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How British society is represented on television.

In today’s society our main source of information is the media. We are constantly given manipulated information about different people and their lifestyles that is false and untrue. T.V represents the different types of people by stereotyping. This changes people’s attitudes towards them.

In the past and still in other countries, television very often stereotype English people by being posh.
“The most common picture depicting a typical Englishman is a man wearing a bowler hat and reading the Times newspaper. Bowler hats are now rarely seen in England.”

This stereotype of English people is very untrue. A more realistic view of Britain is people going out at the weekend and getting drunk and creating chaos in the streets.


In the past, there were clear sets of class that defined society.

“Social Class and Socio-economic groups. This consisted of six major classes, ranging from
‘Professionals’ in class one to ‘Unskilled’ and ‘Other’ in classes 5 and 6. Class 3 was sub-divided
into manual and non-manual skills.
I) Professional
II) Managerial/Technical
IIIa) Skilled (non-manual)
IIIb) Skilled (manual)
IV) Partly Skilled
V) Unskilled
VI) Other”

Now in the modern world people are more defined by their social groups rather than their class. People are not recognized by being upper and working class but by being a snob or a “Chav.”

“According to Plato, the essence of drama was imitation, the simulation of appearances. That is actors in plays imitate the actions of whomever they represent. In Medea, the actors, for example, imitate having arguments, Plato thought that this was problematic primarily because he believed the appearances appeal to the emotions and that stirring up the emotions is socially dangerous.”

The same goes with television. The people watch them may feel emotional attached to the characters because they have been through something similar to the character. It may also create an impact on there own lives by making them want to become more like the character, which is often heard about with children and video games and making the children violent. This would not be that bad apart the morjorty of the T.V character that are portrayed as “cool” are bad.

The way in which people are represented on television vision changes over time and the location they are in.

“So far I have argued that the recovery of any “original” meaning is, at least in practice, not possible, and that the way which we understand, or ‘read’ texts, films or paintings is a function of own position, and therefore change from one period to another and one viewpoint to another.”

The meaning of media changes dependant on the time and the culture. One thing might mean something completely different to some body else. This further proves that people represented on T.V is not accurate.


Now when T.V. is representing students, they are portrayed with drugs, being lazy and shown many of the times breaking the law. Students are supposed to be are next great leaders but are symbolized as wasters. T.V programmes such as “Skins” and “The Inbetweeners” commonly do this. On T.V. students are looked less upon than prisoners.

Working class people mainly are the target audience for people watching T.V. One of the reasons for this is while everyone is earning a living, a lot of working class people are at home on the dole watching T.V. Our main source of a stereotype of working class people comes from Shameless and Coronation Street.

In a 1977 Journal of Communication article Lynn Berk argued that Archie Bunker exemplified the equation of bigotry with working class stupidity, a stereotype no longer applied to race but still acceptable in characterizing the working class.

With programmes such as Shameless and Coronation Street, it shows the lifestyles of dysfunctional working class (or chav) families. It constantly shows the families taking drugs, committing adultery, going to the local pub and getting drunk.
“Basically, in TV Land, it is impossible to be both poor and intelligent unless you're the show's Insufferable Genius or precocious child. Indeed, one would almost be tempted to believe that There Are No Libraries.”

The programme class dismissed talks about how working class television shows perceive the people with little morals and discipline. Television shows such as Trisha and Ricki Lake show working class peoples lives to be chaotic and malfunctioning. They do not show these people in a good way atotal.


In one respect its people who watch these shows are people that want more from their own life, more exciting and want to escape from the cycle of deprivation.

T.V is a source of self comfort by boosting there ego and creating fictional lifestyles which look fun and exciting.

Our gaze of how we like to look at people, we enjoy watching the underdog becoming a hero and the downfall of the villain. An example of this is Only Fool’s and Horse’s Del Boy becoming rich,


more than 22 million viewers tuned in to watch the 1999 Christmas special of Only Fools and Horse’s to see Del Boy become a millionaire. “In the final show, which attracted more than 22 million viewers, the Trotters were seen finally making their fortunes after discovering a rare watch, which they sold for £6.2m.”

Magazines such as Heat and OK blatantly show celebrity’s downfall, whether it’s that they are getting divorced or have been caught doing something embarrassing on camera. This makes the reader feel that their life is better than that and is a form of self comforting to them. Quote!!

Another reason why magazines such as Heat show the downfall of celebrities is that women are the main target audience for the people that read the magazines. In society, woman are still seen as the less superior species. They are still treated like objects and are still displayed on Page 3. “Women living in a mans world” The woman reading these magazines are able to relate to the problems they are having.

