Generic Theory

Representation: this means the way ideas, objects, people, groups and life forms are depicted by the mass media.

  

How are women represented in the media?

In the media, women are objectified and portrayed in ways that will appear satisfactory for men - for example, in the images above the women are both naked and covering themselves by the way they are sitting. Women are all unique and there is not one single beauty standard - the below image is how I believe women should be represented.



Mediation: the process of selection and shaping, creating meaning from an original event.

  

Both of these newscasts refer to sexual assailant Brock Turner as "Stanford Swimmer" to remind people of the model student he supposedly is. The first image even fails to mention his crime.

David Buckingham (2008): identity is complicated/complex. “A focus on identity requires us to pay closer attention to the ways in which media and technologies are used in everyday life and their consequences for social groups.”



If you follow a particular person or group of people, you are more likely to believe in what they are telling you and selling you. For example, many members of the Kardashians promote Bootea and this has lead to an increase in people buying the product. Scott Disick has clearly copied this caption from his email and so obviously does not believe in the product. This means the whole of his followers are being deceived.

Collective Identity: the individuals sense of belonging to a group who share a set of traditions and values.



Each of the girls in this photo from St. Trinians 2 belong to a clique - emos, chavs, indies, posh totty etc.

David Gauntlett: 'identity is now consciously constructed, and the media provides some of the tools to help us construct our identities. The media contains a huge number of messages about identity and acceptable lifestyles. At the same time the public have their own diverse set of feelings. The media and media consumers are engaged in a dialogue in which neither overpowers the other.'

This theory refers to how the media acts as a hypodermic needle, filling us with information and views that we accept and begin to believe. This is all down to the encoding of news articles as this is the final product that we take in. This shapes who we are as people and as a society in whole. Although, the media does not control all of our thoughts as we are active viewers of life and can form our own opinions. This can also be a result of people decoding a media text.

Anthony Giddens: 'there is a social structure which shapes our lives (traditions, institutions, moral codes, established ways of doing things), but it relies on individuals following these structures. When they act differently the social structure can change. Structuration is the process in which human agency and social structure are in a constant relationship ± the social structure is reproduced by the repetition of acts by individual people (and can therefore change).'

This means that society and its individuals live in cohesion. An example of this is gender stereotypes. These stereotypes are put into place by society and, as individuals, we are expected to carry out these cliches. The social structure can change depending upon the relationship between society and the individuals.