Grace Watson
4 August 2021
Media Studies
Week 21 - Power in the Media Notes
•
Media Representation
The stories we tell (the narrative that is re-enforced), the stereotypes we perpetuate, all work together to shape our beliefs about ourselves and group identity. Essentially, "he who controls the narrative, holds the power".
Stuart Hall's Representation Theory:
- describes that what something actually, truly means doesn't actually exist "until it has been represented in the media". The media "literally gives meaning to these events".
"Representation isn't an after occurrence, it's a constitutive one."
"It has no fixed meaning, no real meaning in the obvious sense, until it has been represented." - Stuart Hall
The mass media has such power of how we, as audiences and society understand and view different matters.
Basically, media producers are having the power to affect how we perceive things.
- but audiences "can reject these ideas if they don't agree with them".
- The media producers are "attempting to fix a meaning for the majority of society" - to maintain dominance and social supremacy. The media depends on the agenda of the person who made the media.
- So, he suggested that audiences "interrogate" a text, who made it and why they made it. "What purpose it serves" and how it "furthers the producers agenda". "Only then can we strive to combat stereotypes that pigeonhole entire social groups and create a sense of otherness or alienation in society".
Stuart Hall also has a RECEPTION THEORY:
- which involves and discusses the dominant, preferred and negotiated readings.
- "the media generally tends to repeat representations of people or groups of people over and over again" and the effect of these repetitions build up over time. So essentially, when audiences constantly see a specific group of people repeatedly being represented as being a certain way, they will most probably may eventually believe it as being the and "accept it as being realistic" - because "its been engraved into your bran".
- He believes these repeated ideas/representations cultivate our perceptions and change our behaviour over time. They create an idea in society of what is mainstream.
- The way groups are presented over and over again will eventually become the "dominant ideology in society".
Gerbner's Cultivation Theory:
- suggests that people who are constantly exposed to media for long periods of time are likely to perceive the world as it is presented by the media they're continuously consuming - affecting their attitudes and behaviours.
- media generally tends to repeat representations of people or groups of people over and over again. The effect of these repetitions build up slowly over time, and begin to influence and "change our perceptions", "cultivate or grow our ideas", and "create an idea in society of what is mainstream".
- it's like the content becomes "engraved into your brain".
- what is constantly represented to people/audiences in the media becomes the 'dominant ideology'.
(example if a specific group is always, constantly represented negatively - that becomes the dominant ideology).
The mean world syndrome theory by Gerbner
- the whole entire media context matters - how one kind of story blends into another to reinforce a distinct view of the world.
- It essentially discusses/looks at the question of the relationship between television and the fear of violence.
It was found that people who watch television are more likely to fear violence than those who don’t.
Often the more that people watch violence on television, the more fearful and anxious they become of the world and what could happen to them.
Violent crime dropped remarkably in 2008.
The main question asked why the fear of violence is rising when the actual threat of violence is falling.
If we look at how COVID is covered on television, the main message in New Zealand is to “be kind” - yet people are still scared of contracting the virus themselves - panic buying. Those that watch the most news are the most fearful.
This contradicts McLuhan’s theory which states that the medium is more important than the actual media by saying that the more people watch the media, the more and more affected they are.
THE DIVERSITY
REPORT
"Audiences showed up for diverse films
in theaters, online”.
THE HOLLYWOOD DIVERSITY REPORT “tracks
how well women and minorities are represented in four key industry employment
categories: lead actors, total cast, writers and directors.”
-
It’s the “only study of its kind to incorporate analysis of how
top films perform among different racial groups”.
= “All four job categories showed
progress in 2020, but women and people of colour are still underrepresented in
critical behind-the-camera jobs”.
= “it’s encouraging to see
skyrocketing numbers this year in front of the camera” – Darnell Hunt – dean at
UCLA.
= Women made up 26% of film
writers.
= And 20.5% of directors.
= Minority groups made up 25.4%
of directors.
= Only 25.9% of film writers
were of colour in 2020.
= Clearly, behind-the-camera
roles aren’t looking as diverse, yet progress definitely being made which is
something to be proud of!
= In 2020 28.8% of films had
the highest level of cast diversity – a 50% increase from 2011’s stats =
IMPROVEMENT!
