Notes on allisonmedia.net's booklet on representation.

1. All media is 'mediated': it's been censored and changed in some way and everything we see is deliberate. When reality is mediated it becomes a representation of reality.
2. There are 3 types of representation:
   Reflective representation - in which the media attempts to replicate reality as accurately as possible. The news is a good example of this.
   Intentional representation - in which a preferred reading is imposed on the text by the creator to represent their view of reality to the audience.
   Constructed representation - halfway between reflective and intentional representation. A media text cannot accurately represent reality because it will always be mediated, influenced by something. It cannot represent the creator's individual reality because the audience project their own reality onto the media text, they view it in the context of other factors so they mediate it themselves.
3. Copied-ish from the booklet is what makes up a representation. It's any mixture of:
   The thing itself
   The opinions of the people creating the representation
   The reactions of the audience to the representation
   The context of the society in which the representation is taking place.
4. Stereotypes are what the brain comes up with when it blocks people into groups to easily recognize them later on (also known as Grokking). You see a pattern such as turbans being consistently linked with Islam and the next time your brain recognizes a person wearing a turban you count them as a Muslim. This can lead to problems (such as Sikhs being mistaken as Muslims). Some of these Stereotypes arise naturally and some are promoted by the Media. For example French people are consistently represented as skinny beret-wearing types riding bicycles with a baguette under one arm and a ring of onions around their neck. Going to France one would be hard pressed to find such a character, however each one of those features I mentioned represent France in the media.
5. The media definition of Hegemony is that the media in general is dominated by a single culture and ideology. The media represents the world corresponding with that culture and that ideology. Because this culture and this ideology dominates it slowly becomes considered normal by the audience. See also cultural imperialism - where the culture of one society invades and dominates another.
6. Secondly the media definition of pluralism is where the media is composed of a wide range of ideas all of which enjoy equal representation.