some sections of media benefit from commissioning shows deliberately portraying the poor as parasitic scroungers.
Lawler
argues that media use discriminatory and offensive language (chav) to socially stigmatise underclass and ‘white trash’ symbolised by a certain appearance fraudulent benefit claims and criminality.
This neutralises public concern or sympathy for social and economic plight.
Age
Functionalists argue representations are part of the socialisation process, equipping young people with appropriate norms and values, and engage in boundary maintenance.
Representations of Childhood
Fairly positive, suggesting six stereotypes
Cute
Little devils
Brilliant
Brave little angels
Accessories
Modern
Heintz-Knowles
found children rarely coping with societal issues, but most are positive, with pro-social actions (telling the truth), 40% do not (lying bullying)
Socialised to become active consumers
Evans and Chandler
emergence of pester power.
Feminists
argue that representations are becoming more problematic with oversexualising childhood (Balenciaga), observing more girls worrying about appearance, and a premature interest in sex.
Representation of Youth
Whole industry dedicated to socially construct youth in terms of lifestyle and identity.
Often portrayed as a social problem, consequently constructed folk devils
Moral panics are established from deviant subcultures, and disapproving behaviour from those in authority.
Wayne et al
young people portrayed as a threat to society, and rarely feature their perspective or opinion.
Argue it distracts from the real problems such as homelessness, housing, unemployment, mental health caused by structural issues.
Pluralists
argue this reflects wider society, young people commit more crimes, and criminal behaviour is newsworthy.
Interactionists
argue that children are labelled by older people because they challenge their authority
Postmodernists
argue that negative portrayals are small representations in comparison to the diverse and pluralistic media saturation.
Representation of Old Age
Newman
notes that higher class elderly people (especially men) are portrayed occupying higher roles, healthy, fit and socially involved.
Stoller and Gibson
argue elderly women are mainly shown in social, family, and recreational settings, represented as passice, socially isolated and poor.
Generally devalued with emphasis on youth and beauty, especially in television.
Age Concern
identified three ways media portrayals are generally ageist
Grumpy
Mentally challenged
A burden (economic)
Lee et al
representation fo elderly is lows, but the majority of advertisements are positive
Some argue this is unrealistic as they do not address the wide range of experiences people have as they age.