Representation

Representation
Representation is the way in which people, events and ideas are presented to the audience. To break it down, the media takes something that is already there and re-presents it to us in the way that they choose. These representations are mad by producers of media text.

Gatekeeper
A Gatekeeper is the person who makes the decision on what people hear, see and read in the media. They have the final say on what goes on the website or in the newspaper.

Media Moguls
Mogul is someone with a lot of power and influence in the world of journalism, politics, entertainment or news and display that influence through mass media scubas television, radio, newspaper and the internet.

Media Consumers 
Media consumers are me and you, the audience of the media text, are mostly unaware of these gatekeeping decisions and it is the gatekeepers job to make sure his decision and actions are transparent and invisible to the audience.

Male Gaze
The cinema apparatus of hollywood cinema puts the audience in a masculine subject position with the woman on the screen seen as an object of desire.

Stereotypes
Media uses stereotypes because people understand instantly. Its a "visual short cut". But because we have been drip fed pictures of stereotypes so often we now now think of them as normal or true.

Archetypes
This is the ultimate stereotypes. For example, the white stiletto wearing, big busted, brainless blonde bimbo.

CounterType
A representation that changes tradition of stereotypes.

Stereotypes are made off the acronym "CAGES". This stands for Class, Age, Gender, Ethnicity and Sexuality.

Who,What,Why and Where

Who or what is being represented?

What are they doing?

Why are they present?

Where are they?

Who is being represented? in "Attack The Block" it represents a group of teens that live in council houses in the south of London. But they have to help protect their block from an alien attack.

How is it being represented? The teens represented in the clip live in a council estate in London and are your stereotypical Chavy teens. They walk about with their hoods up, They like drugs, they carry weapons, vandalise and mug people and also use Chavy slang. They are also in trouble with police throughout the film and their good friend is a big time drug dealer. This is archetypical of London council estate teens.

How is the representation made to look true and natural? Through out the whole film the characters seem to be relaxed when talking about drugs and violence. This gives us an impression that drugs and violence is of second nature to them. Plus, they always make jokes about drugs e.g. when one of the main characters states that he has seen an alien, one of the characters says "you must be high bled". Then the rest of the characters laugh in the room. This shows that drugs is just a bit of fun for them. They all see it as a socially acceptable thing. This is showing a strong/ultimate stereotype for London council housed teens.

Semiotics- The Scene shows London teens riding Motorbikes illegally on walking paths and causing trouble. All the teens also have their hoods up. Also at the end the teens are also seen carrying weapons that could do some real damage e.g. A sword. The setting is also late at night which is also part of the stereotypes because Chavs are suppose to be out late at night causing trouble. By first showing the aliens hiding in the shadows it shows that the aliens are the villains in this movie. The aliens also add a horror aspect to the film. I would say that the films genre is Horror/Comedy.