Newspapers - Stereotypes and Misrepresentation

L13 - Stereotypes (Hall's Representation theory)

L14 - Under-represented and Misrepresented Groups

Stuart Hall - Representation Theory

Hall states that there is no forced meaning. It is essential that meaning can be created. Power/ authority try to fix and naturalise meanings to imply that their representation is the only possible meaning. They aim to close language, close meaning and stop the flow! An example of fixing meaning is stereotyping. 

Absence is equally important when decoding representations.

How the theory is USEFUL when exploring News

• Can be applied to any media product, including newspapers. 
• Applies particularly to the way in which newspaper headlines and photos try to fix the meaning of a representation. 
• Highlights the role of power in representations- both the general distribution of power in society and newspapers’ institutional power- but also the audience’s power to decode representations in different ways. 

How the theory is LIMITED when exploring News

• Does not explain anything specific to newspapers as it is a general theory of representation.

Stereotyping

• The power of media representation lies in repetition. When some representations are constantly repeated they can result in stereotyping. 
• A stereotype may be based in reality but can still be inaccurate because of this ‘catch-all’ quality. Stereotypical judgments can be positive or negative, though both may be inaccurate. 
• Stereotyping is more likely in media products, such as newspaper headlines or photographs that have to generate meaning quickly and do not have the time to portray subtle and nuanced representations. 

Gender Stereotypes in the Daily Mail

• The Femail page of the Mail Online portrays the Mail’s traditional world view that presents women as concerned with housework and also preoccupied by aging (Botox article). 
• The article in the bottom left-hand corner promotes the stereotype of men as practical and ‘hands-on’. The connotations of the Staffie adds to this stereotypical image of masculinity. It would be a different story if the kennel was for a so called ‘pocket-dog’. 
• The Mail prides itself on its robust, ‘no nonsense’ style, which means that it may not be overly concerned about gender stereotyping. 

Gender Stereotypes in The Guardian

• The Guardian, predictably, confronts and questions gender stereotypes. This article displays the question of the 21st century woman’s desire to ‘have it all’ (possibly a stereotype in its self?). 
• The writer of this feature article wants ‘a life bigger than [her] mother’s’ but also wants to uphold high standards within the household. 
• Although this questions the role of women, I would argue it is still quite troublesome in its diminishing of the ‘stay at home mum’. You could argue that the stereotype of the ‘stay at home mums’ as having a small life is destructive. The ‘pink gloves’ also firmly gender this discussion. 
• https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/apr/10/the-more-i-stay-at-home-the-more-grubby-it-seems

Under-represented or Misrepresented Groups

• Under-representation and misrepresentation are both highly loaded terms. 
• Under-representation implies that there is some kind of mathematically correct proportion of representations that each social group should receive. 
• The term misrepresentation implies that there is some kind of truthful representation from which actual representations deviate from (consider Hall’s idea that you can not fix meaning, it is ever changing) 
• Therefore, accusations of misrepresentations are always judgements. 
• In practical terms, analysing under-representation and misrepresentation in any media product is best boiled down to the following factors: 
• Use of stereotyping 
• Diversity of representations
• Opportunities of self-representation 

Diversity of Representations

• Diversity combats under-representation by increasing the number of representations of different social groups. 
• In turn, the more diversity, the less misrepresentation as we will start to avoid simple stereotypes or limited representations. 

For example, the actor who played Eastenders’ first gay character in the 1980s complained that his one character had to represent the whole gay community. This is called TOKENISM. The inclusion of one token minority character to ‘tick the box’ of diversity.

Through the range of LGBTQ+ representations we see today, there is less scope for misrepresentation

Underrepresented and misrepresented social groups are often groups defined by ideologies of exclusion; traditionally the groups listed below.