Representation - analysing Super.Human (again)

I still can't download or save new images, but at least this one is informative and relevant

 

DAC

Representation refers to how an issue, event or person is shown again by the producer, using media language to reflect their often complex ideologies. In this essay, I shall argue that the Superhuman Paralympics trailer represents people with disabilities as powerful, mentally and physically strong, but also vulnerable, fragile and relatable to a wide range of target audiences. This representation is highly complex, and therefore challenges traditional representations of people with disabilities as being simple and straightforward. The Super.Human advert advertises Channel 4’s coverage of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic games, and does so by challenging stereotypes. 

Content 

• Stuart Hall argued that representations are constructed through media language 
• The final montage of the video uses fast paced editing to construct a representation of people with disabilities as hardworking. It also constructs an exciting mode of address for the mass mainstream target audience, not only interesting the audience, but representing disabled people as being fascinating, interesting and exciting 
• In the final montage, a binary opposition is constructed through the surprising cut from the fast paced montage to a peaceful and even dull shot of a stereotypical middle class white family cycling slowly on a tandem through a stereotypically middle class setting. This not only constructs white middle class people as being boring and straightforward, but also reinforced through binary opposition the struggle and excitement of competing in the games as a disabled person
• Other working class iconography includes the MES of the setting of the traditional cafe, the London accent of the singer, and the binary opposition this forms with the middle class representation of Boris Johnson 
• To be a Paralympian, there’s got to be something wrong with you’ the lexis presented on this intertitle constructs a polysemic mode of address, and simultaneously infers that not only is there something related to disability, but also there is something deeply ‘wrong’ with the mentality of competing in the Paralympic games. This is reinforced through the frequently disgusting MES of the puke bucket, the revolting endoscopy footage and the frequent use of blood all combine to represent disabled people as both vulnerable yet brave. His highly inclusive representation presents people with disabilities as being extremely visible, and may challenge the assumptions of the mass British audience 
• Additionally, the disabled athletes are also represented as being often stereotypically British . One stereotype about British people is that they do not complain, and endure even the worst hardship. This hyperreal representation of British identity will appeal to British audiences in particular, who will feel a sense of personal identity to the disabled participants. In doing so, the producers construct a highly relatable representation that challenges the idea that able-bodied people and disabled people are binary oppositions. 
• Representations of black hair challenge the hegemonic orthodoxy of white hair styles, and will appeal to a black audience

Preparing to revise for the end of year mock exam (KA4)

I've lost the ability to download images, so here's a picture of G block for no real reason

What do you need to know?

• The end of year mock exam is big and tough. It is designed to assess everything that we have done over the last year. 
• Not everything we covered will come up in the exam. This is because the exam emulates component one. Component one is the first exam that you will sit, and it covers only ‘first year topics’. However, we do not know what will come up in component one.
• There will also be questions that will involve analysing unseen media products. While you can definitely revise for this, there is no way of ever being completely prepared for these. And that’s fine! The examiner will be interested in how you respond to something unfamiliar, and how you apply media language and theory to it to help you revise.
• The unseen questions are probably the easiest ones to ‘blag’. But don’t blag them. Revise media language and theory to prepare!
• Other questions are all about cold hard facts. If you know the answer, that’s great! If you don’t, well, that’s not. 
• You cannot ‘blag’ the industry or audience questions, because they are about factual recall

What could come up?

1. Media language - 15 marks - 30 minutes - unseen analysis question - could be anything! Either video or print - use media terminology to get marks!
2. Representation - 30 mark - 60 minutes - unseen comparison - one of the set texts (Daily Mirror front page (Johnson), The Times front page (Johnson), Super.Human, Tide Advert, Kiss Of The Vampire poster) or music videos (Seventeen Going Under or Formation), compared with literally anything! -  use media terminology to get marks! But also how the producer has used representations to reconstruct reality 
3. Industry - 15 marks - 15 minutes - shorter questions about any one of the following - newspapers, videogames, film or radio - cold, hard, factual recall

