Representation of events
Events like war, accidents, terrorist attacks, political or celebrity scandals, sporting occasions or criminal trials can all be represented by different media texts in different ways.
When analysing how an event is represented, it is important to think about how the representation has been constructed and what might affect it.
Always consider:
- The ideology of the media text: different newspapers have different A set of ideas or thoughts that someone, or a group of people, believe in. The plural of this is 'ideologies'. or An opinion on an issue or event which is reflected in a media text's coverage of it. that might affect how an event is portrayed. This can be particularly noticeable in political events like elections when some newspapers support certain parties.
- Codes and Conventions: The The ways in which a media text uses language to speak to its target audience - for example, formal or informal., technical, visual and audio Codes embedded in media texts which include visual elements such as the camera angles, shots sizes and editing styles used in a film, or audio such as the voiceover in a nature documentary or music track in an advert., as well as any images used will all affect the representation of an event. The same photo with a different caption can create a very different representation of the same event.
- Mediation:The representation will have been constructed with certain information selected by the media producer. In a gossip magazine there might be an article about a celebrity not looking their best however the context of the photos selected might not be mentioned - they may have been at the gym or be unwell, which would explain why they don’t look perfect. Often the information that has been left out can be as important as what has been included.
- The target audience: Who the media text is aimed at will affect how certain events are represented. For instance, a quality newspaper and tabloid newspaper will represent the immigration debate in very different ways.
Many people follow events as they unfold on social media. This could be checking for breaking news updates if there has been an accident or terrorist attack, or following a celebrity scandal as it unfolds.
Like other representations, social media can sometimes only show one side or opinion of an event. For instance, if you were to follow an election on social media but only looked at posts from one person you would get a very narrow representation of that election.