Representation

Mediation Mediation is when the media take something that is real, for example a person or an event and they are able to change it to produce whatever product we end up with after it is changed. Examples of mediation is the new Oasis album, it has been mediated to get to the point of us forming the ideas before it had even come out. Magazines have reported on the group and began to create our opinions for us before it had been released, engineers and had changed the sounds depending on what knew would appeal better to the audience. This example shows how mediation can take a simple reality and change it to produce a specific effect.

Three types of mediation

Selection This is whatever ends up on the screen; other things would have been left out. For example specific articles have been selected out of a variety of stories as the producer decides for the audience what they would find most interesting.

Organisation The various elements will be organised in a way that is different to real life mise-enscene and organisation of narrative.

focusing This is a result of organisation, where we focus on certain articles or pictures instead of others.

What is representation? 1. Definition; describe or depict it/describing or portraying/ to place a likeness of it before us in our mind. 2. Definition; symbolise, stand for, to be a specimen of or to substitute for.

The reflecting view of representing When we are representing something, we are taking that things true meaning and trying to replicate it into the minds of the audience, for example like a reflection.

The intentional view This is the opposite of reflecting view, we are being represented someone elses view of something and what they use to represent it for example the words or pictures, mean what they intend it to mean.

The constructionist view Constructionists feel that we as individuals dont just accept a representation as the truth or the version of the truth as we make up our own minds on such things. They believe that representation is a mixture of; 1. 2. 3. 4. The things itself. The opinions of the people doing the representation The reaction of the individual to the representation The context of the society in which the representation is taking place.

Individuals and society are an enormously difficult area. In society there are different people who have different ideas of for example what normal is. Some kinds of ideas dominate and are shared by the majority of people. These views on how people should be and how they should behave are an ideology and if an ideology is shared by the majority of people in culture it is called the dominant ideology.