Representation

Representations refers to how social groups, different subcultures, occupations, ages, social classes and places are portrayed in the media. It is also about how the audiences interpret these portrayals.

The word 'representation' implies that people are being represented by the media to tohers and to themselves.  For example, in the case of women, some people may argue that the images presented by the media only concentrate on the beauty, size, or physical attractiveness. This encourages people to think about women in this way and not about their personality or what they do.  This affects our attitudes to others and also how we think about our own bodies and personalities.
For example, many magazines put pictures of women on the front of them. This makes the public believe that everyone should be like this as it affects our attitudes and opinions.
However we see masculinity is made up of more rigid stereotypes than femininity In the media, representations of men tend to come across as the following:

• Strength
• Power
• Sexual attractiveness
• Physique
• Independence ( thought and action) 

For example the advert below shows how the media represents women:

Stereotypes:

Gillian Murphy provides use with a good example of the effectiveness and limitations of content anaylis in her essay 'Media Influenece on the Socialisation of Teenage Girls'. She argued that the media extract a strong influence on the gender-related behaviours of teenagers. She said that from the age of 11 or 12 youngsters begin to break away from the main sources of authority such as family, and start looking to their peer group and the media for ideas about how they should behave and what their roles and aspirations should be.
Murphy research the content of romantic magazines popular with working-class girls from the 1920s up to the end of the 1970s. She investigated, in the case of the magazine 'Jackie'  the values, roles and aspirations of the male and female characters.
Ideas she found:

• females don't take initiative
• girls are almost always depicted looking for or keeping a boyfriend
• the hero initiates, the heroine follows
• girls are depicted in nututing roles- looking after small children or old people
• Girls' work and hobbies are of little importance
• women are seen primarily as home-makers
• the boy-meets-girl happy ending  is seen as part of the escapism from work.

Gillan Murphy believes that these ideas become stereotypes which are 'unrealistic' and 'unsatisfactory'.  She concluded by saying that she wants to force women to free themselves from romance and become 'politicised'. Lastly, she also criticises romantic magazines for concentrating on romance, which is rather like criticising detective novels for concentrating on crime.