Attitude, context and representation

Today's task - To review the last session, to research gay rights in the UK, and to analysis the representation of gay men in Attitude. 

There are three parts to this session. Make sure you complete each before you move on the the next.

Exam link - both context and detailed case studies are essential to demonstrating your knowledge and understanding!

Review

Click here to access the notes from the initial analysis last lesson, and review not only the key analytical points we made, but also the final conclusions we came to. Please make notes from the notes. It's a great key skill!

Research

The simple act of teaching this subject would have been illegal right up until 2003. While it seems crazy now, the 'promotion' of homosexuality by teachers was seen to be immoral and had to be legislated against in law. To put this in to context, this is the year I started sixth form, and I'm not that old. 

This legislation presents many assumptions. Firstly it presents a heteronormative viewpoint, where to be heterosexual is the 'normal' way of living. Secondly, it assumes that it is possible to change someone's sexuality through 'promoting' viewpoints. How study of the effects model during the videogame unit proved exactly how how ridiculous (and dangerous) this viewpoint is.

Key term: heteronormativity - "the belief that heterosexuality...is the norm or default sexual orientation" (definition ripped straight from Wikipedia)

Read through this article, and make notes on the key dates on laws and events related to gay people in the UK

Stereotypes, inequality and othering

Potential exam question: Stuart Hall argued that stereotypes present an inequality in our attitudes and our society. To what extent can we apply Hall's representational theory to Attitude Online?

For Stuart Hall, stereotypes are not just a way for producers to create meaning and for audiences to decode meaning, but they also represent an inequality in attitude and society. By presenting a group as different, even if done so in a positive way, the group are represented as different other. For Hall, this process of othering and stereotyping is used to construct and to reinforce hierarchies of power in society.

Go to Attitude Online and click around. Select three examples of stereotypical representations of gay men. Copy and paste these in to your blog. analyse:

1 - The representation of gay men that is presented
2 - How the representation is constructed through media language (use the textual analysis toolkit)
3 - The message that is presented about gay men
4 - The impact that this representation of gay men may have on the target audience (gay men)

These points essentially work out as a point, evidence analysis paragraph! This structure should be used on each and every representation question that you answer. And you should use it to answer the above, sample exam question!

 Options

Either plan an entire answer, or write a detailed paragraph answering the above question with an explicit example from Attitude.

Extension

Write an entire 25 minute (15 mark) response to the above question, and publish the answer on your blog.