Micro and Macro Environment

.1. News as representation

3.2. Issues in the study of representation

3.2.1. Representation

The concept of representation is a broad one, with a wide range of definitions and explanations. In its simplest form ‘representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else’ (Mitchell, W. 1995). This definition states that a representation functions through its ability to resemble something else casting representation as an object. Representation is a performance of resemblance or imitation (Summers.1996:3). The central idea is that representation, which is produced by a person or persons, stands for and point to something else. That something else is a real object (Barnouw.1989:453).

3.2.2. Main theory of representation

There is a distinction between representation as an act and representation as a theory. The act of representation is more concerned with the creation and production of visual images. Whereas, the idea of representation as theory focuses on the history of representations, how representations are created, and what these representations mean to the people who are observing them. Representation or the act of sign-making is interconnected to the theoretical processes of representation, but the making of the sign can exist without the theoretical discourses of representation since human beings have been story tellers and image creators for thousand of years.

• Fake

In the history of visual arts theorists have regarded representations as fake or imitations. Representations have been defined as a copy of something that is real and as such they have been regarded as lacking in originality of the real subject that they are representing. In case of the photography we can arguable say that the photography does not fully explain what took place before the photography was taken. What this means is that we do not have the full information of the actions that happened to, let say the apple, in the photography.

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