Evaluation - "How does your media product represent particular social groups?"

Okay, it's about time I did something productive! One of the tasks set is to look at the ways in which different social groups are represented in our coursework piece.

There are three main things in which we can see represented: age (teenage kids), social status/class and gender (male).

Age
Our cast consists of three teenage kids. There are several ways in which we have met the stereotypes regarding youngsters in the film opening.

One of the common beliefs about teenage kids is that we're self absorbed and believe that the world revolves around us - and one of the ways this is shown in our clip is in this scene:

Here we see Samir's character stop to put his hat on. At this particular moment, the thudding bass riff from the BGM cuts out all of a sudden; this shows that as Samir's character is doing something, everything around him should stop and all of the attention should shift to him. This is also shown in the shots themselves; he's in a school environment and so it's highly likely that other people would be in the area, yet Samir is the only person seen on screen during these parts.

Another stereotype regarding teenagers is that they want to be seen as individuals and therefore are seen to want to express their individuality; in our film we've touched on this concept by introducing all three characters individually, in separate locations within the school setting -

On top of these points, there is also the typical "teenage angst" view, which sees teenage kids generally hating everything about the world around them because we're too hard done by and no-one understands us - this can be seen in this shot especially -

The close up shot here really highlights Oliver's facial expression here - it's fair to say he looks more than a little bit wound up...

We can also see an example of Barthes' Mythologies concept in the way that the teenage kids are shown in a school setting. People generally associate youngsters with school, thus the film satisfies the audience's expectations.

Gender
Our characters are three young males, and given the setting of the school it was inevitable we were going to touch on the idea of boys rejecting the school's socialisation.

There's several ways in which we've shown this. One is in Oliver's dialogue, where he states that he's been kicked out of lesson. Whilst it's not specified as to why, it's assumed that it's down to "misbehaviour"/conflict with the teacher (from the way he seems to be running away from someone during the intro) - boys are generally expected to be punished more by teachers for their "laddish" behaviour, which actually support's Francis' findings that they act this way in the school to avoid being labelled as swots (who are seen as feminine).


We can see a further example of this rebellion against the school system in the costume - despite being in an environment where one would expect the characters to be in a formal uniform, Luke's character has worked around this by wearing a hooded jacket, as has Samir with his hat -

This male rebellion shown in our film extends beyond that against the school system and towards rebellion against society as a whole; males are usually thought to not care what others think about them in the way that females do, and this is shown in the way that the three characters don't see an issue with picking up a wine bottle they randomly find in the street and then drinking out of it. We've actually exaggerated this with the editing by applying an over-the-top WideTime filter, which highlights just how surreal this behaviour is.

Social Class
This is quite a complex thing to explore in our case, on the basis that it's had to pinpoint exactly how well-off our characters are. Whilst they are shown as sixth form students (with school sixth forms usually being dominated by the middle class), they show a few traits which are usually associated with the working class.

Firstly is the way in which their costume avoids the expected uniform policy as mentioned before; this kind of rebellion against the school is usually expected from working class students (who would be having conflict with the middle class-run school).

Secondly is the language they're using - they appear to be using a fairly restricted code of language (generally associated with the working class) in the dialogue, such as how Oliver just says "guys, look" as he points to the wine bottle, as opposed to explaining what he'd found in an elaborated code (typically associated with the middle class).

On the topic of the dialogue we also hear Oliver's character using mild swears in casual conversation ("what the hell!?" "bloody birds!") which is also typically thought of as a lower-class trait.

-HM.

Ideology pt. 2

This is the long awaited follow-up to the previous thing...

Althusser
Louis Althusser was a French Marxist sociologist who explored the concept of ideology. Ideology refers to the theory that social institutions (such as religion, the education system, and of course - the media) take control of people's thoughts and beliefs, thus overriding their individuality.

As the media is generally controlled by the bourgeoisie, it transmits 'ideals' which conveniently reinforce the class inequalities seen throughout society. This can be seen from media bias which can act as propaganda (Chomsky, 1992) and through class representation (below).

Representation
One of the most obvious examples of how the media can transmit 'ideals' is through the way the media represents different groups of people [LINK]. Mentioning the ideology theory and Barthe's mythologies theory will inevitably end up in a "chicken or the egg" argument - whilst Barthe says that the stereotype based representations are given to satisfy the audience's expectations, Althusser's ideology argument would suggest that those expectations only exist because the media has presented them to the audience previously.

The Marxist belief that the ruling class have control over the proletariat is heavily supported by this idea of ideology; the media presents the audience with plenty of justification as to why they should live their lives in a certain way. For example, if we go with the way that pretty much every programme ever made in the history of television has at some point had a romance based storyline, we can see that the media promotes having a partner to settle down as being an 'ideal' lifestyle. In actuality, this could be seen as taking advantage of how people are more inclined to aim for a good job if they have a partner (and eventually children) to look after, thus motivating the workforce.

