How does your media product

represent particular social groups?

The filmmaker uses micro elements to encode the specific

macro representations in to the text for the viewer.
The viewer decodes these representations to read meaning
from the text.
In order to try and create meaning and transfer a message
through a text you need to use micro elements
Micro
Macro

 The micro levels make the text, character, and technical

elements, which all fall under codes and conventions
made represent the macro.
The technical elements include:
Sound
Mise-en-scene
Camera
Editing

 The macro level is the overall representation of the film.

These are made up by:
Issues
Themes
Character codes

The seven key areas of representation are based on people, places, events, time
periods and themes.
These seven key areas are age
Gender
Ethnicity
Sexuality
Class and status
Physical ability/disability
Regional identity.
All of these areas adds up to verisimilitude.
Verisimilitude is truth to life, the appearance of being true or real.
It refers to the construction, in a text, of a plausible, believable world.

 My media product offers a mediated version of the

world.
I aim to portray reality by representing particular social
groups by using micro elements from the four different
technical categories
I aim to do this by looking at these social groups in the
wider sense citizens from a particular economic class),
and in a more targeted sense (truants, victims of
bullying).

 Micro elements from the technical category of mise-enscene are employed in my product to construct specific
representations of a social group and class. The social
group I was focused on was Drug users
My product is showing the social group of drug users and
the deprived. It also shows the drug dealer, even though it
is unknown if he takes drugs or not, but I used a cigarette
to show he smokes tobacco.

Mise-en-scene

Tobacco is
a type of
drug,
addicted to
cigarettes

 The key representative area focused on in my product is

class and status. Issues of personal hygiene and addiction
are a massive theme in my media product. As in the
beginning you see a messy room and all the drugs and
syringes on the floor.

pills on the floor of room, showing that person my be abusing drugs

Class and status is one of my themes in my intro.

All of the individuals shown in my intro are all of the same class and status but all
have different personalities.
People usually just judge a whole class or status over a wide range of people but if you
looked individually you would see they are not all the same.
I showed my actors were of a low status by what they were doing, where they were
and what they looked like as there was no dialogue to tell you.
The girl was getting drugs whilst the guy was selling it, which is Class A criminal
activity
They were all wearing clothes that a normal person would wear but some looked a bit
My intro is set in Tadworth on the estate, which has a connotation of chavs and danger
The main scenes were shot her messy room and outside on the empty deprived streets
of Tadworth. I chose this specific place as I wanted to show the low class area of
Tadworth to represent the characters in my intro.

Class and status

All black coats, trousers ect. Connotes mystery and death.

Deprived, empty
and boring
everywhere

Building site,
distribution and
unstable are

Ability/Disability opinions of people

1. Micro elements from mise en scene create a representation of ability and disability and regional identity through the use of
establishing shots which show a council estate and corner shops, we then go onto see a bedroom that is in a uncontrollable state
which could link to the character having an uncontrollable addiction to drugs which then links to the representational area of ability
and disability by the character having a mental disability.
2. The theme that is explored in the extract is mental disability. This is conveyed by the use of mise-en-scene with the cigarette, as well
as drugs. An addiction is considered a mental disability which aids the exploration of this topic.
3. In this extract disability/ability is present, the use of costume, props and location in this extract allows us to see how deprived the area
is. The props of pills and cigarettes are used to show that the person has an addiction to many different substances.
4. Within the extract, there are several micro elements that convey to us representations of ability and disability. Firstly, there are several
close-up of someone lighting a cigarette in a dark and deprived area, presumably, on his own. The reservation of close ups for only
the drugs, highlights the theme of addiction and the harms and problems associated with this.
5. Within the extract, parallel editing is used to depict the disability of the female in the bed as it creates a link between her and the male
character, Furthermore, the close up shots are used to show the props such as the syringe and pills, this conveys the disability of
addiction and how she is the taker and the male is the pusher. Idk how to word this
6. The use of parallel editing between the shot of the character standing outside and the shot of bedroom showing medication highlight
the difference between ability and disability.
7. Within the extract ability/disability are shown. By the props used for example the pills which could indicate to the audience that she
might have overdosed as the character wasnt moving in the bed. Also the addiction to cigarettes is a disability in itself.