Power and the Media Essay

Power and the Media Essay

"Analyze the representation of social groups in contemporary media."

Power in the media is the understanding of who has power in constructing ideologies about society events and/or groups of people in society, which also mean how people are perceived or represented. An Example of this is Stuart Halls Representation Theory, he believes that the media like to use stereotypes a lot, stereotypes reduce people down to a few minor characteristics which others have come to associate with them. Ethnic minorities are represented in the media and stereotyped as very negative. Stuart Hall also believes that stereotypes tend to come about when there are people with power who are from the dominant hegemonic groups within society.

Hegemony or Cultural Hegemony is a Greek word that means "to lead" but its usually associated with the ideas of dominations and control, as in the means by which one group dominates and controls another. Hegemonic groups are classified as white, middle class/upper class, rich males which is basely because most media produced companies are owned by people from that group. The Theory was created by Antonio Gramsci and sort of explained by a special type of agreement in which the person agreeing doesn't necessarily know what they have agreed to

Web 2.0 is a way people around the world can connect with each other through the internet, it is a way for audiences to interact with the media and have influence over what is being created. An Example of this is how audiences nowadays are more active rather than passive, this means that Web 2.0 has changed the was audiences watch media and can now interact with it and be active nu commenting, liking, and even sharing. Passive audiences are the complete opposite, they watch it and have their opinion but don't do anything other than watch the media. Thanks to Web 2.0 Shirky came up with a theory that not only movie producers like the big 5 can create media for people to watch but rather the audience can get involved as well, Shirky called the "Prosumers", this also got rid of the type of hierarchy that professional producers are dominant to the media and have all the power and say with media, but now the prosumers have just as much power as they do now.

YouTube is a platform that helps Prosumers to put their media onto the interne and for active audiences to react with it and give feedback. YouTube is the second most biggest link ever clicked on in the world, which explains all the prosumers creating media and audiences watching them to interact afterwards. The total number of monthly active YouTube users are 2.6 billion, while in a daily aspect it is 122 million+. 1 billion YouTube videos have been watched per day and even 500 hours worth of videos are uploaded onto YouTube every minute of the day. Throughout the years the number of users have increased rapidly from 2012 - 2015.

The big 5 are the biggest conglomerates in the media industries and are perceived to have great amounts of power in media. WaltDisney, Paramount Pictures, Sony, WarnerBrothers, as well as 21st Century. The movies that Disney have released was AVATAR this is one of the best movies that Disney have made as their box office revenue is 2.874 Billion USD, while WarnerBrothers Harry Potter movie series have made 942.2 Million USD in box office. Paramount Pictures made 1.1 Billion USD and more counting in box office. Sony's Spiderman no way home made 1.901 Billion USD on box office.

Hollywood is moving their approach when it comes to the favor of audience demands, as audiences would like more of an equality atmosphere when watching media, Hollywood is avoiding the hegemonic approach and adding women to be hero's and more physical in movies to change the stereotype  of women in media. They have also introduced to add black people as the antagonist rather than being the bad guy or thug. Hollywood believes that by adding this diversity audiences will enjoy watching more movies and will spend more money as the big 5 conglomerates care about money. Directors Ava DuVernay and Spike Lee help introduce the streaming service Initiative called "Strong Black Lead" its a promise to represent black audiences authentically, which hasn't always been Hollywood's priority. Early pictures of black people included criminals, slaves, nannies, servants, black face or just plain ignorance. From the mid 1910s -  the 1930s Duke university says "some film companies had some sort of revelation if you will" They in deed dedicated themselves to creating productions with quote "All colored casts" as they promised to write positive diverse roles. After many of the black people moved from the urban to the south Hollywood started to adjust to the changes. In fact what was called the "Race move Genre" ONLY displayed black people in a positive light. #OsacrSoWhite.... For the second year in a row USA today reported that all 20 of the actors nominated for a lead or supporting actor Oscar were white. And black people weren't having it Jada Smith says "we no longer need to ask to be invited anywhere" other black people boycotted the award show and demanded change. Because of that the academy promised to diversify race and gender in 2020. Representations in Black Panther is a big one because of how it was proved that diversity sells, Black panther made $700 million dollars nationally and more than $1 Billion+ world wide. As it seems black Hollywood is hopeful, Netflix can represent for black people alongside others in the industry.

Women make up about 50% of the U.S. population and minorities slightly more than 40%. A majority of the nation’s population will be minorities by 2050, according to U.S.. The researchers analyzed 139 films with the highest gross global ticket receipts of 2018. They found that 41.0% of lead roles went to women and 26.6% to minorities. And among all acting roles in those films, 40.4% went to women and 30.9% to people of color. Things improved somewhat in most casting roles in 2019. Women had 44.1% of lead acting roles and 40.2% of the total cast in the 145 films from 2019 examined in the report; people of color made up 27.6% of lead actors and 32.7% of all film roles in 2019. Each year, the report also analyzes the range of cast diversity among the top-grossing movies. In every previous report, films with the least diverse casts — those in which less than 11% of the cast were minority actors — made up the largest share of the top-grossing movies. By 2019, that was not the case: Just 15.9% of the top-grossing movies had casts that were less than 11% minorities. By comparison, more than half of the top films in 2011 had less than 11% minority casts.

When it comes to gender and racial diversity in television industry jobs, the playing field continues to level for women and minorities, but there’s stubborn structural gridlock at the highest ranks and behind the camera. Women and minorities made gains in nearly all of the 13 television employment categories tracked by the report. But both groups still are not represented proportionately to their share of the U.S. population overall, even though audiences continue to show interest in programs whose casts, directors and writers represent the nation’s diversity. “There has been a lot of progress for women and people of color in front of the camera,” said Darnell Hunt, who is dean of the division of social sciences in the UCLA College and a co-author of the report. “Unfortunately, there has not been the same level of progress behind the camera. Most notably in the executive suite, there has been very little change since we began compiling data five years ago. That’s very telling, particularly in light of our current racial reckoning.”

In media women are represented as to be a sexy thing, because of the Male gaze theory, this means that males are more likely to watch or do something that a sexy women says as they attract the men. But women don't want to be perceived as the "Housewife" or "Damsel in distress" but they would much rather be the tough, and powerful person.

Disney have removed scenes from their movies that are offensive to some countries because of their religions or because of the BLM movement, they had deleted scenes from "Dumbo", though not part of a scene in the feature's main story, a "post-credit blooper" from the film has been removed due to its suggestive nature as the film's antagonist character Stinky Pete makes a suggestive remark toward two Barbie dolls, offering them a role in the next Toy Story movie.