How to use the blog to revise

• Mind maps - take a topic, concept or theory, and then surround this word with further information about it. Have information from the blog open in front of you
• Use the industries tab to find explicit information about every industry
• Use the revision checklist, under resources
• Use past paper questions. Either answer timed conditions, or simply just look at them!
• Learn specific definitions of keywords. Using flash cards, or covering up the definition and having a go at writing it yourself
• Open the textual analysis toolkit, find a funny advert on YouTube, and analyse it! Analyse anything you want!
• Want to know how to actually write an essay? Either check out this article, or watch the video version of it!
• Check out mark schemes and exemplar answers. There are some on the blog!
• Learn facts! Go on Wikipedia and rinse it for the latest facts!
• Theorists! Go on theories and theorist and make 19 flash cards in four different colours
• Use the revision pyramid! There’s no such thing as bad revision, but mixing up different kinds of revision will really help you, so using this poster will get you inspired!
• Check out videos. There’s my YouTube channel, Mrs Fisher, Mark Dixon, and possibly others
• Revision walk: go for a walk with flashcards! getting tested while doing something else can help your factual recall!
• Revise while cooking! While your chips are in the oven, read the blog on your phone!
• Get a bunch of post it notes, and stick them all around your house!
• Make a quiz! Quiz yourself! Quiz somebody else!
• Teach somebody else! Get a study buddy!

Representation - Adbusters, Woman and the re-presentation of reality

Question one - David Gauntlett asserts that audiences can actively construct their own identity through a process of mediation with the representations encoded in media products. Evaluate this theory of identity and representation. Make reference to the magazines you have studied to support your answers [30]

DAC introduction

David Gauntlett argues that audiences can pick and mix the ideologies of the producer to form their own identity. This complex process of negotiation sees the audience actively decoding complex messages, and provides producers incentives to either provide complex or straightforward representations to create a product that makes sense to the target audience. In this essay I shall argue that Gauntlet's theory is extremely useful in understanding how audiences can use magazines to form their own identity. However, I shall argue that the identities formed are wildly different depending on the target audience. In order to explore this, I shall refer to the October 1964 edition of Woman, a women’s lifestyle magazine which presents a straightforward ideology to a mass audience, and Adbusters, a complicated magazine that presents an unconventional mode of address to it’s unconventional, non-mainstream, niche activist audience 

 

Plan

Stuart Hall representation

Stuart Hall reception 

Anchorage

Liesbet Van Zoonen  - women’s bodies as spectacle 

Cultivation of ideologies

Weekly circulation woman magazine

Bimonthly, irregular circulation

Gender performativity

Covers

MES

Lexis

Layout

Conventional vs unconventional 

Ideologies

Hegemony

Codes

Patriarchy

Proairetic

Language

Lighting

Readings/interpretations

Colour

Makeup 

Hair

Composition

Mass audience

Niche audience

Anti-capitalism 

Cover lines

Narrative

For each spread:

1. Who or what is being represented?
2. How is the representation constructed through media language? 
3. How can the target audience use this to construct their own identity?

Louboutin double page spread 

• There are a number of different representations encoded in this double page spread. Firstly, the high end fashion house Louboutin themselves, who are represented in a fiercely controversial way. Additionally, there is a blunt, straightforward and stereotypical representation of black people, in particular black people living in third world countries. 
• An uncomfortable mode of address is constructed through the raw and serious selection of image, anchored through the unusual use of a birds eye view shot, explicitly ‘looking down’ on the MES of chapped, broken and poverty stricken feet. Coupled with the use of closeup, the middle class target audience are confronted with a highly unpleasant mode of address, which is further anchored through the dark humour of the Lexis ‘red soles are always in season’. Copied and pasted from an actual Louboutin advert, the lexis now has a dark and problematic meaning through its new anchorage, and is a perfect example of detournement, a concept which will appeal to educated middle class target audience.  
• Certain amount of cultural capital needed to understand this double page spread, which indicates a middle class target audience. Further anchored through the high cover price, this helps the audience to construct a middle class, educated, and also rebellious ideology. 
• Gender performativity: the audience essentially performs ‘class’, and Adbusters allows middle class audiences to performatively explore elements of being working class anarchists (Champagne socialism!!!)
• A complicated identity is therefore constructed for the target audience, that resists conventional ways of categorising audiences

