task 3

Media representations rarely challenge the dominant values of society nor do they give a voice to those with little power.

To what extent is this true for the group or place you have studied? Why?

There are many representations in today's society which still cause concern such as youths as devious due to the influence of street culture as seen in music videos, games, movies or in soaps. Due to the fact this group is seen as deviant and irresponsible they are not given a fair chance, so whenever the media prints something negative about them, their voice is not heard.

As the media is hegemonic their news values are usually about bad things happening and they like to sensationalise this to create a moral panic. This is the case when there are cases of knife crime, burglary etc which associate youths with anti social behaviour. With music videos women often tend to be more sexually objectified than men as those representations commonly in a mans song whereas in a women's video she would stereotypically sing about love and be portrayed as the neglected partner and men would be promiscuous etc. These representations are based on stereotypes and if they are conformed again and again then it can dumb society down as they may start to have certain expectations as well as cultivating certain gender behaviour, although Judith Butler said 'gender is not fixed'.

Furthermore since the 9/11 bombings in America the common stereotype of all Muslims is now as extremist suicide bombers and whenever anyone notices a bearded religious man they assume he is a terrorist. Therefore Muslims don't have a say in how they are portrayed as people hate them. Furthermore with gay people they are portrayed as promiscuous, party loving, and rowdy. The general stereotype ignores people who don't fit into this label as in Eastenders Syed is not the typical gay and is quiet humble and religious partly because he rejected Islam to be with rowdy boyfriend Christian.

Overall media representations favour those with power as it injects their hegemonic ideologies into the rest of society but these are not accurate and are unfair as it neglects people of a fair chance and judgement as the media is always protraying and taking out the bad things.