Extract 3 : Representation Of Ethnicity 'Compulsion'

Extract 2 : Representation of Ethnicity 'Hotel Babylon'

Extract 1 : Representation Of Ethnicity 'Spooks'

Representation Of Ethnicity

In lesson we looked at the following slides and used these as a starting point for discussion:

  

The following information is taken from the RevisionWorld website which can be accessed by CLICKING HERE.

This is a Sociology revision page but there is lots of useful stuff here about gender, age, etc as well as ethnicity.

"Many sociologists believe that media representations of ethnic minority groups are problematic because they contribute to the reinforcement of negative racist stereotypes. Media representations of ethnic minorities may be undermining the concept of a tolerant multicultural society and perpetuating social divisions based on colour, ethnicity and religion.

Evidence suggests that, despite some progress, ethnic minorities are generally under-represented or are represented in stereotyped and negative ways across a range of media content. In particular, newspapers and television news have a tendency to present ethnic minorities as a problem or to associate Black people with physical rather than intellectual activities and to neglect, and even ignore, racism and the inequalities that result from it.

Stereotypical representations

Akinti (2003) argues that television coverage of ethnic minorities over focuses on

crime, AIDS in Africa and Black children’s under-achievement in schools, whilst

ignoring the culture and interests of a huge Black audience and their rich

contribution to British society. Akinti claims that news about Black communities

always seems to be ‘bad news’. Van Dijk’s (1991) content analysis of tens of

thousands of news items across the world over several decades confirms that

news representations of Black people can be categorised into several types of

stereotypically negative news.

Ethnic minorities as criminals – Black crime is the most frequent issue found in media news coverage of ethnic minorities. Van Dijk found that Black people, particularly African-Caribbeans, tend to be portrayed as criminals, especially in the tabloid press and more recently as members of organised gangs that push drugs and violently defend urban territories.

Ethnic minorities and moral panics – Watson (2008) notes that moral panics often result from media stereotyping of Black people as potentially criminal. This effect was first brought to sociological attention by Hall’s classic study of a 1970s moral panic that was constructed around the folk devil of the ‘Black mugger’. Further moral panics have developed around rap music, e.g. in 2003, ‘gangsta rap’ lyrics came under attack for contributing to an increase in gun crime.

Ethnic minorities as a threat – ethnic minorities are often portrayed as a threat to the majority White culture. It is suggested by some media that immigrants and asylum seekers are only interested in living in Britain because they wish to take fraudulent advantage of Britain’s ‘generous’ welfare state. Poole (2000), pre 9/11, argued that Islam has always been demonised and distorted by the Western media. It has traditionally been portrayed as a threat to Western interests. Representations of Islam have been predominantly negative and Muslims have been stereotyped as backward, extremist, fundamentalist and misogynist.

Ethnic minorities as dependent – news stories about less developed countries tend to focus on a ‘coup-war-famine-starvation syndrome’. Often such stories imply that the causes of the problems experienced by developing countries are self-inflicted – that they are the result of stupidity, tribal conflict, too many babies, laziness, corruption and unstable political regimes. External causes such as colonialism, tied aid, transnational exploitation and the unfair terms of world trade are rarely discussed by the British media.

Ethnic minorities as abnormal – the cultural practices of ethnic minorities are often called into question and labelled as deviant or abnormal. Many Asian people believe that the media treatment of arranged marriages was often inaccurate and did not reflect the way that the system had changed over time. Ameli et al. (2007) note that media discussion around the issue of the wearing of the hijab and the veil is also problematic, often suggesting that it is somehow an inferior form of dress compared with Western female dress codes and that it is unnecessary and problematic. It is often portrayed as a patriarchal and oppressive form of control that exemplifies the misogyny of Islam and symbolises the alleged subordinate position of women in Islam.

Ethnic minorities as unimportant – Van Dijk notes that some sections of the media imply that the lives of White people are somehow more important than the lives of non-White people. News items about disasters in developing countries are often restricted to a few lines or words unless there are also White or British victims. Moreover, Sir Ian Blair, the former Metropolitan police commissioner, claimed that institutionalised racism was present in the British media in the way they reported death from violent crime. He noted that Black and Asian victims of violent death did not get the same attention as White victims. However, the murder of the Black teenager Stephen Lawrence by White racists in 1993 received high-profile coverage, both on television and in the press.

