Year 12 cover work: Representation

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The "perfect 14" documentary challenges the ideas of foreseen 'beauty.' It looks at how the female gaze affects women by looking at other women, as males aren't the only viewer in the case of the female gaze. It also compares the concept to Medusa expressing how the gaze can cause negative reactions. 

The 'female gaze' differs from the 'Male gaze' as it expresses how women may 'consume and decode' the female representation, and how this can negatively impact women consuming that media. It also highlighted that Mulvey's theory is to complacent on the idea that the 'spectator' will only be men over emphasising heterosexuality.

I think that the way that women are represented in advertising is extremely unrealistic and is probably due to the male audience being targeted, through advertising, more frequently than women. Moreover advertising and marketing firms are aware that women will perceive and react to watching these other women on TV making it memorable, despite a negative/positive reaction, which in the end is all advertising sets out to achieve. 

The reason media doesn't feature size 14 women, may be, that they set out to make brands seem elite and if not so they aim to raise awareness even though it may evoke the popular argument that it isn't the average portrayal of women, using controversy as a way of marketing too?



The film seems to be trying to achieve  a much more appropriate, realistic representation of the body size of women, aiming to prevent discrimination taking place on the basic of how women weigh and look. It is promoting a much healthier representation of women aiming to make women less cautious and more confident of themselves, changing the narrow image society has on how much a 'beautiful' lady should weight and look. 

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Summery;

• Introduction

Expresses how the media influences how we perceive the world and ourselves. Highlighting how the media influences how we view a particular object through re-representation by communicating a particular image/idea. We perceive certain objects in the view of the advertiser/marketer. However representation is always 'filtered through someone's point of view' where they add their particular meanings and values, these are ideologies.

• Representations and the mass media

The original person has now got less and less control over how they may be representing themselves. There are 'gatekeepers' at each given stage of the 'representation process' and at these stages the was the image is represented may be manipulated on the basis of the story type, news agenda etc. 

• The how, who and why of representation

When we consider representation we must remember who creates them and why. This is done by considering the needs of the target audience, genre codes, narrative and institutional remit. Moreover the choices made and the ones rejected also add to the overall representation and ideologies created by various elements. When these values and ideologies are represented they become natural thought 'naturalisation' which covers up the ideology from the view of the audience. This therefore means that 'silencing of differences' may take place as you don't question something that appears natural. (Barthes)

• Another approach to ideology - the work of Stuart Hall

The 'encoding/decoding model' challenges the idea how messages from the media are produced and consumed. It suggests that audience don't have a passive response but much rather use their own culture and experience in order to create their own interpretation of the text. Meaning that intended messages may not be accepted; it may be rejected through oppositional position or influences by negotiated position. 

• Representations and new media

New media allows audiences to create their own representation more now than in the past. Self-representation takes place on things like Instagram as we create an idea of ourselves and portray it to our followers/friends. We make choices to create certain controlled constructions to communicate what we wish to the world, this can be from our 'personal identities' and the range of these identifies change depending on the context. The self-representation means that minority groups can represent themselves instead of mainstream media creating stereotypes.

• An example - representing national identity in old and new media

In 2014, the Sun created its own representation of 'Englishness' eg. with the queen and Sunday roast dinner however social media allowed many people to voice rejection of the message. They were therefore able to distance themselves from having 'similar' values as the newspaper. This therefore means now a diversity of representation is on offer. 

I think i'm vary aware of how i represent myself on social media, however i do have many different media platforms where i express myself in different manners. On more personal platforms i express and voice personal opinions however certain accounts are made to express myself on a certain thing eg. on my astrology blog i will only represent myself from an astrological aspect because i'm aware that is what my followers want however personal accounts i openly represent myself as i know they are following me for me not for a certain thing. 

I think institutions still have a much stronger hold in the way that representation takes place, yes the audience is gaining more and more power on the way they are able to represent themselves, however they still do not have as much power as the bigger and more powerful institutions. An example of this is the way we represent ourselves on social media, if you look at the majority of females Instagram they are trying to represent themselves in the way that society deems acceptable and 'pretty' and pro-dominantly this isn't even a true representation of how they feel and think. The way society defines beauty is influenced massively by magazine and modeling agencies, like Vouge. Even if the look at advertising, certain groups of people are presented a certain way with certain stereotypes as it works as a short hand and helps to make advertising campaigns more successful despite the thousands of individuals screaming that isn't how they truly are. Another example are major news institutions such as BBC News and Sky News, the way the represent young adults, black males, Muslims is still in a prejudice and inaccurate manner no matter how many people raise their voices up against it, they still have the power to influence 90% of public opinion. Who are you more likely to believe, a massive company like the BBC or a single unknown teenagers twitter profile?