Representations and Society

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Representations and Society
Discuss the ways the text could promote,
challenge or subvert popular ways of seeing
groups and/or individuals.
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Social ideologies

• Ways of thinking, conceptual frameworks,
  operating in society
• Reading for ideology speculating on the role a
  text might play in the circulation of ideas in
  society
• Key concepts dominant, subordinate, competing
• Key terms promote, reflect, reinforce, endorse,
  confirm, challenge, subvert

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Which of These Texts Most Strongly Reflects
Currently Popular Ways of Seeing
Boys?
Image 2
Image 1
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Which of These Texts Most Strongly Reflects
Currently Popular Ways of Seeing Families?
Image 1
Image 2
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Which of These Texts Most Strongly Challenges
Currently Popular Ways of Seeing Families?
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Which of These Texts Most Strongly Challenges
Currently Popular Ways of Seeing

• Squirrels?

Image 1
Image 2
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Ideologies Vary Between Societies
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Ideologies Vary Within Society
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Ideologies Change Over Time
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Reminder

• When a q requires me to discuss how textual
  representation interacts with social ideol
• specify the society/ies the people within it I
  am talking about

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Texts may both reinforce and challenge at the
same time
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(No Transcript)
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Reminder

• When a q requires me to discuss how
  representation interacts with social ideol
• Avoid being simplistic look for complexity

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• Discuss the ways the image below could promote,
  challenge or subvert popular ways of thinking.

This image appeared in a number of American
newspapers in 2008, accompanied by the following
caption Want some? ... US Army Staff Sergeant
William Lambert, 30, from Plainview, Arkansas
shares his rations with an Iraqi boy in Beijia
village in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, Iraq.
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To Do

• Practise thinking about how representations
  interact with social ideologies.