Alfred Hitchcock double page spread

• Representational group - ‘they are like snow capped volcanoes’. The lexis here not only others women, in a women’s lifestyle magazine no less!, but also refers to the dichotomy between British women appearing beautiful and innocent on the surface, while also being sexually available and promiscuous below the surface. This ideological perspective is quoted word for word, from privileged and respected male director Alfred Hitchcock, and reinforces patriarchal hegemonic viewpoints prevalent at the time
• “Nottingham has a thriving industry of pretty, flirty girls” heavily stereotyped 
• Binary opposition between the MES of Hitchcock's hegemonically attractive face with Grace Kelly’s highly hegemonically attractive and desirable face, and reinforces the highly hierarchical nature of patriarchal society, where powerful men get what they want, and only hegemonically beautiful women can succeed 
• Kelley’s seductive facial expression is a construction, of both the photography, makeup artist, and crucially Hitchcock, who boasts of ‘grooming’ her to help her find success 
• Preferred reading - Alfred Hitchcock is a privileged and respectable man who decides what is sexually attractive. Rather than questions the deeply sexist and patriarchal ideologies in the article, the contemporary target audience would be expected to agree with the hegemonic values of the article
• Kelley is presented as an aspirational stereotype of a successful woman, but she is not self-made. The article reinforces that Kelley was constructed by Hitchcock. Therefore, the female target audience can use this interview as an escapist fantasy. However, it only reinforces the highly sexist and patriarchal ideology that women’s success is completely based on meeting a rich and powerful man, and also being sexually available to him 

Question two - To what extent are the choices made by the producer reflected in the representations in the magazines you have studied? [30]

DAC introduction

Representation refers to how the producer of a media product re-presents social groups, issues and events. Representations always reflect the ideology of the producer. However, representations are a reconstruction of a reality, and can both shape the world and manipulate audiences to believe the ideological perspective of the producer. Additionally, representations cause stereotypes to form, which are used to help audiences understand media products, yet always are harmful, and reflect imbalances of power (Hall). In this essay, I shall argue that the producers of both magazines show a clear and obvious reflection of their ideologies, which is primarily encoded through simple, straightforward and often manipulative representations. However both magazines also use at times complicated representations, which ensure the engagement of their respective audiences. I shall refer to the October 1964 edition of Woman, a women’s lifestyle magazine which presents a straightforward ideology to a mass audience, and Adbusters, a complicated magazine that presents an unconventional mode of address to it’s unconventional, non-mainstream, niche activist audience 

Plan

Suits

Feminism 

MES

Lexis

Cartoon

Conventional/unconventional 

Binary opposition

Hall

Fetishism (sexual/commodity)

bell hooks 

Van Zoonen

Anchorage

Hyperrealism 

Modes of address

Levi-Strauss

Binary oppositions 

Narrative

Barthes

Stereotypes

Subheadings

Copy

Layout

Low production values

Colour

Typography

Codes and conventions

Intertextuality

Content

Adbusters - homeless spread

• A strongly fluid representation of gender is constructed through the MERS of the highly androgynous representation of an alternative and striking fashion model. This striking representation is both anchored and further constructed through the MES of the hand being placed over the mouth of the model, constructing a powerful symbolic code, and suggesting a masculine mode address. Challenging conventional representations of femininity, this representation constructs a highly performative representation that breaks down what it means to be a man or a woman. This constructs the ideology that gender is not a fixed identity, and reflects the idea that we live in a complex world. 
• The striking and androgynous model constructs a binary opposition with the hegemonically attractive homeless woman on the other side of the spread. Her representation is constructed through the combination of childlike clothing and the MES of the individual sitting on a grate in the middle of a busy street. Directly addressing the audience, and clutching an empty cup of coffee, this atypical representation of women reflects the unconventional ideologies of the magazine, and exists to elicit sympathy, and draw attention to a complex and particularly problematic representation
• The lexis of the article directly situated to the right of the model suggests the fear of starvation. However, the article explicitly refers to climate change, and not explicitly the issue of homelessness in large American cities. Through the combination of these seemingly unrelated elements, a complicated narrative and set of representations addresses the educated target audience, who are expected to absorb these complex representations and put them all together in a complex act of negotiation. The producers of adbusters therefore argue that the representations of gender, social issues and inequality are all related, and to understand one of them requires understanding all of them. This highly complicated mode of address clearly targets a more educated target audience. 
• However, certain audiences will doubtless decode this double page spread in a simple and straightforward way, that homelessness, climate change and inequality are all bad things. In this sense, even audiences who do not engage with these complex representations will ultimately still align with the preferred reading 

