Representation is basically the way in which an individual, or anything for that matter, represents a social group or stereotype. For example; an elderly person sat in a chair with a grumpy look on their face would show to the audience that he is bored, grumpy and lazy. He represents the social group.
Not only people or products can be a form of stereotyping, locations can too.
You expect the caribbean to be sunny and bright all the time, but sometimes it rains and is really boring.
Locations can cause people to fall into stereotyping too; Harrods customers are seen as a more upper-class individual whereas Primark customers are more working-class. Which links into and endless tree of different assumptions, people with money are snobs - leading to arrogance etc. and people with less money are dirty.
Documentaries are often stereotyped to be a genre that is for the viewing or likes of a smarter, more intelligent or "boring" kind of audience. Purely because they convey information and do not usually contain huge explosions and action-related material that would grab the attention of the younger generation etc.
My production will be of what I do as a bedroom producer, meaning that people may stereotype me and other bedroom producers for being bad due to the fact that we do not have a huge mixing desk like studios in London etc.
This is a basic discussion on representation and has helped put GC4 at a pass, however you have not discussed any actual examples from factual programmes. You could discuss for example how travellers are represented in gypsy weddings and how this is relevant to codes and conventions of factuals. The unit outlines "Exploration of narratives and representational issues will go beyond superficial points and learners will be able to discuss some of the issues raised by this aspect of genres". This needs to be done to hit the merit level.
ReplyDelete