Power in the Media Essay

Power in the Media:

"Analyse the representation of social groups in contemporary media"

Power in the media considers issues surrounding access to the media, identity representation, ideology and democracy. Many themes seen in the media is linked to the idea of hegemony where the media continually reproduces the image of a dominant group as superior or powerful. For example, in Western society, the dominant group is middle class white males, and because they are the main people producing and distributing media, many of their ideologies are being shared which can influence individuals and society as a whole. This brings about Stuart Hall's representation theory. He challenged the idea that a subject doesn't have a specific meaning until it is represented in the media. The media can represent these things in either a positive or negative light, and we see this in different newspapers talking about the same event. This can influence audiences on what to think and how to react. Stuart Hall shows that representation isn't an after-occurrence of media that already has a fixed meaning, but rather a constitutive one, which has power to establish meaning. 'Media representations aren't reflections of things that already have meaning, they are the meaning makers of things that happen in reality.' Much of society's understanding of the world is based on meanings which have been created by media producers which are in power as they try to fix a particular meaning to a certain thing. Taking a closer look at the hegemonic organisations of the world and the people who actually make them up, what we almost always find is wealthy, straight men, and as a result of this the representations that we see in the media tend to reflect their ideology on things such as politics, social issues, gender, race etc. The results of this is that stereotypes are generated because of the limited representations the hegemonic elite show us. In each case, the hegemonic media organisations offer us a repeatedly limited representation of aspects of the world in order to attempt to fix a preferred or dominant meaning to it in society. We see this mainly in the representation of people of colour, gay people and women. When these stereotypes are repeatedly used over the years, the lack of diversity and representations narrow society's perceptions of these things, so these representations become normalised and we stop questioning it. In extreme examples, ethnic minorities can become stereotyped as troublemakers in the UK, and even though not all audiences are going to accept these media representations shown by elite media producers, as we know from the ability to reject or negotiate with these messages encoded, the point is that the media producers are attempting to fix a meaning onto something for the majority of society to possibly assert dominance, to keep those in non-elite groups in their place, or to maintain social supremacy.

Additionally, because many media texts are being produced and are owned by white males, this leaves other more niche filmmakers such as Maoris and Indigenous people struggling to get their content widely viewed and appreciated. Furthermore, due to the stereotypes created from these hegemonic media organisations, it is difficult for them to be realistically represented and get their stories out into the world. However, some organisations are starting to be more inclusive, such as Marvel Studios. Whether this is to bring an awareness for ethnic minorities and underrepresented people, or a good way to generate more profit by appealing to a wider audience is unclear, but movies such as Black Panther, which has a predominantly black cast as well as showing female warriors/women in power, and Thor Ragnarok which is directed by Maori filmmaker Taika Waititi, which garnered $854 million globally, are starting to become more apparent in today's media. This is showing the start of representation being more accurately displayed on screen, which is largely due to more ethnic groups directing films and being part of the process of fillmmaking.

Due to Web 2.0 and the proliferation of technology, old media is being replaced with new media, allowing audiences to interact with media and have more of an influence over what is being created. Though the power is being shifted to create more of a balance between filmmakers and audiences to allow interactions to be made and the term 'prosumer' and an 'active audience' as coined by Clay Shirky, becoming more frequent, large conglomerates still hold a large amount of power. This end of audience theory by Shirky presents the idea that because of the proliferation of technology, audiences behaviours and expectations have changed. Because of this, they can now interact and create their own amateur content. For example, there are more than 2.6 billion active monthly users on YouTube, with 300 hours of video uploaded every minute and almost 5 million videos viewed every day.

Because of this change in power and Web 2.0, there is a shift in Hollywood's content in favour of audience demands, for example the Me Too movement and feminist ideology has allowed for more women in film and the Black Lives Matter movement which put audience pressure for diversity on screens has resulted in more movies including more diverse casts. For example, Disney moved to include this in their movie 'Black Panther'. Research shows that in 2018, out of 139 highest grossing films, 41% of lead roles went to women and 26.6% to minorities. And these figures improved in 2019, where lead women roles jumped to 44% and 27.6% to minorities, which shows how things are progressing over the years. Women in media has now gone from not just being represented on screen but making decisions and being hired to direct movies. Additionally, there is now more of a rejection of women in traditional 'damsel in distress' or 'housewife' roles and the rejection of Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory. Women are now no longer accessories or side characters on screen, but have been given more powerful roles in films now.

Furthermore, because fans and audiences are starting to hold more power, movie makers are taking notice and imposing regulations on certain things. For example, in Europe, fans of the TV series Stranger Things resulted in many fans creating and sharing edits, videos, gifs and stills onto social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. However, in 2019 there was a huge online backlash due to the 'article 13' copyright directive, which resulted in many fan accounts and fan footage being taken down. One of the regulations imposed was that YouTube and other sites that allow user-generated content to build tools that proactively block anything that appears to infringe on copyright, and would face fines for whatever slipped through. 'YouTube would be forced to block millions of videos in the EU and would drastically limit the content that one can upload to the platform in Europe. One draft of the clause will impose regulation on "online content sharing service providers", requiring them to work harder to prevent copyright infringement on their sites, and "will subject huge swaths of online expression to interception and arbitrary censorship" as well as being "a catastrophe for freedom of expression".