A Sam Burnham AS Media Blog

Age;
Children; Children in the media are played as the same age of the target audience. e.g Tracey Beaker/ kids at the dumping ground are all the ages of the target audience. The media portray children to be good people so that the children watching aspire to be like them. Most children in television tend to live normal lives, but with a few added luxuries that kids would love to own.
12-14 year olds; nearly always play cool characters who lead action packed, interesting lives, with new gadgets, they always play the good guys e.g M-I-High, again it gives something for the target audience to look up to.
15-18 year olds; Never normally played as 'normal' teenagers. You have one end of the spectrum, such as skins where all the teenagers are seen as druggies, dropouts, violent people who lead exciting lives going out partying. Then the other end of the scale would be The Inbetweeners, which shows social rejects and their struggle on getting girls and getting through the hurdles of teenage life. Characters such as Vicky Pollard are used to discourage mid teenagers becoming like that. People look down on her making her a bad role model and would make people avoid being like her.
20-30; Hollyoaks represents the idea that when you're younger you dress older and when you're older you dress to look younger. It reflects that the 20's are the prime time of your life and everyone is successful.
Eastenders shows that you get more sophisticated as you enter your 30's, e.g drinking wine instead of cheap rinks and that women dress more their age, more glamorous. It shows men being more successful, dressed in suits.
Elderly people are re-presented as being old, mardy, weak, not with it, complaining or contrastingly as a happy lad, war hero type.
Status and Class
Lower class; chavs, homeless people.
We associate the 'upper class' people to be rich, play sports such as polo and cricket, go fox hunting and live in mansions. Usually people with higher class have the upper status in the media, and tend to have control of the situation.
Middle class is what we would consider 'normal' people, living in a semi-detached house, do normal things such as have jobs such as teachers or bankers and have the typical 2.4 children.
xWorking class is seen as Chavs, wearing baseball caps, living in council houses. Bianca from Eastenders talks like you would expect someone from a lower class to, with a strong cockney accent. This indicates she isn't well educated and is a bit gobby. They are also related to not having much money.

Disability
There are many types of disabilities, but the one the media focuses on is people bound to a wheelchair. Disabled people are typically seen to be wearing comfy clothes, as they are viewed to be housebound and don't actually need to get out of their wheelchair. Normally characters in wheelchairs are vulnerable, don't make much effort and aren't energetic. This depicts disabled people. Andy and Lou from Little Britain make full use of the stereotypical disabled person. The settings of Andy's house is untidy and dirty, implies that because he's in a wheelchair he can't do day-to-day chores.
The camera angle tends to look down or at a disabled person, never looks up to them. It is common that the carer is in the image with the disabled person, rather than focusing on the individual person. Another thing that doesn't focus on the individual person is when you hear stories of disabled people doing well, e.g. if someone who had lost their legs and had fake ones put on and ran a marathon, would get a lot more praise than someone who had both of their own legs. This re-enforces that non-disabled people patronize disabled people. The personality traits of disabled people in the media are either that they are evil, or stupid. There's rarely a normal character in a wheelchair.

Regional identity
Northeners- People are friendly yet reject anyone from the south. They are portrayed to moan a lot and consume a lot of alcohol. On average they live a 'lower class' life, and that more crime happens compared to the south. In this clip Frankie Boyle portrays scottish people by picking and exaggerating certain stereotypes.

Southeners- They seem to live a more upbeat lifestyle, mainly based around cities. They have a more 'Newsreader' Accent, which is easier to understand but is labelled 'posh'. They are more forward about subjects.

Countryside - From places such as the west country or Norfolk, are harder to understand and maybe seen as not ' with the times ' . Also seen as farmers, they wear more relaxed clothes, have more rural jobs e.g farmers and are seen to have a more physical working lifestyle. This clip from hot fuzz exaggerates the West Country accent.

Ethnicity
Hoodies are portrayed to be the sort of clothes that make people unapproachable, and black people are normally seen to be wearing them. This enforces that black teenage/early 20's boys are thugs. That they are lazy, don't want to work or help the community.
The full on traditional Indian wedding is seen as a stereotype. That all Indians dress in their Shari all the time. Bend it like Beckham shows a stereotypical Indian family, and their reaction to Jess wanting to play football -something Indian girls don’t do. This picture shows Jess' football team getting her dressed in her Shari, exaggerating the cultural differences between a common western game and Indian expectations.

Sexuality
Gay men tend to be shown wearing tightly fitted clothing, are more into fashion and style than heterosexual men, they like to spend their time out clubbing with girl friends, and often take part in gay parades.
Plots tend to include coming out, how they cope and the abuse that suffers. This is focussing on the negative points of being homosexual. Lesbians are also portrayed in the media as having short hair, being butch, into contact sports such as rugby, deeper voices and act manly.

Gender
Toilet signs give the stereotypical gender representations; it gives the cultural signal of women wearing skirts and dresses, and men having broad shoulders. Typically males are seen to be wearing trousers, short hair, strong, earn more money, working, bigger.
Women are seen to have long hair, not physically as strong as men, less responsibility and to be a typical housewife. The typical 'housewife' shows women cooking food for the man when he gets home. In contemporary soaps males are seen as the supporters, 'stoic', never the other way round. The women are seen as 'wearing their heart on their sleeve' and don't tend to control their emotions. The physical fighting in soaps, most often times is done by men, if it is done by women its more of a bitch fight.