Ethnic minorities as invisible – in 2005, a BBC News Online survey noted that Black and Asian people were represented as newscasters and television journalists, but the range of roles that ethnic minority actors play in television drama is very limited and often reflects low status, e.g. Africans may play cleaners or Asians may play shopkeepers. Ethnic minority audiences were also very hostile towards tokenism – the idea that programmes contain characters from ethnic minority groups purely because they ‘should’. Ethnic minority audiences complain that Black and Asian people are rarely shown as ordinary citizens who just happen to be Black or Asian."

Extract 1 : Representation Of Regional Identity 'Doc Martin'

You can CLICK HERE to open a pdf document with 4 students' responses from the exam relocating to this extract. These can be found on pages 5-14 and include the examiner's comments and marks for each one.

Representation of Regional Identity

Extract 4 : Representation Of Social Class And Status 'The Inspector Lynley Mysteries'

Watch this extract from 04.33 minutes onwards.

Extract 3 : Representation Of Social Class And Status 'Shameless'

Extract 2 : Representation Of Class And Status 'Downton Abbey'

Extract 1 : Representation Of Class And Status 'Merlin'

This was the exam clip in June 2011.

OCR G322 2011 - Merlin -class&status from Howard on Vimeo.

Extract 5 : Representation Of Sexuality 'Eastenders'

I think that looking at soap operas such as Eastenders is a great way to see how sexuality is represented as there are story lines that follow characters whose sexuality is an 'issue' in some way.

The extract below is when Johnny Carter 'comes out' to his dad.

Extract 4 : Representation Of Sexuality 'Lip Service'

Not exactly an extract - this is the entire first episode of the 2nd series of the BBC3 drama series following the lives of a group of lesbians in Glasgow.

The first 5 minutes are interesting to analyse but it is worth watching more if you can - focus on stereotypical and counter typical representations and don't forget to consider how heterosexual characters are represented too.

Extract 3 : Representation Of Sexuality 'Downton Abbey'

How is the representation of sexuality constructed in this video? G322 OCR TV Drama from N Tennear on Vimeo.

Extract 2 : Representation of Sexuality 'The Street'

Extract 1 : Representation Of Sexuality 'Holby City'

Representation of Sexuality

Here is the slide we looked at in class today:

Extract 3 : Representation of Physical Ability and Disability : Glee

I think that Glee is a potential choice of extract for lots of different topics (age, gender, ethnicity and sexuality for example) but it is also a strong drama series in relation to the representation of physical ability and disability.

Several of the episodes surround the disabled character Artie. The extract below is interesting in the ways that Artie and other characters are represented.

Extract 2 : Representation of Physical Ability and Disability : The Street

Extract 1 : Representation of Physical Ability and Disability : Call The Midwife

G322 Disability extract OCR Media Studies TV Drama from N Tennear on Vimeo.

Representations of Disability

The media continue to enforce disability stereotypes portraying disabled individuals in a negative un-empowering way. 

In his 1991 study Paul Hunt identified 10 stereotypes that the media use to portray disabled people:

1. The disabled person as pitiable or pathetic
2. An object of curiosity or violence
3. Sinister or evil
4. The super cripple
5. As atmosphere
6. Laughable
7. His/her own worst enemy
8. As a burden
9. As Non-sexual
10. Being unable to participate in daily life

Click here to read a breakdown of each of these stereotypes.

These are useful in relation to identifying the ways in which characters with disabilities are represented in television dramas.

For example, when we looked at the extract from 'Coming Down The Mountain', which of these stereotypical representations do you think would have been applicable to Ben? 

CLICK HERE to visit Reel Rundown's Top 10 TV Shows With Disabled Characters.

Sky recently aired a drama series called "The Smoke" which included a disabled character, Grace,  at the centre of some of the story lines - you can read an article discussing this character's representation by clicking here.

Here is the end of Episode 5 which features 2 different representations of disability:

The Smoke - Episode 5 THE END from jason savage on Vimeo.