Wednesday, 10 February 2016

How to write about representation

Note - though this post is immediately useful to A2 students about to sit the MS4 mock exam, it will very soon become useful to AS students when they cover representation. Thank you to Tanya for submitting this guide!


Representation

Re-presentation

Re-presentation = the presentation of a version of reality.
A media text presents a group, place or issue in a particular way, for a particular reason.

The study of representation looks at:

1.     The group, place or issue on which a media text is focusing.
2.     The technical devices the media text uses in order to present these groups or issues.
3.     The message about the group or issue being created within the text.
4.     The impact of this message on the target audience.

So, any paragraph relating to representation in an essay should use these 4 points as guidance.

Example Paragraph
The film Skyfall represents youth and age (1) as ultimately mutually respectful. The diegetic dialogue (2) between Bond and Q in the museum, presents two characters who are questioning stereotypes (3) connected with certain ages.

“Q: Age is no guarantee of efficiency.

James Bond: And youth is no guarantee of innovation”


The film suggests to the audience (4) at this point that its treatment of age will be balanced and challenging; a suggestion that is somewhat contradicted by the systematic undermining of the character of M because of her age.