Media representations favour those with power at the expense of those without.

In today’s generation, the representation behind some groups can make or break you. For instance the late Jade Goody found stardom through reality TV competition ‘Big brother’ and ironically the same show had a negative effect on her when entering the house for the second time with her mother and boyfriend as she was constructed as a bully towards Shilpa Shetty which the British public stood up for.

Many different representations of groups exist in the media and the media exaggerates certain ideologies behind certain people. For instance woman’s representation are commonly constructed by the media and men who objectify women as they are believed to serve the purpose of the male gaze as Laura Mulvey highlighted. An example of this is lads magazine which feature women half naked on the front cover, yet interestingly there are no magazines with exhibited the same way. This suggests men have the power to shape what their ideal women is and inject it into the rest of society as well as influencing women to conform to that ideal image. Therefore the glamorization of the ideal women is the main ideology put forward by the media and men.

The Daily Mail owned by ‘Associated News’ is a right wing newspaper that tends to have old fashioned beliefs. So when teenagers are portrayed as violent it creates moral panics as issues like knife/un crime are on the rise. The negative portrayal of teenagers injects into the audiences mind that we should fear them and they’re outta control. This leads to more stereotypes so that the moral entrepreneurs (the media) make it worse. The whole issue of teen knife crime and fitting into a subculture can be a result of watching, playing violent video games and music videos. This can lead to a copycat effect on teenagers where the influence rubs off on them. Due to the fact most teenagers are portrayed negatively in the media they’re opinion isn’t voiced or considered as they are at an influential age therefore this puts them in a powerless position.

Representations surrounding gay people are negative as they are seen as promiscuous so it causes concern to the rest of society especially old fashioned people who believe being gay is dirty and forbidden as they are more likely to contract sexually transmitted viruses like AIDS and HIV. This was the case in Eastenders when Christian Clarke was beaten up by a homophobic man. Due to the acceptance in society about gays events like GAYPRIDE celebrate the differences whereas in the past people were more conservative and religious. Therefore other peoples acceptance has gave gay people more power.

Overall there are many representations embraced in society today as there are laws like the civil partnership act to unite gay people as well as negative representations like youths as gangsters but the common factor is that those considered as a moral panic are powerless.