week 9 media representation

Question 1

what is essentialism?

Answer 1

belief that we all have a fixed set of attributes that are universally defined
- some people are naturally more one way or another

Question 2

what is an example of essentialism?

Answer 2

the belief that all women are weaker then men or that all gay men are flamboyant

Question 3

what is reductionism?

Answer 3

meaning of entities are then reduced to those set of fixed attributes
* Viewing certain people through an essentialist perspective reduces their character to the confines of those
assumptions

Question 4

example of reductionism

Answer 4

women characters in media are cast to reflect the essentialism belief that women are weaker than men

Question 5

what happens because of misrepresentation in the media

Answer 5

When media representations of particular groups rely on essentialist or reductionist characteristics, then this perpetuates harmful and oppressive stereotypes and ideologies
eg: danger of a single-story

Question 6

what is misrepresentation

Answer 6

inaccurate representations of a specific type of person/group of people or issue

Question 7

forms of misrepresentation

Answer 7

• Under-representation
• Discrimination
• Exclusion (or symbolic annihilation)

Question 8

what is underrepresentation

Answer 8

is the insufficient, inadequate, and/or disproportionately low presence of a particular social group in media

Question 9

what is symbolic annihilation

Answer 9

symbolic annihilation is what happens when the lack of representation of a group impacts their real-life status in the world

Question 10

interventions for misrepresentation

Answer 10

• Self-representation
• Diversifying newsrooms
• Providing diverse media
• Examples:
• Diversestockphotos
• Diversestorylinesandcharacters