Research on Representations & Stereotypes/ Media Effects

Represenations and Stereotypes:

Represenation is the process whereby the media construct versions of people, places and events through media texts to an audience. A stereotype is the social classificatin of a group of people by identifying common characteristics. This is applied in a generalised way, such that judgements and assumptions are made about the group concerned.

'Issues and Debates'

Media stereotypes are inevitable, especially in the advertising, entertainment and news industries, which need as wide an audience as possible to quickly understand information. Stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people—usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation.

But stereotypes can be problematic. They can:

• reduce a wide range of differences in people to simplistic categorizations
  
  
• transform assumptions about particular groups of people into "realities"
  
  
• be used to justify the position of those in power
  
  
• perpetuate social prejudice and inequality
  

More often than not, the groups being stereotyped have little to say about how they are represented.

Media effects:

The media effects involve aspects such as the mass mesdia. This involves content designed to inform, eduacate, entertain or persuade members of a target audience. The media is based around three platforms; print, broadcasting and more recently, e-media.

'Issues and Debates'

The Media play a crucial role in forming and reflecting public opinion , connecting the world to individuals and reproducing the self-image of society. Critiques in the early-to-mid twentieth century suggested that media weaken or delimit the individual's capacity to act autonomously — sometimes being ascribed an influence reminiscent of the telescreens of the dystopian novel 1984. Mid twentieth-century empirical studies, however, suggested more moderate effects of the media.

Current scholarship presents a more complex interaction between the media and society , with the media on generating information from a network of relations and influences and with the individual interpretations and evaluations of the information provided, as well as generating information outside of media contexts. The consequences and ramifications of the mass media relate not merely to the way newsworthy events are perceived (and which are reported at all), but also to a multitude of cultural influences that operate through the media.

The media have a strong social and cultural impact upon society. This is predicated upon their ability to reach a wide audience with a strong and influential message. Marshall McLuhan uses the phrase “the medium is the message” as a means of explaining how the distribution of a message can often be more important than content of the message itself.

It is through the persuasiveness of media such as television, radio and print media that messages reach their target audiences. These have been influential media as they have been largely responsible for structuring people's daily lives and routines. Television broadcasting has a large amount of control over the content society watches and the times in which it is viewed.

This is a distinguishing feature of traditional media which New Media have challenged by altering the participation habits of the public. The internet creates a space for more diverse political opinions, social and cultural viewpoints and a heightened level of consumer participation. There have been suggestions that allowing consumers to produce information through the internet (user-generated content) will lead to an overload of information.