Theoretical/methodological approach: Representation

Stuart Hall

We give things meaning by how we represent them Culture, we may say, is involved in all those practices which carry meaning and value for
us.
Representation is conceptualized as a primaty or constitutive process in shaping social subjects and historical events not merely a reflection
of the world after the event. (6) Language therefore provides a general model of how culture and representation work.

Representation functions as a dialogue What sustains this dialogue is the presence of shared cultural codes, meanings dont remain stable
though attempting to fix meaning is exactly why power intervenes in discourse. (10)

Representation is the production of meaning through language. In representation Meaning is produced by the practice, the work of
representation. It is constructed through signifying i.e. meaning-producing-practices. (28)

Mijes:
Representation is the construction of identity and self-image, which serve to guide us through the real world. Representation means nothing
less that the production of self and other. (369)


Foucault:
He studied not language, but discourse as a system of representation Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. (48)

Truth: Knowledge linked to power, not only assumes the authority of the truth but has the power to make itself true. All knowledge, once
applied in the real world, has real effects, and in that sense, at least becomes true There is no power relation without the correlative
constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations (Foucault,
49)




The other:

Said: Neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation,
partly identification of the Other. (870) always with shapes imposed and disfigurements tolerated, so that our East, our Orient becomes ours
to possess and direct. (871)

self-affirmation, belligerency and outright war. .. the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external dominion. (872) distorted
knowledge of the other, each its own reductive images, its own disputatious polemics. (873)

Reflection, debate, rational argument, moral principle based on a secular notion that human beings must create their own history have been
replaced by abstract ideas that celebrate American or Western exceptionalism, denigrate the relevance of context, and regard other cultures
with derisive contempt. (877)


Link to Foucault: every domain is linked to every other one, and that nothing that goes in our world has ever been isolated and pure of any
outside influence. (874) To Foucault: power involves knowledge, representation, ideas, cultural leadership and authority, as well as economic
constraint and physical coercion.

Hall: Representation working stereotyping: Set of representational practices that reduces people to a few, simple, essential characteristics,
which are represented as fixed by nature. (260) Power not only constrains and prevents: it is also productive. It produces new discourses, new
kinds of knowledge (i.e. Orientalism), new objects of knowledge, it shapes new practices and institutions (261) Racialized regime of
representation through difference, otherness.


Categorization:

Sacks and those after him have suggested that everyday knowledge about people is organized in membership categorization devices. These
consist of membership categories, which are constituted by category-bound activities, together with the rules for their application categorizing
is normally done to accomplish something other than just categorizing (Hausendorf, 244)

one is us in relation to them: The category pairs are united in opposition by the way in which the conflict is framed.Actions for
which categorizations prepare ground reproduce and may change that membership category.

Focalization:

Focalisation is defined as the connection between the subject of vision, and that which is seen. There is always a subject of focalization -be it
the narrator, or one of the characters- as well as an object of focalization: that which the focalizer perceives, and thus transmits in an always
partial light. The distribution of focalization determines the distribution of power in the story: who sees, who speaks and who is seen and
spoken of?
Framing:

The frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a
particular problem definition, Framing theory emphazises the ability of any entity media, individuals, or organizations to delineate other
peoples reality, highlighting one interpretation while de-emphasizing a less favored one. (54)

Most news coverage adopts episodic or thematic frames, Episodic frames tend to be more drama oriented, visually compellingthe effects of
episodic framing on attributions of responsibility occur through a process of automatic trait attribution implying personal rather than situational
responsibility Capella and Jamieson, 65