Media Representation: Social Choice and Individual Choice

1. Media mediate truth to the society. What we are presented is a representation of truth.


Many people think what we have seen in the media is what they are in the real world; they believe these news or events truly happened. However, various people postulate the media as a powerful medium of influencing and molding our beliefs and attitudes.

What we have seen in the media is just a representation of truth, it is not the wholly truth. The representation is, according to Rayner P. and Wall P., “the process by which the media can be said to interpret the world, or external reality.” To make it clear, media already makes decision of what series of information and images are going to be gathered. Then, those news and images will be selected by the media crews, and simplifying them to the audience. Thus, what we have seen on the screen listened to the radio, or even read the newspaper are digested and prepared. Therefore, we can say that media is a mediator to convince people in the society. This “Mediation” function of media is called as the process of portraying an opinion, issue or event from the world outside by encoding them into a combination of symbolic, iconic, and individual signs to the audience.

Furthermore, the media function is compared to be a watchdog guarding against danger and threat for the audience, a window on the world, and a mirror reflecting the world outside. What we have seen in the television, for example, is a two-dimensional representation of the three-dimensional world outside. Hence, everything that media present is just selected and distorted. In addition, the information is fabricated and distributed to us.

2. Representation is by nature illusory and distorted. Why must representation be that way? Why can it not be objective and truthful?

Three reasons why representation is illusory and distorted and it can not be objective and truthful are to attract most audience as they could, to maintain its popularity in the society, and the media are controlled by the powerful institution.


a. Media want to attract most audience as much as it could. As we know, media cannot live without the investments of advertising products. Consequently, they have to gain numerous audiences’ attentions as mush as possible in order to convey the advertising messages in order to be attractive for the products or services to pay for the media space and time. Hence, it can be stated that media can not live if the audience does not pay attention to.

As aforementioned, the representation of media is pre-selected as what general audiences want to know, to see, or to hear. Actually, we, as the audiences, do not like what we have decoded, but what we have seen in each medium is what we satisfy and need to see or to hear. This can be an explanation why some people love to watch TV or read news online.

Sensationalism, the highlighting of conflicts, can attract the audience. If representation does not distort, exaggerate, or sensationalize the information, the audience will pay less attention to that medium and it will acquire less circulation.

Thai sport news is one example of sensationalism that newspaper use. In order to gain attention from the audience, Thai sport news will choose to present the conflict or the aggressive manner between Thai football players in a game which is rather interested than an ordinary football score reporting. This sensational news will make the audiences remember and lure them to follow the news series. It also reduces the zapping, switching channel, rate in the television program.

b. Media try to maintain its popularity in the social. Just like the proverb ‘When in Rome, do as the Roman do’. If the media want to be popular and live longer in the society, they should satisfy the members of the society. It might seem ridiculous but if media want to live happily without being banned by the government, they should get into the right side. An example of doing as Roman do is in Thai newspaper ‘Thairath’. Thairath always gets along with the government, no matter what government party will be at that period. If that government party comes to an end, Thairath will forthwith change part.

c. Media are controlled by the powerful institution. Media can not be objective and truthful owing to the controlling of the government. Some media like TV5; for example, always present the news according to the government preference.

3. The factors affecting media practitioner’s choice of representation (social and individual factors).

Both social factor and individual factor affect media practitioner’s choice of representation as we can see through the stereotyping representation that media usually apply. Stereotype is the representation of groups of people, which categorize whole groups by assigning qualities that may be persisted in only one or two particular persons.

Social, political, economic, or even cultural issues etc, affect the choice of representation. The presence of minority groups in the media in recent years has been changed. In an old period of media, those minority groups such as gay community and disability were negatively presented. However, now a day, an acceptance with our culture of diversity increases, those representations are more submissive to change. The style and appearance of some celebrities like David Beckham; for example, shows a homophobic representation which media tend to focus on homo-erotic images and it seems to be a more positive representation.

Individual factor or personal identity is shaped, in somehow, by social factors once again. Our identities, values, and beliefs that we hold are influenced by the society we lived in, family, culture, religion, communities, etc. Moreover, individuals tend to have more than one identity; for example, the glamorous model, Jordan. Jordan applies two identities which seem to oppose with each other. Her first identity is a glamorous model with surgically enhanced chests, Jordan with her real identity ‘Kate Price’ a mother with a disability child, and a wife of Peter Andre. In addition, there are online communications that empower people to create their new identities, change their gender and sexual orientation such as ‘Second Life’. Second Life is a 3D online virtual world where teens can create, meet and socialize with new friends using imagination to create their identities.

Hence, the choice of representation of a particular media practitioner is counterfeited by both social or cultural factor and individual factor like identity.

4. Given different gender of the media practitioner, do you think the choice of representation would be different?

The different gender of media practitioner makes the different choice of representation. The reason is that each individual has distinguished identities. Media representation is the selection of events or news to present through each medium from different attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives of the media practitioners. Furthermore, gender also influence particular media practitioner’s perspectives which results in the choice of representation.

A recent movie, The Ugly Truth, can be a good example of different representation choice from different genders. Abby, a female news producer makes her lifestyle according to her rules or the procedure. She always chooses to protect the TV station’s image. She never allows any rude manner or vulgar language leak out to the audience. Abby prefers to orderly moderate the programs, not breaking out the concept. On the other hand, Mike, a famous MC, selects to present the same news issue in a different perspective. He prefers to use impudent, double meaning words that sometimes rude, and exaggerate to challenge the audience. Although it seems to be improper, it increases the rating of the program.

To conclude, it’s not only the gender factor that influence the different choice of representation but also the individual identities including attitudes and beliefs that affect the practitioners’ selection of the information to be presented to the receivers.

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