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What is Representation?
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Media Representations
In this course, Dr Frazer Heritage (Manchester Metropolitan University) explores representation in the media. In the first lecture, we think about what representation is in the context of the media. In the second lecture, we think about how types of media act as different communicative modes. In the third lecture, we think about how representation is investigated in the media. Next, we think about different analytical lenses which can be applied to analyses of media representation. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about how we can research representation and what our results might mean.
What is Representation?
In this lecture, we think about what representation is, focusing in particular on: (i) understanding semiosis to meaning the designation of signs to concepts, to disambiguate their meaning; (ii) nationality, gender and age as examples of concepts which might employ semiosis; (iii) potentially ambiguous social constructs associated with nationhood, including cultural practices and geographic location of birth; (iv) the Union Jack flag and its representation of both the geographic United Kingdom and associated cultures and people as an example of semiosis; (v) gender as an example of where stereotypical features associated with gender and sex don’t necessarily represent the reality of someone’s gender identity; (vi) a communicative mode being any way in which meaning can be conveyed; (vii) passive and active subject agency as an example of representation in grammar; (viii) make-up as an example of gendered social actor associations, despite not being exclusively gendered.
Hello. My name is Dr. Fraser Heritage,
00:00:06and electro and linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University.
00:00:08My main area of research looks at how we represent gender and
00:00:13sexuality and well as various intersecting identities in
00:00:15different forms of media.
00:00:19In order to begin this lecture,
00:00:21I think it's really important to start with this notion of
00:00:23semi opaque and what is semiosis,
00:00:26and how does it relate to representation?
00:00:28So semiosis is when we take a very broad concept that isn't really tangible,
00:00:31that we're not really sure that we can't see is really quite
00:00:36hard to down. So this could be, for example, the notion of nationality,
00:00:40gender, age.
00:00:46These are all different topics that we can't really see,
00:00:49but we know they exist. There's some sort of social construct.
00:00:52Now, The idea of semiosis is that we give a certain
00:00:58sign that signifies those identities, those abstract
00:01:03concepts, meaning.
00:01:07I'm going to take the example of nationhood here.
00:01:10There are a number of things that we associate with
00:01:15nationhood that we might not necessarily be able to hold.
00:01:18So that could be, for example,
00:01:22various cultural practices being born in certain
00:01:24geographic regions.
00:01:27However, all of these are social constructs,
00:01:29and this is really important for representation
00:01:32If we think just very quickly about where someone's born, for example,
00:01:36that's going to look very different today in the twenty
00:01:40first century compared to the eighteenth century when Britain had an empire.
00:01:43So for example,
00:01:48those who were born in the British colonies would they
00:01:49have been considered British.
00:01:51That's a question for historians, but
00:01:53the ultimate argument is that these kind of social strokes,
00:01:56even where we're born, changes in relation to things like nationality.
00:01:59Now,
00:02:07one of the issues we have with semiosis is how we give
00:02:08different things meaning.
00:02:12So on the screen now, I'm going to show you a picture of
00:02:13the Union Jack.
00:02:18Now, to many people, this signifies
00:02:20British identity.
00:02:23And this process of semiosis is really important here when we
00:02:25think about representation,
00:02:28because what we do in essence is we give this image,
00:02:29multiple meanings.
00:02:34Now if we were to strip away Britain as a concept,
00:02:36it's just a picture that has red, white, and blue in it.
00:02:39Right? And it's in certain lines and certain shapes.
00:02:43But what we've done is we've described meaning to this.
00:02:48So when we see this flag say represented at the United
00:02:53Nations, we think of that nationality.
00:02:56So what we have there is a representation
00:03:00of multiple people. So it's not just that that flag has come
00:03:03to mean, say for example,
00:03:08a geographic region, it's come to represent a whole host
00:03:10of other steps are quite intangible.
00:03:15And this is the process of semiosis. So basically,
00:03:19what we're doing is we're giving a sign
00:03:21meaning, and that sign
00:03:24signifies
00:03:27different things, people, etcetera, this signifies.
00:03:29We can also think about this in more abstract concepts.
00:03:35So think of, for example, a dog.
00:03:39Now, if I were to say to you, describe a dog.
00:03:42Now,
00:03:46the different categories that you might give might be is
00:03:46furry is four legged,
00:03:49has a tail.
00:03:53But all of those same kind of ways of trying to capture that icon
00:03:55can be applied to other animals like cats or raccoons, or
00:04:01various other forms of very friends.
00:04:06Now,
00:04:09what this means for us when we think about representation is
00:04:10we're really interested in that
00:04:13sign and signified.
00:04:15Now, what we have then is visual representations
00:04:20beginning to trigger a series of cultural processes
00:04:24and ideologies behind that sign,
00:04:27and the discourses associated with that,
00:04:30so these really broad social ways of thinking and understanding,
00:04:33which are all of packaged into what we call a communicative mode.
00:04:38And, I'll get on to communicative mode in just one minute
00:04:44But what's really important when we think about signs and the signified
00:04:49is that we're only really looking at fractals
00:04:54of what is signified.
