Media Representation Analysis

1373 Words6 Pages
Representation This section of the essay will delve into the societal representations which the global media portray, through dominant discourses that help to frame and define our social understandings, opinions and attitudes of the world we live in. An emphasis will be shown on the effect these discourses have on our interpretations of people from other cultures, as well as people of another gender, or social position. These damaging discourses can serve to negatively affect sections of society by almost demonizing them by creating an ‘othering’ in which that section of society is thought of as less important, or undeserving. These sections of society are problematized minorities who may for example, be poor, homeless, mentally ill, ex-prisoners,…show more content…
We have already mentioned the power of the mass media in shaping and defining our opinions and attitudes towards the social world in which we live, but this section will delve into capacities of audiences in resisting and contesting dominant discourses which are presented to them. In media analysis, audiences are conceptualized as either passive or active in their consumption of media. Passive in the sense that they take in the messages without resistance or contention, and active, in the sense that they become an agency, in knowingly using their media content as gratification in meeting their social and psychological needs, an agency in become constructionist in that they can resist dominant discourses, and an agency in that they can become co-producers in the messages which are consumed. Three developmental stages of audience analysis have been noted as taking place in reaching our current understanding of audience reception (Alasuutari…show more content…
Sarah Thornton wrote in her book The Subcultures Reader (1995), “while youth have celebrated ‘underground’, the academics have venerated ‘subcultures’; where young people have denounced the ‘commercial’, scholars have criticized ‘hegemony’; where one has lamented ‘selling out’, the other has theorized ‘incorporation.’” Subcultures are used by the young to distinguish themselves against undifferentiated masses. Subcultural ideology adds a value to the status of the people involved in them, it is progressive in nature, being of a stance of non-conformity and a step away from

More about Media Representation Analysis

Open Document