AS Sociology Revision Mapping Mass Media

1 mass MediaRevisionMappingAS Sociology The role of the mass Media in representationsof age, social class, ethnicity,gender, sexuality and disability . Chris. Livesey 2007: MappingAS Sociology For AQAMass MediaRepresentationsConnor (2001): ..representation is notjust about the way the world is presentedto us but also about how we engage withmedia is, therefore,just as much about audience interpretationas it is about the portrayals that areoffered to us by the Media .Major key markers of identity include class, age,gender, ethnicity and disability -'CAGED'.Chandler (2001):Representation refers tohow the Media constructsrealities in terms of certainkey markers of social groups are representedfocuses on the role of the Media interms of how representations of, forexample, gender, contribute to thecreation of social identities ofmasculinity and femininity.

2 What we reinterested in here, therefore, is how themedia uses representations for a varietyof intended and unintended purposes,to construct social the real world thesekey categories aren tself-contained; awoman, for example,may be representeddifferently in themedia depending onher class, age or partialrepresentations of, forexample, a social group (suchas white people ); they involveoversimplified expressions ofgroup characteristics andusually accentuate somefeature in a negative way(although sometimes groupscan be positively stereotyped). Media stereotypes are not necessarily used in a simpleideological or biased way (to demonise a particular socialgroup, for example).

3 Often - as in television advertisingwhere a message has to be transmitted and understood inabout 30 seconds - they re used to ensure a wide audiencequickly understands the background to something. In thisrespect, stereotypes are often used as codes to familiarisean audience with particular encapsulates the idea of the way socialidentities constructed through the Media areused to lock people into identities such as male or female .TransgressiveStereotypesSocialCodes2 Revision MappingAS Sociology For AQAMass MediaSocial ClassThis concept - originallydeveloped byMulvey (1975)as a way of expressing theidea of male power and controlover female representation inHollywood films - can beapplied to understandrepresentations of social classacross a range of (2004) suggests classvisibility or invisibility is related tojournalistic (and audience)newsvalues.

4 "People in [American] newsrooms each day either choose tocover or not to cover storiesdepending on whether they think aparticular audience will be many cases, if the victim of acrime is poor, the story won't begiven the attention it would if it weresomeone with wealth or influence .Where some groups (such as theworking classes) feature in themedia they re restricted to a fairlynarrow range of appearances orsituations. Apositive area is sport(especially male professional sport).On the negative side, there is theassociation with crime and industrialunrest. Middle class representationsare broader, involving a wider rangeof representations acrossprofessional employment, taking inwork, sport and cultural associations(music, fashion and so forth).

5 Stereotypes relating to classabound in the Media - from lovable working class cheekychappies (Alfie Moon inEastEnders) to sinister andshadowy upper class cliques .TheGlasgow Media Group(1977)argued lower social classes had lessdirect access to the Media and lesscontrol over how they were that tell us something aboutsomeone - such as their class orsexual orientation. Here, social classis represented through a number ofsubtle - and not very subtle - (2003), for example, noteshow the replica football shirt isused throughout the Media asshorthand for working class - inmuch the same way the businesssuit and the hand-made suit denotemiddle and upper class respectively.

6 The GazeThe Media generally presents information through theeyes of middle class professionals or upper class : News images of the working classes are oftenframed in term of conflict, whereas fictional images oftenreflect idealised images of community . And reporting involves arepresentation of reality thatFiske(1987) calls thetransparency fallacy -a rebuttal of the idea news reportingrepresents a neutral window on theworld , reflecting events as they MappingAS Sociology For AQAMass MediaAgeAge - perhaps more than anyother key marker - involvesdifferent categories focusedon different interests,attitudes and et al(2004): Childrenregarded as a special audience indebates about broadcasting - they aresubject to particularly strong forms ofcensorship which, in part, reflects theway children are viewed in our society -as a particularly vulnerable group,easily influenced by the represented as being aproblem (rebellious, disrespectful,ungrateful, sex-obsessed, ).

7 Elderly traditionally represented associal problems(as a burden for example) and portrayedunsympathetically - as senile, ill, unattractive the Media , by-and-large, arecontrolled by adults (and mainlymiddle-aged, white, male adults), it snot surprising to find children, youngpeople and the elderly are largelyviewed through the eyes of this urged tocontrol their children suse of the situations where childrenprobably know more aboutthe medium than theirparents, faith in technology(guardian software /censorship software etc.)replaces faith in vision of uncorrupted youth fallingprey to sexual predators via chatroomsand the like is almost Biblical (youth asthe Garden of Eden and Paedophiles asthe snake) - youth as an arena for folkdevils and moral category of youth isrepresented through variousmedia in ambivalent terms;representations are constantlychanging, reflecting the variousways youth can be a highlyfragmented category- in terms ofmedia stereotypes at elderly have, at least in therecent past, been something ofan invisible group as far as themedia are concerned.

8 This maybe changing because of:There are more elderly people(currently 15 million over 55) as apercentage of the overallpopulation than ever before;Willis(1999) notes they are the heaviestviewers of Grey Pound (the amountof money the elderly haveavailable to spend on consumergoods) is increasingly attractiveto the advertisers who fundlarge areas of the British mass Media is a relatively new phenomenon in oursociety and, as the people who own, control and work inthe Media grow older it s possible their interests arereflected in new and different representations of the (1999): ..olderpeople were often crudelystereotyped in them as grumpy,interfering, lonely, stubbornand not interested in women are often seenas silly , older men as miserable gits.

9 In somesituations, middle-aged orelderly men are used to adda sense of seriousness /moral gravity to a situation(as in the case of newsreaders, for example).Different age groups are neatly compartmentalised into (2001) notes how ghettoes existwithin agegroups andWillis (1999) notes, in terms of television: Everyoneover the age of 55 tends to be lumped together as if they were acompletely homogeneous group .Classification The GazeStereotypesInvisibilityGhettoisation ControlTechnicalSocialAgendasNormalityAf fluencePopulationProfessionals4 Revision MappingAS Sociology For AQAMass MediaAlmost invariably represented in terms ofheterosexuality and, while the wilder rep-resentations of gay males and femalesare largely a thing of the past, homosex-ual relationships are rarely portrayed asbeing part of a normal gender : At its most obvious, the male gaze refersto areas such as pornography or the use offemale bodies in advertising.

10 Less obviously, itrefers to how images of women are presentedfrom both the male perspective and for thegratification of a male audience - the viewerbecomes aspectator (orvoyeur in some cases),who looks, through male eyes, at womenreduced toobjects (a series of body parts).Body-shape - traditionally for women but,increasingly, for men (although men areallowed a greater range of culturally-acceptable body shapes). This forms part ofwider cultural debates about beauty and howwomen, in particular, should look (especiallyin terms of the unstated assumptions thatfemale beauty is both heterosexual andlargely for the benefit of the male gaze).