Stuart HAll's Theory of Representation in Literary and Cultural Studies

REPRESENTATION: 

Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997) 

Edited by Stuart Hall

Sage Publication. 

The parts of this volume are dealt with representation.

What is representation? what does representation have to do with culture; what is the connection between them? 

Simply culture is about "shared meanings", and language has privileged medium in which we "make sense" of things, in which meaning is produced and exchanged (p.1). 

Representation, Meaning, and Language

Representation connects meaning and language to culture. in common sense, representation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people. Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a cultures. re. It does involve the use of language, of signs, and images which stand for or represent. 

The circuit of culture (Hall, 1997, p.1)

How does the concept of representation connect meaning and language to culture? Here we will be drawing a distinction between three different accounts or theories; the reflective, the intentional, and the constructionist approaches to representation. For reflective, the main question to be asked is does language simply reflect a meaning which already exists out there in the world of objects, people and events? It meaning is produced by human beings through ideas, media objects and experiences in society in a real way.For  intentional, does language express only what the speaker or writer or painter want to say? The speakers of both spoken and written language give a unique meaning to each of his work. Language is the medium used by speakers in communicating meaning in each of the things that apply specifically called unique. For constructionist, is meaning constructed in and through language?  The speaker and writer, select and assign meaning in the message or work (objects) it makes. However, it is not the material world (objects), the work of arts, that leave the meaning but the man who put the meaning.

Stuart Hall considers that "there is something wrong" with the representation of minority groups in the media, even he believes that the image of the media is getting worse. He said, "There is something radically wrong with the way of black immigrants-West Indians, Asians, Africans- are handled by and presented on the mass media". Hall observed that media tend to be sensitive to middle and upper middle-class lifestyles, the majority of organized societies, while blacks are described as "outsiders," "out of consensus," "relatively disorganized," "working class." Furthermore, the media increasingly glorifies the institutions of society, where blacks are problematic in the area of sensitive power; employment, public discrimination, housing, legalization of parliament, local government, law, and police.

The issue of representation brings us to several important questions:

• Does the picture in the media help us to understand or comprehend how the world works?

• In what kind of depiction  of 'some people'  are represented in the media?