Woman - EXTRA SPECIAL

• A binary opposition is constructed between the challenging representation of women in the article, and the hegemonic norms and expectations of women living in the 1960s. Thi8s potentially feminist perspective may be to help the magazine stand out from its immediate competitors (for example Woman’s Own magazine), and may also hope to influence the ideology of the target audience in subtle yet progressive ways. However, this representation of feminism is simple, straightforward, and unlikely to cause a revolution. 
• The main image features the surprising MES of a woman standing on top of a man. However, even this image is encoded in such a way so as not to incite revolution. The dress code of the man is formal, and presents him in a position of power, even though he is being trodden underfoot. His facial expression connotes annoyance, and his pose, with his feet outstretched connotes femininity, which presents a humorous mode of address to the target audience. Additionally, the woman treading gently on the man’s head is both happy, and hegemonically attractive, creating an intertextual reference to the conventions of the contemporary sitcom. While the image can be negotiated as being revolutionary, it is far more likely that the preferred reading is that the situation is ridiculous and humorous
• Additionally, the main image takes on a fetishistic quality, and presents an exciting and alluring mode of address to the working class middle aged target female audience. 
• The persuasive lexis of “keep it under your hat” creates a mocking and conspiratorial mode of address, that suggests that in order to have power over men, women are able to indirectly influence their significant other, through the selection of costumes, purchasing items such as ties and hats, and reinforces the patriarchal hegemonic ideology that women are only able to control a small part of their lives
• The satirical overtone of the article makes fun of the idea of feminism and women’s liberation

Media language - Woman, Adbusters, and textual analysis

While many different questions could be asked for the magazine industry, your principal argument is likely to always be the same. So, before we go any further, what are the fundamental differences between woman and adbusters? 

In order to keep things simple, let's only use the front covers of the two set editions to demonstrate how to answer two media language questions. Both of these questions are 30 markers, and therefore should take 50 minutes to answer. 

Question one - To what extent have historical contexts influenced the genre conventions of the magazines you have studied? [30]

DAC introduction

Genre refers to the ways in which a media product is categorised by the producer. Genre is absolutely essential for audiences as it allows audiences to decode the messages and ideologies encoded in magazines by producers. It is also essential for producers as it allows for audiences to be effectively targeted. In this essay, I shall argue that genre conventions are affected by historical contexts to a massive extent, and in fact present the single greatest factor in their differentiation. Genres shift over time, in a process known as genre fluidity, and societies ideologies as to what is right and wrong help influence this shift. I shall explore this idea by making reference to an edition of Woman published in 1964. Woman is women’s lifestyle magazine, first published in the 1930s that targets a female, working class mass audience. I shall contrast Woman with an edition of adbusters published in 2016. Adbusters is an unconventional hybrid of art, politics and counterculture that targets a middle class, nice audience. 

Content 

Woman 

• The main cover line promises audiences an interview with notable film director Alfred Hitchcock. The pull-quote here and its selection is typical of the woman’s lifestyle magazine. “British Women have a special magic”. The target audience are therefore positioned in an affirmative mode of address, which is delivered by a respected man. This reinforces the dominant patriarchal ideology of the 1960s, an the audience, feeling complemented, will be more likely to engage with this genre of magazine. 
• The selection of the model who features in the main cover image is hegemonically attractive, yet is differentiated from the glamorous representation of Grace Kelley from within the magazine. Instead, the model , through her symbolically natural makeup and her conventional haircut convey an ideology of a sweet, relatable housewife stereotype. This relatable mode of address specifically targets the mainstream class audience with a comparatively easy to achieve and and aspirational role model. Her unnatural smile, however, is connotative of the performative nature of gender, and the expectation of living up to hegemonic, patriarchally enforced beauty standards. This stereotypical assumption is highly typical of the women's lifestyle magazine 
• Airbrushed standards of beauty

