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Luttmer
St Cyr Luttmer
Mr. Campbell
JOUR 306
2 April 2020

Stuart Hall Reflection Paper

Cultural theory looks to the media and the role that it plays in our everyday lives. In the

beginning remarks of the documentary “Stuart Hall: Representation & the Media,” Sut Jhally,

the director, states “when we are immersed in something, surrounded by it the way we are by

images from the media, we may come to accept them as just part of the real and natural world”

(Sut Jhally). People are constantly surrounded by the media. It’s prominent every day of our

lives and we continuously see and hear the same images and messages. These images encompass

our day to day activities so often that we begin to accept the medias representation as fact,

“swim[ming] through them, unthinkingly absorbing them as fish in water” (Sut Jhally). In

simpler terms, when the media represents an idea to the public repeatedly and without change,

we begin to accept the medias representation of that idea as truth.

In the documentary, Stuart Hall talks about how the “true meaning of something depends

on what meaning people make of it, but the meaning that they make of it depends on how it is

represented” (Stuart Hall). For example, when we watch movies and television shows where

African Americans are commonly shown as criminals, we create our own meaning of this

concept. However, our meaning is derived from how the media represented the African

American characters. Our understanding of the world becomes distorted when we create

meaning from the medias representation because it is not always accurate or true. Sut Jhally

explains that “cultural studies would like us to step out of the water in a sense and look at it, see

how it shapes our existence, and even critically examine the content of the water” (Sut Jhally).
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Luttmer
We cannot accept the medias representation of the world as fact, we must examine the world for

ourselves and create our meanings based off of our own experiences.

In addressing stereotypes, Hall explains “the struggle to open up stereotypes is often the

struggle to increase the diversity of things which subjects can be” (Staurt Hall). I unfortunately

can relate to the concept of accepting stereotypes seen in the media as accurate portrayals of that

specific group. Before I studied abroad, I had a specific and concrete idea of what Russia and its

citizens were like. The portrayals of Russians in the media are always the same and constantly

negative, stereotyping the whole country as stern, rude and unaccepting people. There is no

diversity in how they are depicted, always the mean, bad guy. It wasn’t until after I left for the

Netherlands that I realized my understanding of their people and culture was completely wrong.

Everything I thought I knew about Russia and its people came from the media and its

representation of the country. While abroad, I became good friends with three Russian exchange

students and my pre-existing ideas of them quickly vanished. After interacting with my friends

and creating my own experiences, my images of them completely changed. “If you want to begin

to change the relationship of the viewer to the image, you have to intervene exactly in that

powerful exchange between the image and its psychic meaning,” Stuart Hall explains (Stuart

Hall). Interacting with Russian exchange students personally and forming my own understanding

of them intervened in the powerful exchange of myself and the images I previously had from the

media. In order for stereotypes to change, we have to create meaning of the world for ourselves

and by ourselves. We can’t solely rely on the medias representation to provide accuracy and

truth.

Word count: 599