Audiences & Institutions
I did previously touch on this in the previous post but it is somewhat relevant to mention again the way in which institutions make use of ideology to sell their products.

Institutions who have a product to sell need to convince the potential audience that it is worth buying - this is done through marketing. Successful marketing revolves around ensuring that as many people as possible buy the product; thus it is important to ensure that the marketing appeals to the masses.

This can be done by first spreading 'ideal' beliefs, then ensuring the product being sold meets the ideals. This is an example of institutional power; once they have created a desired ideal, they are free to market as many products as they feel the need towards this ideal, hence why sequels and spin-offs are usually commercially successful.

Criticism
Post-modern/social action (interactionalist) theorists oppose the idea of ideology brainwashing the population on the basis that they feel that society is instead run on the actions of individuals; and that although the media as an institution may have the potential to promote certain beliefs, it is ultimately up to the individual as to whether they take on those communicated or not.

-HM

Ideology

This relates to the theory of ideology being communicated through the media. Sir mentioned a while back that it is a good idea to make the blog a bit more interesting, so I tried using one of these SlideShare embed things.

Ideology & The Media

As I am particularly terrible at communicating through every medium of the "not writing" variety, I should clarify some of the points I've made here:

The ideology theory says that certain ideals are transmitted from the institution (the media product's creator) to the audience, which can influence the audience's thoughts and beliefs.

The institution can also take advantage of the audience's views of 'ideals', by creating products which appeal to those beliefs.

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On another note, I am aware I have unacceptable lack of reference to Althusser's theories; this is because I have found little information about them that I can fully understand. As I find more relevant information I will post it.

-HM.

Sexuality Storyboard

It's official: I am the world's worst artist. This is a storyboard showing the first few shots of a clip depicting heterosexuality.

(I did kind of recycle the chair; this is because it was so awkward to draw the first time around, I didn't really want to have to do it again...)

Representation notes

I thought a post like this was necessary on the basis that a great deal of this blog so far is completely irrelevant; I need to watch TV more often, as my background knowledge of the media is limited to music, print and video games. On that note then, here I think I'll throw down a few notes about observations I've picked up in lessons lately regarding stereotypical representations on television. I'll try not to keep referencing TVTropes but I can't make any promises...

The characters who generally receive the most character development are the young male characters; these nearly always fill a lead role and as such are the 'face' of the programme. This is often highlighted in the programme's marketing; and as such people now often expect to see male cast members outnumbering female cast members. This is likely to draw in a male audience on the basis that they often associate female-led programmes as being targeted towards women.

Female characters are likely to receive little character development and are often placed in the cast as "the chick", rather than as a character who will be a main part of the plot. Unless of course they are the lead character's love interest. Y'know, because it's not like that's been done thousands of times before.

Ethnic minority characters are often shown as having completely different personalities to the white British characters in the programme - which goes with Alvarado's (1987) theory which says that ethnic minority characters will be exotic, dangerous, pitied or humorous.

When ethnic minority characters are shown in a British TV programme, it is often highlighted to the viewers over and over again that that character is of an ethnic minority, even if it is not directly stated in the dialogue. This can be through the writers playing on stereotypes, referring to their backstory etc.

It is also not uncommon for programmes to make use of token characters for the sake of making the programme appear more diverse. This isn't as noticeable when COTD's appear as ethnic minority characters or when an ethnic minority character is in the main cast from the beginning, however it does seem suspicious when a minority character is added to the cast several series' in as a desperate attempt to widen the appeal to boost ratings...

Disabled characters are generally presented differently in the sense that if a disabled character is shown, he or she will either be a token character for the sake of equality, or will have a completely formulaic "supercrip" storyline involving 'this person is disabled. Poor them, let's find a compromise to give the illusion of them getting over this limitation'. You would have thought someone out there would have found an original storyline to use which involves a disabled character, but no, TV writers are still a bit too lazy for that.

In modern TV disabled characters are always shown as being vulnerable and in need of care, and often involve another (able) character having to look after them. Historically disabled people/characters with some kind of handicap were often shown as bad guys (think Captain Hook, Dr. No, pretty much every pirate ever), due to the traditional ideology of "if we don't understand it, let's all be scared of it for no apparent reason".

Karen Ross (1997) - says that disabled people are generally not in favour of traditional representations of the disabled and are keen on sorting out "respect issues" in the media. They want to see more authentic portrayals of the disabled, and would like to see disability presented as more of a normal, every day thing as opposed to having to be a major story feature.

So yeah, I'll probably add on to this another day as there is tons more to talk about.

- HM