Representation Laura Froggatt

Week 7 – Theories of Audio This week’s lecture focused on the different theories of audio and how the format of radio has changed over the years. I found Crisell’s Understanding Radio to be particularly interesting because it raises the notion of sound being ‘utterly non-visual’ and dependent on the listener using their imagination to create representation. In Acoustic Territories (Brandon Labelle), he notes that “sound is what lends to directing our visual focus – we hear something, and this tells us where to look.” I interpreted this as radio being consistent of  listeners being engaged with the presenter’s speech to create an image and without a physical image or text to follow, listeners are subject to the power of the omnipotent presenter and have the capability to misrepresent social groups like the ‘other’. This could mean that when radio was a central form of communication, like during World War II, mass audiences were relying on audio to be truthful rather than e...

Week 6 – Exhibiting cultures: Museums For this week’s topic, we were asked to represent ourselves using a shoe box and any other physical objects. I started this project by considering what would represent aspects of both my past and present and decided on using photos to show the difference between childhood and adulthood. Like sixteenth century ‘collection of rarities’, I decided to include products of personal preference that had no scientific meaning, which could represent the ethnological approach of focusing on humans and their relation to each other.  When constructing the box, I decided to  categorise my photos to show the transition from past to the present which I thought would display my habit to document my relationship with people and places over time. In hindsight, this idea of classifying photos according to specific periods of my life was successful in showing a transition because the photos produce a visual display of my life as a child and as a...

Week 5 – National Identity This week we considered the concept of national identity and how it is formed. I found it interesting discussing the power an image can have in constructing meaning, for example a red London bus or the royal family being symbolic of the concept of “Britishness”. This could suggest that images we consume from the media can help us form a sense of national identity and this circulates hegemonic representations of nationalism. Through newspapers, the idea of being ‘British’ had immense power in periods of history like World War Two. The inclusion of big bold titles like “We never surrender” and “Britain at war” in daily newspapers characterises the war as being a conflict between Britain and the rest of the world, rather than Britain having allies to fight with against the Germans. This use of personal pronouns to reference Great Britain shows that the representation of national identity forms an ‘imagined political community’ (Benedict Anderson) whi...

Week 4 – Genre and Class In this week’s lecture we were introduced to the concept of genre and class being linked together when represented in the media. The representation of class in television such as Peaky Blinders would suggest that within genres like drama there’s a normative and this carries a subliminal framework which portrays class in a derogative way. Mia Wallace and Clint Spinner suggested that being a ‘chav’ is a lifestyle choice which parallels with the characterisation of the Shelby family in Peaky Blinders. The idea of Tommy inheriting the family business and choosing to continue and share the illegal conduct with his brothers implies that the ‘underclass’ lifestyle is an active choice and even though it’s a fictional drama, the representation of working class people still matches derogative and stereotypical views of  class.   As well as this, the characterisation of the Shelby family being violent, rebellious and mostly made up of men para...