Year 12 cover work: Representation

Year 12 cover work: Representation

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'The Female Gaze: Rethinking Representation' article regards how in advertising, women are often portrayed as straight, white ‘tiny waist’ models. This predominant campaign is quite a contrast to the actual average size (Western) women tend to be and this helps spearhead the theory of Laura Mulvey, in which women are presented for the benefit of men. 

The film that has sparked debate on body image and female representation is 'The Perfect 14.' It details the discussion as to how women are displayed in media solely for the spectatorship of male viewers.

Laura Mulvey's theory of the female gaze differs from the male gaze, as the male gaze describes how men are portrayed in the media as objectified for the spectatorship of women which is quite an alternative viewpoint to the more feminist one with Mulvey's theory.

In my opinion, the representation of women in advertising can be considered to be quite misleading not only to other women, but also younger girls who'll almost inevitably grow up to believe that what they see is what they're required to aspire to be. The media however doesn't currently feature women as size 14 because they're primarily occupied in fulfilling the satisfaction of male viewers, adhering to the whole concept that 'sex sells.'

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Introduction - the concept of a representation is literally as the word says it: a re-presentation. They often, if not always are affected by someone's views or values.

Representations and the mass media - shows how the way in which something is represented can change the way we view it with things such as pictures and captions for used to accompany them. With this said photographers, news and picture editors can be referred to as 'gatekeepers.'

The how, who and why of representation - this discusses how the producers of things in the media often play a part in how exactly things are interpreted within it. Things like the expectations of the target audience, genre codes and intended narrative all contribute to how a representation can come across.

Another approach to ideology (the work of Stuart Hall) - talks about how interpretations of things within the media are affected by the experiences of the reader relating to oppositional and negotiated positions or more familiarly, negative and positive readings.

Representations and new media - goes into how we actually present ourselves in media with the recent emergence of things like social networks, e.g. Facebook, Instagram etc, whether that be sharing a video we watched or uploading a photo to Tumblr.

An example (representing national identity in old and new media) - here, it's talked about how digitisation has granted people with the opportunity to express their views on certain things and just represent themselves in general.

In my opinion I'd say I'm very well aware of how exactly I represent myself in the media. I know that sensitive and/or private information shouldn't be shared to a public audience or anyone for that matter and as a whole, that not everything should be posted online - digital footprint.

The people that generally have most of the power in the media are middle-aged white men as well as Jewish people. A standout example of this is Rupert Murdoch, who owns one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. With this, these people or more specifically the demographic in power don't tend to get negative representations displayed in the media. For example stereotypes of ethnic minority groups like black people tend to a lot more prevalent and easier to think about than that of white people. This shows how having power in media can affect representations people come to know.