Why study media representations? Media representations shape adolescents’ perceptions of experience—their beliefs about gender, class, and race, their assumptions about what is valued in society, and their notions of urban, suburban, and rural life. However, it is important to recognize that adolescents are not simply passive dupes who accept all of these representations without some interrogation. As James Tobin (2001) argues, students are able to resist these representations, resistance that is often specific to adopting stances valued in certain context, particularly is they can parody or adopt creative alternatives to representations.

Creating a critical context in the classroom where students practice interrogation of representations helps them acquire a critical stance. In adopting this stance, they learn to examine the underlying value assumptions inherent in a representation and whether they accept or reject those assumptions. For example, studying local television news representations of urban landscapes as rife with crime and danger leads them to challenge these representations as serving to reify suburban viewers’ presuppositions about the city as dangerous and problematic, beliefs held by many suburban adolescents.

Students learn to adopt a critical stance by recognizing how the media serves to “mediate” or define ways of defining the world and their own identities. For example, the so-called “reality” television shows portray ways in which the sensationalized, edited forms of television itself defines what program participants assume to be appropriate ways of behaving on television. Audiences may then assume that these program participants are behaving in a manner considered to be “normal” — normal in terms of how television represents “reality.”

Adolescents may also recognize that media texts represent idealized role models or identities that shape their own self-images. For example, in the program, “The Merchants of Cool,” adolescent females who are preparing to be “supermodels” draw their sense of identities from images of fashion magazine models, images that mediate their own self-perceptions.

Adolescents may also recognize the ways in which their perceptions of gender, class, and race may be shaped by norms portrayed in the media. For example, in analyzing the portrayal of diversity on television, students may note the lack of diversity on television in terms of white, middle-class identities as the norm. Research on the level of diversity of characters and people in prime-time children’s television programs by Children Now found a lack of diversity:

According to Children Now’s study, Fall Colors 2001-02, prime time remains overwhelmingly white, with people of color appearing largely in secondary and guest roles. Whites account for 73% of the prime time population, followed by African Americans (16%), Latinos (4%), Asian/Pacific Islanders (3%), and Native Americans (.2%).

The lack of diversity as well as the portrayals of people of color engaged in deviant social practices influences children’s racial perceptions:

When asked to cast television roles from a collection of photographs of diverse people, children had very definite ideas of what a “good” person and a “bad” person looked like. After choosing an African American for the part of a criminal, one white boy said, “he just looks like the type of criminal that would probably steal or something.” Children who chose Latinos for the criminal role explained it was because he “looked mean” or “like he could kill someone.” When casting a white person for the part of a police officer, one African American boy stated that he did so because, “he looks intelligent” (Children Now, 1998).

Using analysis of representations to construct their own representations

Another important reason for studying representations is that students can then think about ways in which they create their own representations of experiences, topics, issues, groups, world, etc. For example, in studying how ads use images to represent phenomena, students can then create their own ads employing images in a similar manner. Rather than simply studying different types of video shots, angles, or editing techniques, for example, students learn about these characteristics of film as they use video production tools to best represent their intended meanings.

Students can use multimedia software tools such as Adobe Premiere™ and Avid Cinema™ for video editing; Adobe Photoshop for image editing; SoundEdit™ for sound editing; Adobe Pagemill™, Claris HomePage™, and Netscape Navigator/Composer™ for web site authoring; and Microsoft Powerpoint™, Hyperstudio™, Authorware™, or Storyspace™ for hypermedia presentations. These tools can be used for larger projects in which students collect, store, edit, and construct links between many images, sounds, texts, or video. For example, one high school student used the computer-based video-editing program, Adobe Premiere™, to create Quicktime™ videos as part of inquiry project on romance:

My artifact was a video that I created by cutting parts of the movie Days of Thunder and pasting them together. I then played the movie to the song “The Distance” by Cake. While I was watching the movie to find clips, I was mostly looking for scenes that involved two people who were romantically involved. I was also looking for action scenes because I was trying to relate the social worlds of sports and romance. The video part of the artifact turned out great. It contained scenes that I felt showed a direct relationship between sports and romance. The clips included many shots of race cars whizzing by. There were also many shots of the two main characters separated. What I was trying to do was show how the two worlds related to each other. I felt that I was successful in doing so, because I thought that my artifact showed how athletics can play a big role in romantic relationships (Beach & Myers, 2001, p. 87).

Students may also use audio or visual tools to represent their perspectives. In creating documentary representations, they may conduct audio, photo, or video interviews to capture people’s perceptions of a world or experience. For example, one student used photos to capture her relationships with her friends:

It is a tradition that all my friends come over before the dance and get ready together. Then we take a group picture of all of us on my porch and go to the dance . . . I also have included pictures of friends in the hallway. The hallway in school is where most of the socializing gets done, either before homeroom, during classes, or after school. It is noticeable that the two girls are friends because they have their arms around each other . . . The other picture that I have is at Hi-Way Pizza. The two girls look like they are good friends to me because they have chosen to come out together and spend time with one another. The two girls also have matching coats in the background of the picture which could suggest that they went shopping together before (Beach & Myers, 2001, p. 95).

As they are creating these representations, students are learning how to critique representations through critically examining their own uses of tools.

Module 5: Word document

What are Media Representations?

Why Study Media Representations?

Studying Media Representations

Methods for Analyzing Media Representations

Representation and Censorship

Representations and Public Relations / Promotions

Studying Representations of Social Types or Groups

Representations of Femininity

Masculinity

Masculinity and Sports

Gays / Lesbians

Racial and Ethnic Groups

Class

Representations of Different Age Groups or Occupations

Occupations

Institutions

Instructional Activity

References

Teaching Activities