Textual Analysis and Representations (Notes)

Chapter 1
The Representing Text

Sohan-Rethel describes four forces at work in media production which we can use as a framework for analysis. These forces are:

• Technology
• Economic
• Cultural
• Regulatory

Beginning to consider the key concept of representation and start to apply it to television drama should be starting to happen. Representations is a cultural force as it relates to tastes, identity and interest. Representation is also related to regulation. People have legal means to respond to representations that they have considered inaccurate or harmful and OFCOM, the regulatory body overseeing broadcasting, can intervene when programme makers represent issues in a controversial way. representations is also linked to economic forces. Representations is increasingly shaped by technology, as the audience is able to watch a series in a staggered fashion or all at once or with a range of interactive features . This is described as a fragmented audience. 

Textual analysis is an advanced form of media literacy. Media literacy allows a person to understand the narrative of television drama and to make a critical response in relation to other programmes and to the ideas, themes, and people represented. To do this well, we need to work at both micro and macro levels of text. 

working at a micro level involves pulling apart the detailed aspects of the texts frame construction. Doing this kind of work, you will need to play, pause, and rewind a short second sequence several times to observe the creative and technical decisions made in the production process. This builds up to work at a macro level. This is all about drawing conclusions from the micro work about how the sequence overall represents people, events, places and themes. We must always bare witness to the complex range of interpretations and different viewers will create. Watching a television programme is an active process and that it is the audience that ultimately makes the meaning. The three stage process here is: 

1. Analysis the micro elements of the text
2. conclude from the micro elements a range of macro representations
3. Consider how different people might respond differently to these representations

Representation

The media do not just offer us a transparent 'window on the world' but a medicated version of the world. They don't just present reality, they re present it. An example from everyday life - why do men wear ties on some occasions but not on others? at first the answer could seems to be obvious but it isn't at all. If we take a step back from what seems natural. In our society a tie has come to represent formality. Another example is your name. It stands for you, like the clothes you wear don't just keep you warm and dry, they are a statement of you. Another example is your bedroom, they way it is decorated and laid out has been considered carefully, not just so you are comfortable in your space but so that a range of signs and symbols reinforce your identity to yourself. 

Metaphor

Gauntlett has developed a research method using lego. He asks people to make metaphorical models that actually resemble what they are representing. When he asks people to reflect on the models they have made, he gets a better understanding of of how people see themsleves than if he asks them to just use language. Metaphor could possibly be something we use all the time without realising. 

Verisimilitude 

TV programmes are a form of media text in the contents of representation. In order for a character to be believable, the actor must wear clothes that you would expect that type of person to wear. When we look at how media text represents the world, we are usually concerned with the representations of gender, age, and ethnicity. This all adds up to verisimilitude- the construction in a text, of a plausible, believable world. 

To explore representation in TV/Radio, you should consider:

• What kind of realism is being attempted by the programme? 
• Who is being represented in the drama (who is presented), and how?
• Who is not being represented in the drama (who is absent?) and why?
• Can we identify any characters that are stereotypical representations?
• Is there a dominant view of the world represented in the drama, or are there several different views to choose from?
• What different responses might audience members make to these representations?

Representational Codes
 A good example of this is 'Life on Mars.' The entire text relies on a scene of 'authenticity'- the clothes, props, settings, music and dialogue representing Northern England in the 1970s in a way that is accurate. The entire drama depends on the Juxtaposition (the marked effective contrast) between Sam Tyler's view of the world (taken from the twenty-first century) and the policing methods. Without the audience's complicity in understanding this contrast and accepting the 1970s representation as accurate, the text is meaningless. With the codes in place, the audience then has a variety of possible responses to make. Reflecting that things were simpler, more straightforward and thus better in those days and that life is too 'politically correct' now. 

Representation in Crisis
Some media academics claim that representation is a concept in crisis. This arises from a rather obvious aspect of the effects of digital technology. As it becomes cheaper, easier, and quicker for people to make videos and upload them to the internet for an 'imagined audience.' The representation of people by the media is increasingly replaced by people representing themselves? As youtube is being used by young audiences, we see how the teenage group truly behaves rather than stereotypical stereotypes we seen in 'Hollyoaks' and 'Skins' 

Chapter 2

Television Drama
Despite stories of its demise in the wake of American imports, British television drama still attracts huge viewing audiences. Many of these shows are watched collectively as on-off peak- time broadcasts and this may provide some evidence that we are not yet consuming all of our media, creating our own viewing schedules or turning to Youtube and other aspects of web 2.0 for all our media. Media teacher, Steve Connolly, posted to his blog a post stating TV ratings show a significant downward trend in audience ratings for British TV drama, and a combination of a less investment and more competition has led some critics to worry for the future. Connolly concludes that while British TV drama is now something of a poor relation in comparison to the American producer HBO, it is still in a fairly healthy state so reports of its demise are exaggerated at this stage. Short drama sequences employ a variety of technical and symbolic elements at a micro level to create representations at the macro level. 

Background to TV drama
Don't necessary to study television drama in terms of its breadth, history, funding, or critical reception. However, you will probably be better equipped to offer a speedy response to a clip from an informed perspective if you are aware of some contextual detail. 
What is expected though is an understanding of how serious fictional television engages its viewers by representing real world events, themes, people and places through a series of technical and symbolic devices, as outlined in the list in the introduction to this section. There are, however, a set of sub- genres of dramatic types that have different conventions:

• Teen dramas (which depend entirely on the target audience empathising with a range of authentic characters and age- specific situations and anxieties) 
• Soap operas (which never end, convey a sense of real time and depend entirely on us accepting them as 'socially realist') 
• Costume dramas (which are often intertextually linked to 'classic' novels or plays and offer a set of pleasures that are very different to dramas set in our own world contexts and times)
• Medical?hospital drama (which interplay our vicarious pleasure at witnessing trauma and suffering on the part of patients and relatives with a set of staff narratives that deploy soap opera conventions)
• Police/crime dramas (which work in the same way as medical/hospital dramas but we can substitute the health context for representation of criminal and victims)
• Docu-dramas (which are set apart from the others by their attempts to dramatise significant real events which usually have either human interest, celebrity focus or political significance) 

Each of these types has its own set of conventions, its typical scheduling patterns, its target audiences, its narrative formulae and its history/expectations.