Representation Investigation

Jordan Harrison

What is representation?

Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures.

The term refers to the processes involved as well as to its products. For instance, in relation to the key markers of identity - Class, Age, Gender and Ethnicity (the 'cage' of identity) - representation involves not only how identities are represented (or rather constructed) within the text but also how they are constructed in the processes of production and reception by people whose identities are also differentially marked in relation to such demographic factors. Consider, for instance, the issue of 'the gaze'. How do men look at images of women, women at men, men at men and women at women?

What theorists relate to representation?

Richard Dyer said the ‘How we are seen determines how we are treated, how we treat others is based on how we see them. How we see them comes from representation’. This can apply to media texts and how we see characters.

Laura Mulvey’s male gaze believed that film audiences have to 'view' characters from a perspective of a heterosexual male, and therefore focuses on how men may look at women in a particular way and the way females are portrayed within the media industry.

Stuart Hall stressed the role of social positioning in the interpretation of mass media texts by different social groups.

What theories relate to the horror genre?

Laura Mulvey’s male gaze fits reasonably well into the horror genre as most horror films see the woman as ‘weak’ and the victim. There is a gender difference as the male is seen usually as the dominant character and the woman as the victim, however some horror texts challenge this as it has been known for the female to overcome the villain.

The reception theory can also apply, this suggests that individuals can receive and interpret a texts depended on the demographics and psychographics.