Learning about stereotypes

In media, stereotypes usually influence the audience on how they view people in society. Stereotypes is defined as a group of people that are labeled in one group, because they share certain similarities. There are two types of stereotypes that media applies to their characters - Hegemonic and pluralistic stereotypes.

A hegemonic stereotype is the common, yet over-exaggerated type of personality given to a character. For example, for an old man, you would imply that he is hunched over, with a walking stick (like the Grandad in Only Fools and Horses). Other examples includes Bruce Willis in the DieHard series (representing masculinity), and Mary Jane in Spiderman (representing femininity). Usually, the passive type of audience are likely to relate to these stereotypes the most. This is because this is the type of audience that would believe anything they see (referred to as the 'lazy' audience), and it heavily influences their thoughts when looking at modern day society. They sometimes find it hard to differ between the fictional, and the real world, as a result of the media's hypodermic needle.

The hypodermic needle is when the media metaphorically 'injects' the viewer (most likely the 'passive' audience) with information. Passive audiences will rely on the media to provide their information and manipulate their thoughts, rather than being independent and think for themselves.

In comparison to this, an active audience are the type of people who will take it among themselves to analyse the subtext of information, rather than settle with the contextual information that is given to them (which the passive audience tends to do). They still consume information from the media, but are more analytical when it comes to making final thoughts and decisions on matters.

Pluralistic stereotypes are two stereotypes put into one, usually in attempt to challenge one stereotype. For example, Lara Croft is a woman, and you would expect her to represent the feminine stereotype. However, she is symbolic of a few masculine features (as she is a heroine), which means she is taking both stereotypes, and challenging them.