Table Of ContentREPRESENTATION
Written especially for undergraduate students, Representation synthesizes
and updates our understandings of representation – and the tools for its
analysis–for useinthenewmediascape.
Jenny Kidd uses an engaging range of current examples and a lively
style to explore a number of key questions reflecting existing and
contemporarydebatesaboutrepresentation.
Thesekey questionsinclude:Who‘owns’ and manages representations?
Whose realities are foregrounded, and whose are consigned to invisibility?
To what extent are increased opportunities for self-representation altering
thelandscape?Andwhathappenstorepresentationwithinthenoisy,playful
andoftensubversivecommunicationsoftheInternet?
Kidd considers the political, social and cultural importance of
representationacrossabroadspectrumofculturalandcreativeindustries.
This examination of the relationship between media/cultural repre-
sentations and the construction ofreality, identityand society makes itan
ideal text for students that need to get to grips with this core thematic of
mediaandculturalstudies.
Jenny Kidd is Lecturer in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural
Studies, Cardiff University. Her research interests include digital media,
museums and participation. She is the author of Museums in the New
Mediascape (2014) and co-editor of Challenging History in the Museum
(2014)andPerformingHeritage(2011).
KEY IDEAS IN MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES
TheKeyIdeasinMediaandCulturalStudiesseriescoversthemainconcepts,issues,
debatesandcontroversiesincontemporarymediaand culturalstudies.Titlesinthe
seriesconstituteauthoritative,originalessaysratherthanliterarysurveys,butarealso
writtenexplicitlytosupportundergraduateteaching.Theseriesprovidesstudentsand
teacherswithlivelyandoriginaltreatmentsofkeytopicsinthefield.
CulturalPolicy
byDavidBellandKateOakley
RealityTV
byAnnetteHill
Culture
byBenHighmore
Representation
byJennyKidd
Forthcoming:
ActiveAudiences
byHelenWood
Celebrity
bySeanRedmond
Mediatization
byAndreasHepp
REPRESENTATION
Jenny Kidd
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Firstpublished2016
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
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withoutintenttoinfringe.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Kidd,Jenny.
Representation/byJennyKidd.
pagescm.--(Keyideasinmediaandculturalstudies)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Massmedia.2.Imagery(Psychology)3.Semiotics.I.Title.
P91.K3752015
302.23--dc23
2015020133
ISBN:978-1-138-01669-9(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-138-02071-9(pbk)
ISBN:978-1-315-66678-5(ebk)
TypesetinTimesNewRoman
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
C
ONTENTS
List of figures vi
Acknowledgement vii
Introduction: The ongoing significance of representation 1
1 Theories of representation 18
2 Language as power 40
3 Self-representation online 61
4 Reality TV 87
5 The mediated past 108
6 Subversive and alternative media messages 131
Bibliography 150
Index 166
F
IGURES
0.1 Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red installation at
the Tower of London, 2014. Image: author’s own 6
0.2 Skateistan volunteer Erika ollies in front of the
destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan, which were built in
the 6th century but blownup by the Taliban in 2001.
Image courtesyof Skateistan 9
1.1 The Prince of Egypt, 1998, Dreamworks 25
1.2 Human Infographic © Antun Hirsman/Shutterstock.
com 31
2.1 Laverne Cox as Sophia in Series 1, Episode 3 of
Orange Is the New Black, Netflix, 2013 51
2.2 Protester Logan Browning wears tape over her
mouth reading ‘I can’t breath’ [sic], Hollywood,
California, 6th December 2014. copyright: Patrick T.
Fallon/Reuters/Corbis 54
3.1 Diverse Avatars © Janos Levente/Shutterstock.com 62
3.2 Selfie © Yulia Mayorova/Shutterstock.com 73
4.1 Pistorius Verdict BBC News 24 Special, BBC 89
4.2 The Only Way Is Essex, ITV 96
4.3 Gogglebox, Channel 4 104
5.1 Call the Midwife, BBC 113
5.2 America’s Army 3, 2009, U.S. Army 116
5.3 Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier, Bust of Said Abdullah
of the Darfour People, 1848, Bronze, H. 82.5 cm
(32 1/2 in.) (with socle), Ada Turnbull Hertle
Endowment, 1963.839, The Art Institute of Chicago.
Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago 122
6.1 Levi’s campaign, 2005, UK, reproduced courtesyof
The Advertising Archives 134
6.2 Miss My Lung. Image courtesyof the California
Department of Public Health, California Tobacco
Control Program 146
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENT
Having studied media representations in avariety of contexts for
morethan13yearsIhaverelishedtheopportunityinthisbookto
consolidate my thinking in this area, and to synthesize existing
theory with emergent discourses, particularly around digital
media and self-representation.
Thanks are due to the editorial team at Routledge, particularly
NatalieFoster,Sheni Kruger and thereviewersof theinitialbook
proposal. I also thank Fiona Kidd for her input on the drafts of
the opening chapters.
All of the chapters in this book have evolved from lectures on
the‘Representations’moduleIrunforallfirstyearundergraduates
intheSchoolofJournalism,MediaandCulturalStudiesatCardiff
University. It is a module I enjoy teaching immensely, not least
because I get to work with a crack team of Teaching Assistants
who have included Hugh Griffiths, Xin Zhang, Dafina Paca,
Susana Sampaio Dias, Judith Fathallah, James Rendell and Hiu
Chan. In our meetings around lectures, we delight in sharing the
responses of students to the subject matter, how we challenge
them, and how every year they challenge us with the range of
media they consume, the multitude of ways they interact with it,
and the questions they wish to explore. This book is for those
students.
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INTRODUCTION
THE ONGOING SIGNIFICANCE OF
REPRESENTATION
I write this opening on the day following the 70th Anniversaryof
the Liberation of Auschwitz, and the attendant revelations about
the towering horrors concealed within that camp. Yesterday our
media–notleastthenewsandsocialnetworks–wereawashwith
grainy still and moving images from that day 70 years ago, and
the clear and considered voices of the survivors filtered over the
radio. Many of those survivors had travelled to Auschwitz for a
high profile memorial event attended by dignitaries from around
the world. The anniversary had been the subject of intense inter-
national interest, and underpinned by the realization that for the
nextdecennial, theremay be few, if any, survivors left to tell their
stories. This last point raises some significant questions with
regard to the continued representation of those events, and of
thosewhose lives – and life narratives– were forever impacted by
their experiences within that camp, and indeed the many other
camps: Who will continue to speak for the survivors (if anyone)?
What presentations of their stories will be seen as appropriate in
future years? Who will regulate their use and re-use, especially in
