Representation Theory
Semiotics
Semiotics and content analysis (quantitative) are the main methods of formal
analysis of representation.
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Semiotics foregrounds the process of representation.
Reality is always represented - what we treat as 'direct' experience is
'mediated' by perceptual codes. Representation always involves 'the
construction of reality'.
All texts, however 'realistic' they may seem to be, are constructed
representations rather than simply transparent 'reflections', recordings,
transcriptions or reproductions of a pre-existing reality.
Representations, which become familiar through constant re-use come to feel
'natural' and unmediated.
Representations require interpretation - we make modality judgments about
them.
Representation is unavoidably selective, foregrounding some things and back
grounding others.
Realists focus on the 'correspondence' of representations to 'objective'
reality (in terms of 'truth', 'accuracy' and 'distortion'), whereas
constructivists focus on whose realities are being represented and whose are
being denied.
Both structuralist and poststructuralist theories lead to 'reality' and 'truth'
being regarded as the products of particular systems of representation every representation is motivated and historically contingent.
Barthes
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All the cultural products and activities read as process or results of
signification. No meaning is inherent or natural.
There are more than one (arbitrary) relations between signifiers and
signified. (Iconic --resemblance, indexical --cause, symbolic -- arbitrary).
There are more than one level of meanings. - denotation and connotation.
Richard Dyer – The Typography of Representation
Richard Dyer describes the typography of representation as consisting of:
1. Re-presentation, which consists essentially of media language, the
conventions that are used to represent the world to the audience;
“representation insists that there is a real world, but that our perception of it
always mediated by [the media's selection]“
2. Being representative of, for example, “to what extent are representations [of
groups] typical of how those groups are in society?”. In this, the use of
stereotypes is very important.
3. Who is responsible for the representation “that is, in the sense of speaking
for and on behalf of”. in this, we must consider how the institution creating a
media text influences representation.
4. What does the audience think is being represented to them?
Laura Mulvey – The Male Gaze
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What is "the gaze" exactly? -- describes the act of looking; began as the study
of the objectification of women in visual texts.
How does it impact women in particular?
What are some of the issues involved in discussing "the gaze"?
The objectification of women-- seen as objects
The commonality of female nudity -- display implies subordination
Internalization of the gaze, changes women's perceptions of themselves and
makes them think of themselves as objects
Shift to objectification as a source of pleasure (for both the looker and the
looked-at)
Men as the dominant group have been the looker (the subjects; women the
objects)
Stuart Hall
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Rather than exploring how texts make meaning, as was the predominant
practice of his analytical forerunners, for Hall, the meaning of the text is not
inherently in the text itself. No amount of analysis can find the text’s one true
‘meaning’, because different people who encounter the text will make
different interpretations.
The technical and symbolic codes that construct the representations we
perceive are the same – that is, the denotation is the same. But from there,
what the producers want us to think and what we actually think might be
two very different things. This reading, according to Hall, depends on our
social positioning – for example the level of our education and experience,
and what our occupations are.
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This approach to textual analysis puts most emphasis on the audience –
meaning is made at the moment of consumption. At that moment, the
individual audience member considers the representations presented to
them in the context of their own values, opinions and experiences.
It follows then, that if the audience’s values, opinions and experiences are
similar to the producer’s, then they are likely to ‘read’ the meaning of the text
in the way it was intended – or at least very close to it.
Encoding/decoding model
 This model was based on the view that meaning is the result of a
communication process, the stages of which he called ‘moments’. The first is
the ‘moment of encoding’, the second the ‘moment of the text’ and the third
the ‘moment of decoding’.
 Moment of encoding – the creation of the text, when forms, structures, codes
and conventions are used to construct a text with an intended meaning.
Moment of the text – the symbolic existence of the text as it is published or
broadcast – the focus of semiotics.
 Moment of decoding – when an individual with a unique set of values,
attitudes and experiences encounters the text. Regarded as more the moment
of ‘creation’ than the first stage.
Preferred/negotiated/oppositional readings
 When the text is created, the producers encode a meaning, which they
(probably) intend. This is the reading likely to be made by the target
audience, as they would be most likely to share and accept the text’s
ideology. This is the preferred reading.
 However, some people whose social position places them outside the text’s
specific target audience may be more active in questioning the
representations in the text. If they generally accept the preferred reading, but
challenge a few aspects, then this is a negotiated reading.
 If their values and attitudes are very different or even in opposition to the
target audience, they are unlikely to accept much – if any – of the preferred
reading, making instead an oppositional reading. For example, a teenage
mum is unlikely to accept the preferred reading of a documentary that
represents teenage mums as careless or unfit parents.
 The difference between what is encoded (the intention of the producer) and
what is decoded (the meaning made by the audience) is known by Hall as the
margin of understanding.
Tessa Perkins “Re-thinking stereotypes”
•Tessa Perkins (1979) says that stereotyping is not a simple process. She
identified that some of the many ways that stereotypes are assumed to operate
aren’t true.
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Stereotypes are always erroneous in content (usually wrong).
They are pejorative (negative) concepts.
They are about groups with whom we have little or no social contact; by
implication therefore, they are not held about ones own group- that’s a
stereotype of a stereotype.
They are about minority or repressed groups.
They are simple.
Rigid and do not change.
Not structurally re-inforced.
Existence of contradictory stereotypes is evidence that they have errors, but
of nothing else.
People either ‘hold’ stereotypes of a group (believe them to be true) or do not
Because someone holds a stereotype of a group, his or her behaviour
towards a member of that group can be predicted.
Stereotypes are an invaluable aid to understanding the world and all
stereotypes must have a bit of truth or they would not have such an
influence.
John Berger ‘Ways Of Seeing’ (1972)
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“Men act and women appear”. “Men look at women. Women watch themselves
being looked at”.
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“Women are aware of being seen by a male spectator”
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Writing in 1972, Berger insisted that women were still ‘depicted in a
different way to men - because the "ideal" spectator is always assumed to be
male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him’ (ibid., 64). In
1996 Jib Fowles still felt able to insist that ‘in advertising males gaze, and
females are gazed at’ (Fowles 1996, 204). And Paul Messaris notes that
female models in ads addressed to women ‘treat the lens as a substitute for
the eye of an imaginary male onlooker,’ adding that ‘it could be argued that
when women look at these ads, they are actually seeing themselves as a man
might see them’ (Messaris 1997, 41). Such ads ‘appear to imply a male point
of view, even though the intended viewer is often a woman. So the women
who look at these ads are being invited to identify both with the person being
viewed and with an implicit, opposite-sex viewer’