00:04:57So let's take, for example,
00:05:00gender
00:05:03when we look at someone and we assume what their gender might
00:05:05be, we assume that based on different elements that are associated
00:05:08with gendered ways of being.
00:05:13So, for example, we might associate
00:05:16long hair with femininity.
00:05:19But obviously,
00:05:22men who are quite masculine can have long hair.
00:05:24We associate bits of bodies with gender,
00:05:27but that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a congruency
00:05:30between body and gender identity.
00:05:33What we do is we look at these fractals
00:05:35and these repeated sort of patterns that we see every day
00:05:39in the world, and we make those assumptions.
00:05:41Similarly, when we talk about four example,
00:05:45the ways in which women are represented in the media,
00:05:48we're only looking at a particular subset, a subgenre, you know,
00:05:51doesn't include every single person within those identity categories.
00:05:55So in sum, what we have is small parts of a
00:06:01sign, building up to a broader and bigger signified concept.
00:06:05So, in order to understand this in a little bit more detail.
00:06:12I want to talk about the importance of looking at
00:06:17representation across different communicative modes,
00:06:19and what we mean by a communicative mode.
00:06:23So,
00:06:28a communicative code is any way in which we can convey meaning.
00:06:29Now, this could be, for example, visual.
00:06:33This could be linguistic, so grammar, words, etcetera.
00:06:37That could be auditory. So for example,
00:06:42if you hear high pitched voices versus low pitched voices.
00:06:44Anything that can convey some sort of meaning can become a sign.
00:06:48This is really important when we think about analyzing things
00:06:56like the representation of gender,
00:06:59because we have those assumptions based on these very
00:07:00broad concepts and sort of ways of thinking about the signified
00:07:04and we can pack it all that up into a very small sign.
00:07:09So if we are thinking about linguistic for example,
00:07:13and the way his grammar is constructed,
00:07:16we can look at things like, for example,
00:07:18how women are positioned in verb constructions.
00:07:20So are women active or are they passive?
00:07:23And this could be, for example,
00:07:27the difference between the woman kicked the ball where
00:07:28woman is the agent of that verb
00:07:32versus the ball was kicked by a woman, where the woman is out
00:07:35the prepositional phrase.
00:07:40Now, obviously,
00:07:43when the woman is agentive in that construction,
00:07:43she's given a bit more prominence
00:07:46Now, something that's really important here is that a lack
00:07:49of representation
00:07:53is equally as important as included representation.
00:07:55So, for example, if we were to say,
00:08:00violent pro testers were arrested
00:08:05after a clash.
00:08:09Now there are two people this kind of construction that are missing.
00:08:12Firstly, who the protest is clashed with,
00:08:16but also who did the arrest.
00:08:20And this is important because it gives different prominence
00:08:24to different what we call social actors.
00:08:27Obviously, the people that are the target of this construction
00:08:30are the protestors.
00:08:34So a lack representation is sometimes just as important as
00:08:38the actual representation itself.
00:08:42But it's very important to make sure that what we're analyzing
00:08:47is directly relevant to the identities in which we want to analyze.
00:08:50So I want you now to think about makeup.
00:08:56And I'm gonna ask the question, is makeup
00:08:59gender it. So do we associate make up with gender?
00:09:03Now, what you could do if you're really interested is go and images,
00:09:08and have a look for yourself.
00:09:14Now, what you might see throughout are a number of
00:09:17picture of women with makeup. So we might be tempted to say,
00:09:20yes, makeup is gendered.
00:09:24However,
00:09:27Just because it's overwhelmingly women,
00:09:28that doesn't mean that men can't use makeup.
00:09:30And actually there are images, if you were to say, men plus makeup
00:09:34of men wearing it.
00:09:39So what we have here are sort of cultural ways of understanding
00:09:41things like make up as being associated
00:09:45with gendered social actors,
00:09:49but we need to be really careful in making any strong
00:09:53claims that, for example, x is y. When we think
00:09:56about representation,
00:10:01what we're really interested in are how these very broad ideas
00:10:02of
00:10:08gender, identity,
00:10:09any real strap concept
00:10:11is constructed and represented
00:10:14in different communicative modes.
00:10:17Those communicative modes can from, for example,
00:10:20words and grammar
00:10:24right through to visual communicative modes.
00:10:26What we need to be really careful of when we are king at
00:10:29different commutative modes is what is included and what is not,
00:10:33as well as what is associated
00:10:38what we're looking at and what is directly linked to what
00:10:40we're looking at.
00:10:44So it's really about kind of being careful when we're
00:10:45analyzing those different communicative modes.
00:10:48Draw on this notion of semiosis and what is signified
00:10:52and what the sign is,
00:10:56what we're really interested in is looking at that sign
00:10:58as a way of understanding the signified and how a sign to
00:11:02views the Signified.
00:11:05And we'll cover a bit more of that in the later parts of this lecture.
00:11:08
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Heritage, F. (2023, July 14). Media Representations - What is Representation? [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/media-representations
MLA style
Heritage, F. "Media Representations – What is Representation?." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 14 Jul 2023, https://massolit.io/courses/media-representations