Monday, October 30, 2006

Bibliography: Books

Gillespie, Marie (1995): Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change. London: Routledge.
Gillespie explores how tv and video are being used to recreate cultural tradtions within the 'South Asian' diaspora in London part. Southall! Furthermore, she examines how young people both reaffirm and challenge parental traditions, at the same time formulating their own aspirations.
Why is this book useful?
To have access to an ethnographic study into Southall is ideal and directly relevant to my study. She also makes references to many other theoriests such as Stuart Hall which is evident in her detailed bibliography.

Stokes, Jane and Reading, Anna (1999): Media in Britain. Hampshire, UK: Macmillian Press LTD
This book on the whole is quite generic which is useful in terms of grasping theories regrarding representation. However, it does have an entire chapter on ethnic minorities which has proved to been insightful from both an audience and journalist perspective.
Why is this useful?
The chapter on ethnic minorities talks a lot about colonialism and imperialism and makes references to many researchers such as Hartmann and Husband.

Malik, Sarita (2002): Representing Black Britain. London: Sage Publications.
Dr Sarita Malik has researched and written loads on race, media and culture. She's worked for the BBC, as an independent writer and researcher. She's currently Head of Asian Arts at the Watermans Arts Centre in London.
Her book focuses on issues on representation, ideology, 'race' and difference. She covers various television genres including documentary, news , comedy, light entertainment, youth television, drama, film and sport.
Why is this useful?
This directly links to my study and her content is both useful in proving and disproving my hypothesis, especially her section on comedy..where she states 'who is being laughed at and why?'

Helsby, Wendy (2006): Understanding Representation. London: British Film Institute.
Another generic book on representation, but it's a good basis to grasp the key concept of representation to then go into detail about the portrayal of ethnic minorities. It also takes an interesting look on how 'others' may view our ethnocentric world.
Why is this useful?
Helsby's book has written a case study on East is East which is one of my other texts.





posted by Pip at 10:21 AM 0 comments

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Self-directed research:report

posted by Pip at 7:19 AM 1 comments

Keywords..

Alientation: Marxist term for the emotional separation of workers from the product of their own labour as a result of complex mass-production processes.
Is life isn't all ha ha hee hee all part of personal gratification, identity and self esteem sought outsider the workplace..in many ways it is.

Attitude, beliefs and values: terms commonly used when discussing the audience for media products and the factors influencing the reception of media messages.
Attitudes - the positon people hold to 'l.i.a.h.h.' is that many people can relate to it because the attitudes are of universal British culture.
Beliefs - deeply held values of the audience may be of equality, the everyday struggles of women and men(asian or not) and integration.
Values - the morals and ideological structure which may be belief in patriarchy or on the other hand a progressive and liberal way of thinking.

Colonialism: The system collapsed in the seond half of the twentienth century as liberation movements secured the independence of most former colonies. H/ever, the legacy of colonial occupation continues in the form of cultural imperialism, sustained by Western economic domination of global media industries.
In more recent context, it is post-colonialism ( It focuses on the fact that much of the media represents the third world or previously colonialized parts of the world as the “other”—as “non-Western”, i.e., as “backward,” “uncivilized” “mysterious,” “undeveloped,” “primative,” and “dangerous.”) that is more relevant to my indepedent study. How does contemporary Britian and Asians within it contradict these representations of 'non-western' countries?

Consensus: the middle ground of views and opinions within a society that is in line with dominant ideology and brokered by the media.
BBC reviews did not show a consensus of opinion..some thought it was 'all seen before' and 'cliche ridden' whereas others (regardless of ethnicity) were pleased to see a drama that had the ability to bring so many issues together in an entertaining, yet informative way.

Cultural Capital: devised by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in 1977 to describe the range of cultural competences which are transmitted to m/c children via their parents which enable them to make the best use of the edn system.
It's useful in my study to analyse how different audiences are likely to view and respond to the text i.e.Many 'asians' may see the drama as a celebration of integration whereas others may see it as sensationalised integration when in reality many communities feel marginalised.

Culture: the social practices of a group of people, usually invovling shared language, history, values, beliefs e.t.c.
My text is evident of cultural harmony as well as of a cultural clash and to what extent are these varied representations reflective of Asian society or merely the beleifs of the director and writer?

Iconography: the distinguishing elements in terms of props and visual details, which charactersised a genre.
'Life sint all ha ha hee hee' pays much attention to detail.. so iconography used is integral in analysing the media lang i.e. the reoccuring use of the razor which Sunita (Meera Syal) uses for self-harm.


posted by Pip at 5:04 AM 0 comments

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Close Textual Analysis

I've chosen an extract which is part of the third episode because within merely 5 minutes it explores the representation of both men and women which conform and subvert stereotypes..some characterisation at this point in the drama series however cannot simply be pigeonholed as by the third episode the characters are fully rounded inidividuals.

"Life isn't all ha ha hee hee"... describes the scene best when Chila (the sweet fantasist) walks out of her house with her baby in the pram as the voiceover of her says "trying to be an indian single mother..how scary is that?" This clearly shows that sinlge parenthood is not part of indian culture and is certainly not the norm. Nevertheless, Chila appears headstrong accepting the cirumstances and failings of her marriage therefore having underlying values of liberation and a consequence of Feminism.

As she goes to the post office to collect some forms a shot-reverse-shot shows a couple of traditional Indian women behind her refusing to acknowledge her as she has left her husband. When she politely speaks to the woman at the counter.. she writes on a piece of paper "i know Deepak's (Chila's husband) mother-stop shaming both families and take him back." Chila is furious and retaliates venomously saying 'gin and fags are far too expensive these days" and also significantly says how when a husband sleeps with your best friend "somehow it's always their fault!" This epitomises much behaviour from the media whereas the woman in any situation is quick to be labelled as the "whore" whereas the immoral actions of a man is totally disregarded and Chila represents this viewpoint. Many audiences regardless of their race and ethnicity will be able to relate to this. Furthermore, Chila at first exemplifies the typical Asian fantasist who prioritises marriage and love opposed to a high-flying career but by the third episode she was "seeing it all for the first time." Therefore her character cannot be pigeonholed, but can be said to represent Asians accurately as we live in a Post modern society where everything is relative.

The media language of this scene also subverts general assumptions of a woman and more specifically an Asian women. As her voiceover says " i learnt more in those 3 months than i did at 10 years of school." The voiceover is accompanied with Chila on a stool with a torch fixing the fuse. Women are not typically associated to DIY and definetly not to Chila who has only ever dreamt of happy family life. Moreover, we see Chila from a low angle inclining the audience to extol her as a reformed well-rounded person. Here she has rejected patriachal views and comes across in a more Feminist light.

Throughout this scene we see many subversions of the characters where we may have assumed their personalities at the outset of the drama series. We are able to empathise with them and therefore this scene can be seen as part of the pluralist model..satisfying us with many representations of the characters therefore painting a realistic picture of British Asian life as rejecting some of the rigid cultural values is what happens in society today.

posted by Pip at 10:48 AM 0 comments