According to Ana-Christina Ramon
– the report’s co-author and director of research – the report finds that “women
directors and director of colour have overwhelmingly diverse productions:, but
the problem now is that “these films often have smaller budgets” than those
with male and/or white directors.
“There is a clear
underinvestment of films made by, written by, and led by women and people of
colour”.
STATS SHOWING SOME IMPROVEMENT:
-
Women made up 47.8% of lead roles in 2020.
GREAT STATS/QUOTES:
= “Many of the big blockbuster
films planned for 2020 had their release dates pushed to 2021 and beyond”
because of the effects of the worldwide pandemic.
= 56% of the top 185 films of
2020 were released via streaming platforms only in response to the worldwide
pandemic.
= “The global home and mobile
entertainment market increased to a record $68 billion” in 2020 – people watching
at home.
= “Latino and Black adults, in
particular, consumed online content at higher levels than other groups” during
2020.
In today’s day and age there’s a controversial discussion
regarding whether or not social media companies have the right to silence
voices on their platforms. In Jan 2021 Donald Trump and his supporters were
silenced by his suspension from both Twitter and Facebook. Individuals who
support this suspension believe that social media platforms need to protect the
eyes of their users and “stop the spread of misinformation”, while opposes
strongly believe that while there’s “no denying that the President has posted
information that is far from truthful”, censorship in any form “is unacceptable”.
That social media platforms have a “moral and legal responsibility to allow
those conversations to transpire”, and whoever disagrees can “simply close the
widow and walk away”.
I would agree. While not everything posted online is helpful or truthful, I believe it is the responsibility of every internet user to decide what they agree or disagree with and then be peaceful with their personal decision without having to form riots or online arguments. Censoring what is posted on social media is dangerous as it reinforces certain world views and beliefs and shuns others, almost becoming a form of propaganda, in a sense. We’re giving the producers of media too much power over what we, as the audiences, feel and believe.
In January 2021 Trump was suspended from Twitter and soon after from Facebook as well.
Amazon shut down web servers to Parler because it had attracted a large conservative following.
“President Trump and his supporters have largely been silenced”.
A lot of people actually believe social media platforms “have the right to censor content within their platform(s)” “to stop the spread of misinformation”.
1 in 4 believe there should be MORE censorship on the Internet and 1 in 3 believe there should be LESS.
While there is “no denying that the President has posted information that is far from truthful, the issue is whether that actually warrants his being silenced”.
It’s coming to a point now where the government is being silenced, and Trump’s silencing is an example of this.
There are people who strongly believe that “any form of censorship, any form, is unacceptable,” and that social media platforms have a “moral and legal responsibility to allow those conversations to transpire, organically” – essentially not censor them. If the viewer disagrees, then it’s “their right to simply close the widow and walk away”.
If this silencing had to happen in reverse, people would NOT be happy.
People believe that the act of these social platforms where they “deliberately censor, manipulate, and influence an entire U.S. Election to attain their own personal political objectives is not only criminal, but a form of treason”.
“social platforms have a moral and legal responsibility to deliver that information clearly, organically, and without political censorship”.
According to Pew Research Center, 72% of American adults feel
social media platforms have too much power in politics today, most believing
that these online sites really don’t need any more political power. Interestingly
though, Americans favour “more, not less,” the regulation of these major technology
companies.
-
- According to an online source, “stories today that pass as newsworthy differ dramatically from news stories covered by the three major news networks during the 1960s and 1970s” (ABC, NBC, CBS).
- All news outlets are owned or controlled by these six corporations:
- Comcast
- Disney
- 21st Century Fox
- Viacom
- ATT
- CBS
These six corporations engage in “yellow journalism” - they use eye-catching headings and sound bites to attract viewers. “Gone are the days of well-researched, factual reporting” which have now been replaced with “scandals and sensationalism”.
There is no diversity in the news since all news outlets are basically owned by the same corporations.
“ABC News spent more time in one week on the birth of the royal baby than it spent on the climate crisis in the entire year.”
- Essentially, news today is more about making us feel good than telling us the real facts.
- “We need to see the reality of climate change...not the reality TV shows”.
- Noam Chomsky was quoted describing how “He who controls the media controls the mind of the public”. Because these people are able to essentially “manufacture consent”.
