Representation

Calvin
Gloria
Kelvin
Zahra
Zalfa
 Outline:
▹ Definition
▹ Language and Representation 2
▹ Communicating Meaning
▹ Representation and Discourse
▹ Representation, Discourse and
Resistance
Definition
4
5
 Language and
Representation
 “
Language —> give
meaning to words —>
representation —>
discourse.

7
8
9
10
11
Communicating
Meaning
Cultural Codes
Meaning is a dialogue - ❖ Systems of representation
always only partially ❖ The same linguistic codes

understood, always an 13
unequal exchange.
❏ Spoken language
❏ Musical language
They construct meaning and
❏ Body language
transmit it.
❏ Facial expression
They do not have clear ❏ TV
meaning in themselves. ❏ Traffic light
They are vehicles / media to
carry meaning.
 Words are important not
for what ‘they are but what
they do, their functions.’
✋👆👉👍👤👦👧
Receiver
👨👩👪💃🏃💑❤
😂😉😋😒😭👶😸
⭐ 👨 🔯 🐟🍒🍔💣📌📖🔨
🎃🎈🎨🏈🏰🌏🔌
14

🎤
Everything has no fixed or single
meaning for all time → depends on
🔑

the contexts in which it is used.

 15

Eid Mubarak Chinese New

Year
 16

❏ Dominant / Preferred Read ‘against the grain.’

❏ Negotiated
❏ Oppositional
17
 Dominant / preferred
reading is when the
reading media production
teams hope what
audiences will take from
the text with NO
questions.

Negotiated reading is when 18

the audience acknowledge
the preferred reading, but
modify it to suit their own
values and opinion.
Opposition reading is
when the audience
may reject the
preferred reading.
Representation
and Discourse
20
- Foucault’s berpendapat bahwa bagaimana
seorang manusia memahami sebuah makna
itu tidak tetap dan universal, melainkan
dipengaruhi oleh konteks sejarahnya.
- Makna yang diproduksi juga tidak lepas oleh
power relation.
- Konstruksi, menjaga, dan mereproduksi
kebenaran merupakan sebuah cara untuk
mempertahankan kekuatan dan kekuasaan.
- Kesimpulan Foucault adalah bahwa
representasi itu adalah produk dari power
relation dan tak ada representasi yang
merepresentasikan sebuah kebenaran yang
sudah ada sebelumnya.

21
Discourse operates across a range of diverse practices, texts and the
institutions in which these are located.

“All social practices entail meaning, and meanings shape

and influence what we do - our conduct - all practices
have a discursive aspect”

22
 16th and 17th centuries:
‘Witches’

1. Statements about the practices

and customs of witches

1. Rules that made it possible to

describe something - about
witchcraft

1. Actual people fitted the period’s

knowledge of witches

1. Institutional frameworks allowing

the knowledge produced by 1, 2
and 3 to acquire authority then
becoming the ‘truth’
23
Representation
, Discourse and
Resistance
 “
Focus on :
How the groups that
being consistently
misrepresented have
resisted or challenged
the ‘truths’.

25
 Homosexuality

Existing views : Problems :

1. Pathological 1. People treat homosexuals
differently
2. Moral degeneracy 2. It is hard to make arguments about
3. Sickness and sin homosexuality because of the
existing definition
26
Gay SUB-CULTURES
Homosexuals did participate in a lifestyle
Meaning that it is more than only about their
sexuality
27
A form of RESISTANCE
By showing that this is a way of life rather
than something to be cured
 Elements of a discourse
There should be people (sub) who can
recognize as personifying the attributes
assigned by the particular ‘truth’

The physical body of Gay people?

black people Repertoire of images emerged 28
 Gay sub-cultures and gay movements

1. Rejected conventional
representation of homosexuality
2. Challenged how they are
represented 29

Rework the visual typifications

from negative meanings to pride
and solidarity
3. They take control of the
meaning
Extract from Jo
Spence

Photography as the
main source of visual
imagery
30

Enormous power to
construct ‘truthful’ and
‘normative’ ways of
seeing the world
Representation have no
meaning until they are made
sense of through a
particular discourse - even
if it’s resisting or
challenging dominant
knowledge
31

Understood as a challenge
of normative assumption
about breastfeeding when
we know those normative
assumptions
 Meanings are encoded in representations by the
Conclusion assembly of a particular set of signs in a particular
context. To communicate, some shared meanings are
necessary, accepted by the encoder and the decoder.
Therefore, representation becomes meaningful within
discourse: statements, images, practices and
institutions representing a particular body of
knowledge. 32

The cultural representation of social groups raises

political questions about oppression and dominance.
Who represents whom, where and how determines the
representations available for us to look at. Thus, the
codes used will depend upon the position we occupy
in the social world and the ways in which we
understand that world.
THANKS!
Any questions?
33