Rethinking Media Representations

Representation is one of the key concepts in media studies. It is also one of the most challenging and the most contested, as debates about the ways in which the media represent society and culture range across public and academic spheres. This is an introduction to the main theories and concepts in these debates, and the ways in which they have sought to understand the representation of gender and the body, ethnicity, class, law and order, and the past. Using examples from contemporary film, television and print media, the book examines the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, arguing that representation should be understood not in terms of an aesthetic or ideological failure, but as a historically specific practice.