Representation

REPRESENTATION

Literally, the term representation has several meanings as, representation- the action or an instance of representing or being represented, and representation- an image, model, or other depiction of something.

Representation- Reference :

1. Presence, bearing, air; Appearance; impression on the sight. 2. An Image, likeness, or reproduction in some manner of a thing; A material image or figure; a reproduction in some material or tangible form; in later use, a drawing or painting. (of a person or thing); The action or fact of exhibiting in some visible image or form; The fact of expressing or denoting by means of a figure or symbol; symbolic action or exhibition. 3. The exhibition of character and action upon the stage; the performance of a play; Acting, simulation, pretense. 4. The action of placing a fact, etc., before another or others by means of discourse; a statement or account, esp. one intended to convey a particular view or impression of a matter in order to influence opinion or action. 5. A formal and serious statement of facts, reasons, or arguments, made with a view to effecting some change, preventing some action, etc.; hence, a remonstrance, protest, expostulation. 6. The action of presenting to the mind or imagination; an image thus presented; a clearly conceived idea or concept; The operation of the mind in forming a clear image or concept; the faculty of doing this. 7. The fact of standing for, or in place of, some other thing or person, esp. with a right or authority to act on their account; substitution of one thing or person for another. 8. The fact of representing or being represented in a legislative or deliberative assembly, spec. in Parliament; the position, principle, or system implied by this; The aggregate of those who thus represent the elective body.

from The Oxford English Dictionary

Now, it is understood the representation basically involves re-presenting anything, keeping in focus all the dominant aspects of what is being represented. By braking down the word represent to re-present, it is now easier to understand the that representation takes place when something is presented as itself in different ways i.e  such as a portrait can represent the person being painted.

Representation has many levels. It can be done in accordance to objects, events, people and beings, and social norms and festivities. Even though this is a much debatable topic, according to most definitions, representation is basically a term given to 'presence' and 'depiction', mainly in appearance (having a visual aspect). We could make good use of this definition when it comes to representation in terms of media.

Representation in terms of Media

'By definition, all media texts are re-presentations of reality. This means that they are intentionally composed, lit, written, framed, cropped, captioned, branded, targeted and censored by their producers, and that they are entirely artificial versions of the reality we perceive around us'. The particular sentence basically folds up the entire idea of representation when creating a media product.

The artificial presentation of aspects of reality that we see on the television, the internet, newspapers and magazines etc, are what lead us to our level of understanding and prediction about everything around us. Media representation has broken the walls and limitations of knowledge for us. We create perceptions about things as they are represented and brought to us by the media. Taking as example, we know of traditions and latest fashions of one country while sitting in an other. Without the concept of representation in the media, our knowledge about the world would be very limited.

However, limitations to knowledge still occur. This is mainly because we gather information and create perceptions the way the media wants us to create. We believe what we see in a media text. Our minds make the set up in accordance to what we are experiencing while consuming any sort of media representation. Does that mean that what we see, read or hear by the media is always true?

LIMITATIONS TO MEDIA REPRESENTATION- an evaluation

We, as audiences, tend to except anything the way the media shows it. Yes, to some extent we do believe that representation in some situations is highly fictitious, but in the base, our ideologies are brought together by these representations of culture, traditions, thoughts, situations, history etc (reality). Therefore, we tend to ignore what is true and what is not while consuming any such thing. Not because we are generally indifferent in nature, but because the product is created in such a way that its message and ideology, be it true or false, is not negligible. The media depicts and creates, while we believe.

ANALYSIS OF REPRESENTATION

Representation is always directed to a certain topic. We can call these factors of representation. These factors are taken into account when presenting a media product. The most prominant characteristics of these factors are gathered and studied, therefore, this is study is used in representing these factors. Some of the most commonly used factors of representation are

- gender

- ethnicity and culture

- age

-race

- ability and disability

GENDER- starting with gender, this is the most important and likely considered factor of representation. The concept of differentiating between genders takes us closer to the actions, reactions, body language and characteristics and human beings. Not only by appearance of people we can represent gender, but also by objects. Certain things are considered 'masculine' and some are considered typically 'feminine'. For example, tough, hard, sweaty are typically masculine characteristics while soft, fragile, fragrant are typically feminine characteristics. Likewise, a sports car would reflect the characteristics of the male gender while a lip gloss and flowers would represent the female gender. In order to understand gender representation, it is important to know a little about representation of femininity first

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Representation of Femininity

Despite the fact that the philosophy of feminism has changed over the years with the concept of modernization and woman empowerment, the media still represents 'femininity' using the same characteristics as all times. These characteristics include

- Beauty

- size and physique

- sexuality

- emotionalism

- relationships

These are all the stereo typical elements of woman representation and these can be related to 'feminine' factor of representation mentioned above. Representation of masculinity is exactly the opposite, as summarized above.

Race, Ethnicity And Color

Race, ethnicity and color, in terms of representation are exposed by their genetically defined, biological characteristics, just as sexuality. However, they are also given their exaggerated stereo-typical elements as those of gender when it comes to showing them of within a media product.

Stereo-typing of age is the one of the most controversial representations in the media, even more than gender differentiation  This is mainly due to the fragmented cultural and racial ideologies of the world and the history related to all sorts of racial discrimination. Racial representation takes place mainly under the terms of history and social myth, perpetuated down the ages. The result of this act basically sets the depicted ideology of the represented race or culture which for those viewers who have never experienced in reality, can turn into a belief regarding that race. Accurate racial portrayal is a priority for political agendas, but it is not easy to remove this concept and process by all means of the media, mainly television.

Age

After gender and ethnicity, age is one of the most prominent factors of representation used for profiling people, and in accordance to that, objects as well as topics. With the different gaps of aging, comes a different way of stereo-typing. For example, small children and youngsters can have the following characteristics

- Innocence

- Indifference

- Laziness

- greed

- self-involvement

-impatience

On the other hand, the characteristics of the elderly will be completely different. These would consist more of love, care, knowledge, grumpy, out-dated, slow, unhealthy, dependent, miserly etc.

The representation of different ages can hence be related to objects. For example, colorful rooms, toys and video games would represent children, while sports cars, trendy fashions, make up, notebooks, high school lockers would represent  youngsters. However, heavy frames, newspapers, and an item of support i.e a stick or a a box of medicines would represent old people.

Ability and Disability

Ability and disability are still fairly easy to represent, in comparison to others. This is mainly because this topic, when represented, is done mainly under the circumstances of reality. This means there is not much exaggeration that has to take place when it comes to stereo typing. Characteristics of actual ability and disability are picked and shown within the media text. However, this is a vast topic since ability would remain the same usually but disability would differ since there are different sorts of disabilities that people possess. Some can be physical disabilities, some can be mental, whilst others can be a mix of both. Presentation of this relies on both, physical, biological and mental attributes of human beings as well as their social standing in accordance to these attributes.

My film's representation is quite different actually. We can say its a representation on ethnicity and culture but its mainly a representation of the rich and poor, mainly, the poor. My film explains the story of a poor girl striving to earn, working at a house as a maid since the age of 9, while what she really wants, is education.  I chose my own maid since no one would know how to represent 'her', better than 'herself'. This decision of mine will make me represent this ideology easier, since it will be original. Also, my film is also a representation of the 'third world' countries and their trend of keeping servants, depriving the young poor generation of education as since childhood their main achievement of life is to work for some rich family treaating them like, not to be 'offensive', but 'trash' ( used the term to quote peoples' stereo-typical perceptions about the lowest class).