Representation
How is someone or some place in a mass media text portrayed? It’s impossible to portray every aspect of an individual in a single frame, or even in an entire film, so certain features of their personality and appearance get highlighted, and are often enhanced, when it comes to making the representation that the audience will see. When representing a person, media texts often focus on their:
- Age
- Gender
- Race/Ethnicity
- Financial Status
- Job
- Culture/nationality
Signs and symbols are used as a kind of visual shorthand. When media students decode these signs we make assumptions about who the character is. For instance, when constructing characters for a TV or movie scene the producers might give an old man white hair and a walking stick, or provide a wealthy lawyer with a three piece suit to wear and a briefcase to carry. Whilst not all old men need a walking stick and not all lawyers carry briefcases, these are easy and quick ways of telling us something about the character.
Who? What? Why? Where?
When you’re analysing representation, think about the following questions:
- Who or what is being represented? Who is the target audience for this representation?
- What are they doing? Is their activity presented as typical, or atypical? Are they conventional or unusual?
- Why are they there at all? What purpose do they serve? What are they telling us by their presence?
- Where are they? How are they framed? Are they represented as natural or artificial? What surrounds them? What is in the foreground and what is in the background?
Are they the:
- hero
- heroine
- side kick
- baddy?
How do you know?
