Representation

Representation is the construction of aspects of reality (e.g., people, places, events) in a medium and can take various forms, such as speech, writing, [Page 1478]images, and moving pictures. Every media format is only a representation of reality. Representations always involve a construction or version of reality rather than reality itself. In other words, the producer of the media is not able to depict every aspect of reality and can only represent portions of reality by making choices about how to portray something or someone in the media. Thus, the media are an artificial re-creation of reality. However, without media, our understanding of reality would be very limited; thus, an audience also needs the media to make sense of reality. For example, every time we ...