Reps Essay Writing

Media Studies Representations Building the essay

objectives • P3 • Plan essay to fulfill Assessment Criteria for UNIT4 reps. • Write paragraphs from structure and assess using mark scheme • P4 • Write whole essay

Essay question • EITHER • (a) Can any contemporary media representations be considered ‘alternative’? • OR • (b) Consider why a social group or place you have studied is represented by the media in particular ways. • As a group you have 3 minutes to deconstruct and decide on a question

Identify 6 potential paragraphs • Individually write them on the sheets provided. 3 minutes • Now visit the others sheets and rate the topics 1 to 6 (6 being best) • Suggest one or more texts which they could use for their BEST paragraph (preferably choose texts we have ALL studied) • Look at the rating of your paragraphs topics and the suggestions for texts - what ideas if any does this give you?

Make a plan this way • Topic of paragraph: what the paragraph will deal with. • Texts to be referenced: not just the films, also specific moments from scenes, the trailer, characters, lines of dialogue, shots, mise en scene, soundtrack etc. • Points to be made – SHEP – MIGRAIN

• Theory: Who? What? Why? Gramsci, Dyer, Hall etc.

Revisit mark scheme for UNIT 4 • What are the requirements for levels 5/6? • Are you addressing these in your paragraph plans? • Review plans and change accordingly

Hall’s codes •

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dominant (or 'hegemonic') reading: the reader fully shares the text's code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading (a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious intention on the part of the author(s)) - in such a stance the code seems 'natural' and 'transparent’. negotiated reading: the reader partly shares the text's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes resists and modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests (local and personal conditions may be seen as exceptions to the general rule) - this position involves contradictions. oppositional ('counter-hegemonic') reading: the reader, whose social situation places them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, understands the preferred reading but does not share the text's code and rejects this reading, bringing to bear an alternative frame of reference (radical, feminist etc.) (e.g. when watching a television broadcast produced on behalf of a political party they normally vote against).

Gramsci • Theory of Hegemony • Refresh your memories: what is the main theory why might it be relevant to our essay?

Write essay • You have 45 minutes to complete.

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•Alvarado, Manuel, Robin Gutch & Tana Wollen (1987) Learning the Media. London: Macmillan •Diawara, Manthia (1998) 'Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification and Resistance'. In Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen (Eds) Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 845-54 •Dines, Gail & Jean M Humez (Eds.) (1994) Gender, Race and Class in Media. Newbury Park: Sage •Dyer, Richard (1993) The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation. London: Routledge •Dyer, Richard (1997) White. London: Routledge •Dyer, Richard (2000) 'White'. In Robert Stam & Roby Miller (Eds) Film and Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 733-51 •Ferguson, Robert (1998) Representing Race: Ideology, Identity and the Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press •Friedman, Lester (Ed) (1991) Unspeakable Images: Ethnicity and the American Cinema. Urbana: University of Illinois Press •Gaines, Jane (2000) 'White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory'. In In Robert Stam & Roby Miller (Eds) Film and Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 715-32 •Hall, Stuart (1997) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Newbury Park, CA: Sage •Hall, Stuart (2000) 'Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation'. In Robert Stam & Roby Miller (Eds) Film and Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 704-14 •hooks, bell (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation. London: Turnaround •Neale, Steve (1993) 'The Same Old Story: Stereotypes and Difference'. In Manuel Alvarado, Edward Buscombe & Richard Collins (Eds) The Screen Education Reader London: Macmillan, pp. 41-7 •Nichols, Bill (1981) Ideology and the Image: Social Representation in the Cinema and Other Media. Bloomington: Indiana University Press •Stam, Robert & Louise Spence (1985) 'Colonialism, Racism and Representation'. In Bill Nichols (Ed) Movies and Methods, Vol. 2. Berkeley: University of California Press •Tagg, John (1988) The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. Basingstoke: Macmillan

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