Representation of Women and Cyborgs

Representation of Women and Cyborgs

• Autonomy
• Having control over your own life.
• Automaton
• No control, a robot.

• Representation
• Re presentations of something to show it again, the producer does this to show their ideologies and values on certain groups.
• The producer is trying to manipulate the audience maybe to change the way they vote but usually is more subtle for example making the audience fall in love with the main character or making the audience feel scared.
• The target audience and the group being presented impact from the representations, this then cultivates in the mind and we consistently see it but it confirms our world view. 

• Roles women/synths play in Human:
• Mother
• Professional
• Caregiver
• Mother (Anita)
• Sex Worker
• Child
• Son
• Friend
• Maid
• Caregiver
• Butler
• Slave
• Rebel

Exam Question

According to Claude Levi-Strauss texts convey their meanings through a system of binary oppositions.

Evaluate this structuralist theory. Refer to the set episodes of Humans and The Returned in your response. (30)

Closing Montage - Representations of Gender

• Maternal - Mid shot of Anita standing over Sophie

• Child - Connotations of innocence, as she is getting kidnapped by Anita without knowing.

• Sex Worker/Slave - Slow zoom which turns into a close up of the synth shows feelings of uncomfortableness for the synth as the audience feels uncomfortable watching her it represents the feelings of the synth. The man is blunt aggressive and demanding and he has this specific look, they picked him due to him being stereotypically unattractive so he looks like he's a man who uses sex workers.

• Dad says 'not taking it back', not taking notice of his wife discomfort with the synth and showing his patriarchal role, this shows his dominance and his dominant role.

• Dad buys Anita so it makes him in charge of her and emphasising his dominance.

• In the brothel scene, Miska is getting raped because she shows no consent, but then again she is a robot so it is not possible to give consent as she has supposedly no feelings.

• Representation of women that they are meant to look pretty, as the little girl said that she wants a pretty synth. Like a doll, they want her to be like a pretty doll so they can look like her and they're aspirational.

Madonna/Whore Complex

• Sigmund Freud developed a theory to explain men's anxiety towards women's sexuality, suggesting that men define women into one of two categories;

• Madonna - Women he admires and respects
• Refers to the virgin mother (Mary)

• Whore - Women he is attracted to and therefore disrespects.
• Sleeps with a lot of people for fun, pleasure or money.

• The Madonna is typically virtuous, nurturing, saintly and sexually repressed.

• The Whore is sensual, sexualised and desirable without purity.

The Sci-Fi Genre and Sociohistorical Context

The Sci-Fi Genre and Sociohistorical Context

• Allegory
• A media product that has a hidden meaning
• E.g Animal Farm

• Zeitgeist
• The 'spirit of the time'
• E.g Fresh Prince of Bel Air for the 90's

• Humans Sci-Fi Conventions
• Blue eyes
• Not comedy
• Robots
• Theme tune has sympathises
• Not romantic
• Themes of artificial intelligence
• Robotic speech
• Clean, blue mise-en-scene
• Stiff movement
• Realistic real world elements

• Themes
• Sexualisation
• Sexual Exploitation
• Modern Slavery
• Capitalism and the nuclear family
• Prostitution and the rights of sex workers
• Racism

Allegorical Aspect

• Sex Robots
• A robot is a depiction of a human. Desensitise to boundaries of what is real and what is not you lose reach of real life.

• Pornography
• Cultivation theory as it is making it okay to do certain things to a woman as it is normalised so often.

• Modern Slavery
• They buy Anita from a shop. Slave market represented by the synth shop.

• Modern Slavery
• The synths are programmed to do all the housework and as they are robots they don't get paid for it. 

• Modern Slavery
• It is justified to do whatever they want to the robots as they're just a 'machine'.

Key Theory - Steve Neale - Theories Around Genre

• Why does genre exist?
• Who benefits from generic classification?
• What are some advantages of genre?
• What are some disadvantages of genre?

Differences in Anita and Laura

• Anita is physically younger compared to Laura
• Anita is eastern asian and Laura is white
• Anita is on a different side of the room compared to Laura
• Anita is wearing basic factory clothing compared to Laura who is wearing everyday clothes

Magazine Cover Ideas

• Title
• EMPWR

• Genre
• Fashion

• Target Audience
• Female 16 - 25

• Ideological Focus
• Confidence

• Key Representations
• Woman Power, Independence

• Links to music video
• Music Video is about coming from nothing to something so this will be shown in the magazine by the singer being confident in the shots.

Aspirational Magazine Covers

Aspirational Magazine Covers

• Specialist Culture Magazine
• Sport
• Music
• Fashion

June Mock Revision - Q3

 Component 2

Question: To what extent has sociohistorical context influenced representations in the magazines you have studied? Make reference to both Adbusters and Woman.  [30]

Structuring your answer

Step 1: Underline Key Terms
Step 2: Knee-Jerk Reaction
Step 3: Plan (in the answer box)
Step 4: Introduction

Plan

• Lisbet Van Zoonen - Male Gaze
• Advert for soap with sexualised women to please a man
• Lifestyle - Woman
• Culture Jamming - Adbusters
• Patriarchal Hegemony
• 'POST WEST' - Adbusters
• Woman independance
• Stereotypes
• Hegemony
• Objectification - process of dehumanizing a person
• Barthes - Semiotics
• Levi-Strauss - Binary Oppositions
• Adbusters jokes at peoples expense - dark comedy - satire - satirical.
• Alfred Hitchcock - grooms women

Structuring the Introduction

• DAC
• Definition
• Argument
• Context

• Lifestyle - IBC Media - 19654
• Culture Jamming - Self Published by Adbusters Foundation - 2016

Paragraph Structure

• PEA
• Point
• Evidence
• Argument

June Mock Revision - Q2

Component 1B

Question: Explore the ways in which production, distribution and circulation have shaped the newspapers you have studied. Make reference to The Daily Mirror and The Times. [15]

• James Curran & Jean Seaton 
• Conglomeration
• The media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the profit and power. Media concentration limits variety, creativity and quality. More social diverse patterns of ownership can create more varied and adventurous media productions.

• Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt
• Regulation
• The increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies and transformations in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.

• David Hesmondhalgh
• The Cultural Industries
• Media producers try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration, and by formatting their cultural products (eg. through the use of stars, genres and serials)

Trinity Mirror owns Daily Mail and recently has been rebranded as 'Reach'.

• Production
• The process of making a media product. Every industry has its own forms of production.

• Distribution
• The process of making a media product available to audiences so that they can consume it, which includes aspects of marketing such as creating an advertising campaign.

• Circulation
• A count of how many copies of a media product are distributed. This can include physical distribution and subscription.

Daily Mirror is a tabloid and The Times is a broadsheet, the main difference between the two is the size of the newspapers, tabloids are more popular than broadsheets.

Broadsheets are easier to understand with middle class citizens, as the broadsheets used jargon and assumes the audience will understand the current events and the 'slang' used as it is more of a formal upper class speech.

Daily Mirror costs 50p

The Times costs £1

The price difference between the tabloid and broadsheet is double, so more middle class citizens would buy The Times due to cultural capital.

Daily Mirror is left-wing and follows the labour party.

The Times is right-wing and follows the conservative party and is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

• Technological Change
• Newspapers circulation is decreasing as more news is becoming available for free on websites so everyone is viewing the news for free on websites rather than going out and buying a newspaper.

Print-Based Media vs Online Media

• Print Based Media
• Disadvantages
• Inconvenient, have to leave your house.
• Generational issue (new generation isn't buying print based media)
• Can only see one opinion
• Advantages
• Can be seen anywhere, no battery no wifi.
• Employs much more people than Online Media.

• Online Media
• Disadvantages
• Need internet to read.
• People get made redundant as they dont need as many people.
• Advantages
• Can see many opinions in the comments section of a post.
• Allows newspaper producers to target people who do not normally buy newspapers.

IPSO regulate the newspapers, IPSO is not fit for purpose, and they can twist the rules and get away with it especially when it comes to online media. The comment section will not be regulated as citizens will use offensive comments that are discriminating others, yet they will get away with it as it is all online.

15 MARKS

June Mock Revision - Q1

Component 1A

Question: In what ways do music videos encode viewpoints and ideologies? Make reference to Formation by Beyoncé and Riptide by Jack Vance.  [30]

• What is an ideology?
• A thought or an opinion or a belief.

• In media products what constructs ideologies?
• Media Language.

• Who constructs the ideologies?
• The Producer.

• What purpose do producers construct and encode ideologies?
• To manipulate the audience, and to brain wash the audience.

• Ideology of Riptide?
• Makes the audience think, so the producer has made it purposely confusing.

• Ideology of Formation?
• Embracing the roots, about slavery and racism, hurricane Katrina in Louisiana the white people got treated better over the black people.

NEED TO INCLUDE MEDIA LANGUAGE - SHOT TYPES/ MISE-EN-SCENE

NEED TO INCLUDE THEORISTS

• hooks (Representation)
• Feminist Theory - 

• Gilroy (Representation)

Theorist Part 1 - Textual Analysis

• Barthes
• Created Semiotic Codes - Symbolic, Proairetic, Hermeneutic.
• Hermeneutic - Mystery
• Symbolic - something means something else
• Proairetic - Action

• Claude Levi-Strauss
• Structuralism - Binary Oppositions
• Narrative is constructed through two ideas being in conflict with one another.

Theorist Part 2 - Representation Theory

• Stuart Hall
• Representation & Stereotypes
• Representation is a re-representation of a group in society through media codes.

• David Gauntlet
• Identity - Pick'n'Mix Theory
• Audiences can pick and mix an ideology to suit them best.

• Lisbet Van Zoonen
• Male Gaze Theory
• Women are used in media products to sell them to a heterosexual male audience. Example of voyeurism and objectifies the girl.

• bell hooks
• Feminist Theory
• 'feminism is for everyone' - and the ways in which men are represented have negative impact on men also.

• Gilroy
• Post Colonialism
• Media products still follow colonial ideologies, and enforce racial hierarchies.

Riptide Music Video - Textual Analysis

SHOT 1

• The low key lighting causes us to think this looks like a horror movie and makes intertextual reference to her being in pain.

• The on screen graphic of the wrong lyrics shows that this woman is going against the norms and she is rebellious.

• By her makeup being smudged makes her look uncomfortable and in pain and doing something against her will.

SHOT 2

• A tracking shot as if we are stalking the girl and were being voyeuristic.

• We are unsure wether this is male gaze as sometimes we are attracted them sometimes we are put off so it encodes the confusing ideologies.

Formation Music Video - Textual Analysis

SHOT 1

• Independant but also isolated.

• Gesture of her pose with her hand in the air with fists makes her look like the statue of liberty and makes her look powerful tied in with the low angle shot emphasising her importance.

30 MARKS