In timed conditions (45 mins) answer the following essay question on Representation. You may need to research your case study in more detail to answer the questions successfully.
It has been said that media representations often reflect the social and political concerns of the age in which they are created. Discuss.
Media representation has been the most controversial topic since the invention of television. It is hard to distinguish whether the Media is the voice of the public, or whether the public respond to issues raised in the Media.
Celebrity culture is a representation that steers between positive and negative depending on the social and political issues of the age in which they were created. There are some issues raised about celebrities being represented as better than “regular” people in society, purely because of their status of fame. Some argue that those who are famous seem to be more powerful than those who are not, because of the money they earn, their expensive dress-sense and style, and the sheer amount of fans they possess. This brings media institutions to draw the public’s attention to their private lives, in hope that they will be able to destroy these “fairytale” representations. A Marxist would argue that institutions are doing this in order to control what audiences view, and insert certain Ideologies into them, through the use of Ideological State Apparatus. Therefore, a Marxist view would agree with the above statement.
Furthermore, other figures of “power” such as Royalty also steer in terms of representation. 50 years aso, the Royal Family were seen as the ideal family, to which everyone would have aspired to, leaving their own beliefs behind. Even through the immense Media outburst of Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ “fairytale wedding” illustrated these positive representations. However, after they used the Media to bring out their opinions about their marriage and its failure, the positive representation of Royalty was destroyed. It became clear that the royal family were like any other family and shared problems that are experienced in any modern-day relationships. Therefore, audiences were persuaded to take on a negative view on any monarch who tried to portray their relationship as being happy/perfect.
Television shows such as “Have I Got News for You” would take advantage of this change of representation, allowing the public to believe that authority figures should not be represented any differently from those who have no status. It could be argued that the representation of politicians had never been favoured by the Media. Even though there seemed to have been glimpses of positive representations such as Obama becoming the first black US president, audiences have become accustomed to finding flaws in peoples’ personality and their work, in order to conform to the stereotypes illustrated in the Media.
This brings about the issue of ethnic minorities being represented negatively. It is known that racism is still a huge issue that is being tackled in this country. Therefore, it is not surprising that black or Asian people are represented as being more dangerous and less accepting of the British culture. News footage that talks about crime and terrorism seems to feature names/images of Muslim extremist groups. This, in a way, brainwashes audiences to believe that it is the religion that requires these actions to be committed and don’t concentrate on the individuals themselves. As this is something that has become somewhat of a moral panic in Britain recently, especially after this Post-911 society as we near the London Olympics, it needs to be made clear that those who are ethnic minorities have a far lower chance of acquiring “power” or “authority”. Therefore, the representations of ethnic minorities in the media agrees with the statement that those in power are favoured in terms of positive representations in the Media, and those who are considered second/third class citizens would always be represented negatively.
Furthermore, the representation of politicians in the media seemed to have taken a huge negative toll in the recent years. The panic arising from this change in the British government from Labour to a Coalition between Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties has taken over the way politicians are represented. The media specifically targeted Gordon Brown for his weaknesses in controlling his temper in private. This was seen when controversy hit his public image after he was caught on microphone calling a regular woman “bigoted”. Another example of a negative representation is when a YouTube user created a creative music video featuring shots from the three main politicians’ debated and transforming them into a “rap battle”. This, in a way, allowed viewers to understand the issues going on in Parliament without having to listen to pointless excuses by politicians, who are psychologically experienced in manipulating audiences’ thoughts.
To conclude, it is clear that the Media does not favour those in power at the expense of those without, as it is often observed that those in power receive far more criticism by the media because of audiences’ demands to understand their private lives.
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