Representation & the Media

Cultural theorist Stuart Hall offers an extended meditation on representation. Moving beyond the accuracy or inaccuracy of specific representations, Hall argues that the process of representation itself constitutes the very world it aims to represent, and explores how the shared language of a culture, its signs and images, provides a conceptual roadmap that gives meaning to the world rather than simply reflecting it. Hall's concern throughout is the centrality of culture to the shaping of our collective perceptions, and how the dynamics of media representation reproduce forms of symbolic power.

Intro | Visual Representation & The Contemporary World | An Old View | A New View | Culture as Primary | Conceptual Maps | Language & Communication | Reality & Discourse | The Practices of Signification | Meaning & Absence | Identity, Identification & The Viewer | Meaning is Interpretation | Ideology & Power Fix Meaning | Contesting Stereotypes | What is at Stake in Representation