Adbusters

• The costume of the model on the front of adbusters connotes war. However, completely lacking anchorage, this potentially middle eastern man represents any number of current conflicts and issues that face the world today. This highly confusing mode of address… ETC ETC ETC 

Question two: Roland Barthes argued that meaning is constructed through a symphony of codes. Evaluate this semiotic theory. Make reference to the magazines you have studied to support your answers [30]

Knee jerk reaction - Barthe’s theory is extremely useful at understanding the complex meanings constructed by magazines, providing the audience a range of opportunities to decode the often subtle ideologies of the producer

Plan 

Binary oppositions

Hermeneutic codes

Symbolic codes

Proairetic codes

Referential codes

Low productions values

MES

Anchorage

Main image

Unconventional adbusters

Conventional Woman 

CU

Feature article 

Headline

Ms

Hari and makeup 

Symbolic annihilation 

Subheadings

Commodity fetishism 

Stuart Hall

Liesbet van zoonen: codes construct sexist ideology

Coverlines

Masthead

Collage

Mixed media

Lexis

Colour scheme

Polysemy

Detournement 

Baudrillard

Audience positioning

Conservatism vs nihilism 

Capitalism vs anti-capitalism 

Men vs women 

Rich vs poor

DAC introduction

DAC introduction

Roland Barthes argued that a symphony of codes construct meaning in every media product. Barthe’s theory is extremely useful at understanding the complex meanings constructed by magazines, providing the audience a range of opportunities to decode the often subtle ideologies of the producer. In order to explore the wildly different ways in which codes can construct meanings, I shall be exploring the examples of Woman magazine, the edition here published in 1964 and appealing to mass, female, heterosexual, white conservative UK audiences. I shall contrast the meanings constructed in Woman with a 2016 edition of Adbusters, a Canadian anticapitalist magazine that p-resents a rather more complex and even inscrutable set of ideological perspectives to a diverse, yet predominately radical worldwide audience. 

An excellent example as to how ideological perspectives can be encoded through codes can be found in the front cover of both magazines.

Content

Adbusters

• Extensive use of hermeneutic codes, especially the screaming man that occupies the main image, constructs a distressing, violent and confusing mode of address. This highly unconventional utilisation of codes here constructs an address to a certain niche and radical audience, while at the same time distancing a mainstream mass audience. This use of unconventional codification is fairly typical on non-mainstream and anti-capitalist magazines
• The deliberately low production values, encoded through the MES of a brown splatter that covers both the masthead and the ‘cover model’ resembles nothing less than a printing error. This is highly unconventional, because this rejection of perfect production standards does not typically appeal to a mainstream mass audience. However, this highly unconventional mode of address can attract a certain radical niche audience who reject both the ideologies of capitalism and of commodity fetishism. By rejecting hegemonic traditional values, adbusters demonstrate through a symphony of codes a rejection of standard codes and conventions

Woman

• The symbolic code of the makeup of the model constructs an ideological perspective that from a hegemonic perspective, the function of women is to look good for a perceived heterosexual audience. This highly conservative and sexist ideology is further anchored through the additional symbolism of the purple background, which connotes a feminine and highly stereotypical mode of address. While Adbusters wants us to destroy the world, Woman magazine directly implores the heterosexual female target audience to conform to and reinforce certain hegemonic and heteronormative values. By conforming to patriarchal ideological perspectives of the time it was made, this impossible yet aspirational image encourages the lowly educated target audience to buy the magazine week after week in the hope of meeting these beauty standards. Codes here are completely essential in constructing this ideology

Ideology, conflict and District 9

How are themes of conflict encoded in the opening sequence of District Nine (Blomkampf, 2009)

Throughout District Nine, themes of conflict are expertly communicated by the director in a variety of different ways. The primary site of conflict that exists in this film is between a race of immigrant aliens (‘prawns’) and the humans who have to deal with their sudden appearance. Deeply allegorical, the South African setting clearly makes symbolic reference to apartheid, and therefore takes the science fiction genre in exciting new directions.  

Cinematography

The use of handheld cinematography to establish the city of Johannesburg establishes themes of chaos and conflict. This is further anchored through the use of handheld digital cinematography, that emphasises a sense of grittiness, verisimilitude, and a found footage quality that is quite unconventional of typical Hollywood film. The lack of stability of the camera is anchored through the MES of signs that encourage segregation between humans and aliens. 