- Malcom X said that media is “the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty more innocent, and that’s power”.
- “they control the minds of the masses”.
- Younger generations “do not visit newsprint or mainstream television news” - they find their news on social media.
Disney owns:
- ESPN, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and Disney + (which has 100 million subscribers).
It owns 67% stake of Hulu, and Comcast owns 33% stake of Hulu.
Comcast owns
- Universal Studios and Sky
Netflix is becoming its own empire, essentially, with 208 million subscribers.
It’s actually what caused Disney to start Disney +.
In the above video, the presenter discusses how rappers, "producers, artists and musicians alike are progressively beginning to dismantle gender roles and the stereotypical expectations that come with them.” In previous years, being numb to emotions, “hard” and extra-masculine have all been a “staple of the hip-hop community”, and it's been believed that the more masculine a man is, the better. Within the hip-hop genre it was (and still sometimes is) very common to hear homophobic comments and see very stereotypical depictions of men being manly, and thug-like, with some songs deliberately questioning another man’s masculinity.
Both the visuals and the words in hip-hop songs often depict what society deems as being ‘normal’.
Back in 1990, the song “Ya Strugglin'” attacked black men for displaying feminine gender traits.
There are now several individuals globally who have begun to believe that gender is, more than anything else, about something you relate to and “what feels right” to the person. Dot Brauer believes gender to exist on a spectrum, explaining how one should "imagine the spectrum and imagine the most feminine expression you have ever seen and most masculine you have ever seen and just sort of imagine where you are on that," and it’s for this reason that many hip-hop artists now are beginning to “transition into a style of music that expresses more of what feels right as opposed to what traditionally looks or sounds right.” This means that now more than ever, artists are beginning to express a very clear sense of vulnerability in their lyrics.
Artists such as Kalani, Young Thug and Future have, together, paved a new way of “challenging the culture” of gender expression. A very well known rapper was quoted pointing out that you “can be a gangsta with a dress, or you can be a gangsta with baggy pants. You don’t have to feel like there’s no such thing as gender.” It's comments like this one that are breaking down the typical stereotypical images of how a man or woman should dress, and how they should appear on a screen.
Women are generally very sexualised in rap and hip hop music videos, and often use to be the men's 'accessories' in years passed. Now while this does still take place in some instances, women have begun to rise up themselves within the industry, and create their own music. Examples include Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj.
- This essay would also include your research about the representation of Black people in film.
Netflix claims that they are representing when it “
comes “Cinema is still subjected to the Male Gaze.”
Women are 4 times more likely to be shown naked. Male leaders are far more visible.
Some of the reasons for this can be seen in who is making these movies - predominantly men.
Films such as Pink Panther are working this:
“Stop objectifying and sexualising women on screen”. - but unfortunately this is uncommon.
Women and black people are “tired of seeing themselves...as the kind of backdrop to the more important storyline involving usually a white male character.”
An example of where women are represented unrealistically is in Jurassic World where the women spends ages running around in “6-cm stilettos”, and the source feels there’s no need for that, because we, as audiences, “want to see our real experiences reflected on the screen”.
And then interestingly in contrast the Jurassic Lark from from 1993 represents women wearing Timberland boots and the “female teenager being a computer programmer” - it’s like, in one way, we’ve gone backwards.
Ladybird was a film “directed and scripted by women” and a lot more women were able to identify and relate to it.
I think “probably the best female filmmaking is coming out of independence cinema” - “Hollywood still really has to catch up in that sense”.
The Bechdel Test:
- “is that in a film you have 2 female characters in a scene talking to each other about something that doesn’t involve men”.
- A brilliant way to think about what you, as a writer, are doing. Thinking about if you’re portraying powerful women that can actually hold conversations about something other than men.
DEFINITIONS FOR THESE ESSAYS:
= Representation
= Stereotypes
= Ideology
A system of ideas which forms the basis of economic or political theory.
= Hegemony
The leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group, over others.
Often people with more money have the power/means to infiltrate the lives of others. That ruling class - the people who are essentially controlling what is listed on the media.
People don’t always intend on representing themselves, but it happens.
Netflix claims that they are representing when it “comes to black leading actors, directors, writers and producers, explaining how for them it's not just a moment but rather a "movement".
No comments:
Post a Comment