Evaluation Question 2 NOTES

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

1. List the characters shown in your opening, and provide a brief summary of their role/character
2. List the 'Factors Which Influenced Our Representations' (see notes on Audience in cwk pack; make sure to cite genre conventions too!) 
3. Tackle each character separately (if you have a group at a party, treat them as one unless they have very particular roles)
4. Add a subheading of the character's name + add, in CAPS, either COUNTERTYPE or STEREOTYPE in brackets after their name
5. Provide a still image of the character + a 2nd still image of a comparable example from existing media texts (use blogger's caption tool to add basic info) [see point 7]
6. [please read note after this list for more tips on how to analyse representations] Break down, using 1 or more of the 7 suggested areas of representation, what makes your representation counter- (if challenging the convention) or stereotypical (following convention). Consider: costume, make-up, shot selection + editing, use of sound/music, accent and dialogue (in/formal? slang? broad/refined accent etc), perhaps name (intertextual reference?). You could do this as a Word doc (or using Photoshop) with the image centred and lines/arrows from details (signifiers) with symbolic significance (connotations). If you want to extend your analysis, you could apply Stuart Hall's concept of 3 levels of reading; the 'meaning' of a text is not simply down to what the creator/s have attempted to encode, but rather also depends on the knowledge/values of the person consuming the text. Could your representations be read in different ways? Might a teen aud react differently to a stereotypical pensioner aud for example?
7. Where appropriate, provide an image of an archetype (eg Psycho's Marion Crane as 'scream queen', Halloween's Laurie Strode as 'final girl') - if you haven't already, make sure you clearly link your choices into genre conventions. Don't be shy about including material (possibly best to simply provide hyperlinks) from earlier in your blog.
8. Summarize: on the whole, have you used stereo- or countertypes ... or a balanced mix of both? Are you happy with your choices here? Would you have liked to change any aspects of this if you'd access to a wider possible cast?

Source: http://asmediafilmopening.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/eval-q2-representations.html