The handheld technique is used again for the oppressive found footage shots of the interior of the mothership. However, the crisp digital camera shots of the modern footage is here replaced with gritty, disgusting and distorted video footage that constructs an element of conflict. Once more, this is emphasised through the inclusion of POV cinematography, positioning the audience as a human, and constructing a sense of fear, revulsion and disgust. Clearly, cinematography here is instrumental in constructing a very real binary opposition between alien and human. 

The use of natural lighting is used throughout the opening montage to construct a sense of documentary realism. This sense of realness conflicts harshly with the absurdity of the narrative premise, and helps for the premise to seem both natural, and to emphasise the allegorical elements 

Allegory - a narrative that represents a real world situation in a figurative manner 

Diegetically The film initially takes the form of documentary, alternating between vox pop/talking head shots, and murky found footage. However, as the film develops, the cinematography looses these elements, and becomes more formally cinematic. This combination of documentary style with formal Hollywood inspired cinema is deeply unconventional. This is an example of cinema verite (literally ‘the cinema of the truth). However this constant flip flopping between different cinematographic modes constructs a highly confusing mode of address, and therefore emphasises themes of conflict 

The varying levels of quality between different found footage elements constructs a narrative where the MNU are clearly underprepared and understaffed for the upcoming transportation. Furthermore, by wildly cutting backwards and forth between the chaotic streets of Jo’Burg and the calm, clean interiors of the offices, a further binary opposition is construction

Mise-en-scene

A sense of professionalism is encoded through Wilkus’s costume. His tie, tied in a classic Windsor, along with his almost excessively neat hair connotes a sense of naivety that contrasts radically with the audience’s expectations of Johannesburg as a city of danger and with a high crime rate. Wilkus is clearly bureaucratic, and exists to do his job. Wilkus is physically intimidated by Koobus, who pushes him to the floor, and emphasises the conflict that exists within the South African law enforcement system.

The ‘Human Only’ are connotative of segregation, and would be particularly resonant for a south African audience 

The MES of District 9 itself, and in particular its rough architecture is an actual slum/township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The corrugated iron roofs a symbolic of poverty and oppression, and by using a real shanty town, the director is very much encoding themes of conflict

Almost every exterior shot is characterised through the MES of dirt, grime, and broken chunks of rubble scattered on the floor. Reminiscent of a war zone, these battered streets and alleyways connote a sense of displacement, and a sense of abandonment, that is continually at odds with the lives of the mostly white employees of the MNU. 

How are ideological state apparatuses and repressive state apparatuses represented in the ‘storming the township’ scene of District 9?

Note - you will need to revise Althusser's notion of ideological and repressive state apparatuses to understand these next few points. 

• This scene in particular takes a highly critical perspective of both RSAs and ISAs. 
• A binary opposition is constructed between the elaborate MES of the costumes of the private military forces, and the unarmed and potentially vulnerable aliens. 
• The proairetic code constructed through the pristine white truck of the MNU forces connotes an instrument of efficient violence . This notion of organised and structured violence is reinforced through the MES of abundant guns.
• The POV BEV shot of the paramilitary soldier peering out of the helicopter positions us directly as a repressive state apparatus. The brutish power of this man is reinforced and anchored through the pleonastic sound of the helicopter blades whirring, which serves to underline the sheer financial power of this organisation
• There is an interplay between the power of RSAs and ISAs in this scene. The MES of Wilkus’s clipboard and pen provides him with a false sense of legitimacy.  The idea of signing a sheet provides the event with a sense of authenticity, which is clearly contradicted by the presence of firearms. Furthermore, while Wilkus’s performance is often hilariously non-threatening, his dialogue is often laced with symbolic racism. He delightedly announces in the helicopter “this land is our land, please leave”, a clear allegorical reference to the South African apartheid movement. 
• Wilkus is the son in law of the CEO of MNU, and receives his power through highly nepotistic means. Wilkus is white, and is in charge of a series of rank and file black soldiers, who are positioned in considerably greater danger than him, proving that even with in the RSA system there are still strict hierarchies