Fame Power and Money,

After conducting a survey about what is most important between fame, power and money, the things that most people said was money. One the reasons maybe for this is the area it was taken is a working class environment, which therefore the people asked knows how important money is to survive. Even if a person has fame and power, with out money they may not even be able to endure in the world.

“Formal revolution lost is shock effect a long time ago. The modern citizen digests everything; only the money chest are vulnerable.”

Today’s society is not shocked by anything, but money is still the most important to people.

The next important person rated was fame. Fame is important to some people because to of today’s celebrity obsessed lifestyles. Power was the least important to people because it is not as essential to life to some people as money and fame.


In the past having more money meant having more power. Nowadays being famous generates having more power than having more money. The queen up is upper class seems to be looked less upon than working class celebrities such as Pete Dougherty and Amy Winehouse, Both of who have numerous time been caught breaking the law.

Bill Gates was the richest man alive. He created Microsoft windows. This is the way he became famous. By being a good business man made him money, and making money is one of the ways he is famous. Even though he was the richest man alive, he doesn’t have any power in terms of going to war or making discussions for the country. This shows that having lots of money and being famous doesn’t always give a person power. The current richest man alive is a business man called Carlos Slim. This man is the richest man alive currently but is not very famous which also shows money doesn’t always give fame.


Jade Goody death has had almost as much media attention than when Princess Dianna died. “Jade Goody and Princess Diana had much in common, not least the psychological roots of their stratospheric popularity. Like Jade, Diana was portrayed as a victim of the press, right up to the ravening presence of the paparazzi at her moment of death. Like Jade, Diana portrayed herself as a victim, in Diana's case of the royal family.”

Jade Goody is a world wide celebrity by appearing on a show called big brother. Two years ago in January 2007, Jade Goody torn apart for saying a racist remark on national television. When she was diagnosed with cancer the media felt sorry for her, which just goes to show how the media can rip apart show one and then heroic them to sell story’s. She herself used the media as a source of money to provide for her family after death. She sold her story to make money for her family. This is an example of how having fame gives power to make money..

In most situations, having power leads to having fame because without fame the person will not have power. An example of this is the prime mister. Gordon Brown is Britain’s current prime mister and has the power of the country. If people did not know who he was then he wouldn’t have power because it is the people that follow him that give him at power. The Chinese army are the most powerful army because of the amount of people that are in it


Communication theory is used and manipulated by the media. The majority of programs shows working class people to be better than upper class people, even though they are all equal. Most working class homes furniture are points at the T.V. (like the Royale family) where as more than likely upper-class homes there furniture will be pointing at the fireplace or have a table as a means of social gathering. Upper class people will use social interaction as a form of entertainment.

Television shows people not obtaining their full potential in life. People thinking it good to do drugs and get drunk keeps them in there place in society, which stops them having any power, fame and money! Showing these people in this perceptive is not ethical what so ever. It creates an impression that braking the law and morally wrong things are ok to do so, which can also create a knock on effect by making people think doing drugs is a good idea and then exercising the idea by taking drugs. Like magpies we are attracted to shiny objects and showing drugs are good people want them. The modern man isn’t shown working hard on T.V. In fictional programmes often doesn’t show men going out earning a living but to stay at home and waste there lives away.

Is the way TV wants to represent British society intentional or lost with noise? Most of the news shows people in a bad light, which creates the impression that everyone is a villain. If for example a priests is caught child molesting then the media create a impression that all priests are child molester. This is one of the bad ways in which people are represented wrongly on T.V.

Representing people on T.V. creates a stereotype for a type of person. A stereotype helps people to define who a person is, even if it is not correct. 9 out of 10 people who offer a lift to someone of the same race as themselves. This is the fear of the unknown. Using stereotypes it help us to make an impression about who a person is.

Stereotyping is a way people visually understand people on T.V programmes.

“Visual communication presents an entire large integrated diagram within the framework of our life and translates the elements of that life into a sort of intelligible discourse, the door, the arrow, the corporate identity, the logotype, the traffic sign, is only the appearance, privileged and standardized, of knowledge through signs of the world of things, products and actions.”

This is done very often on T.V. with representation and stereotypes. Just like an arrow pointing a certain way to go, we use stereotypes to help us understand what people are like on the T.V. program.


A very common type of stereotype is a gay on T.V. When T.V. want to show a gay man, T.V. will portray him as extremely camp and feminine, which is not true in real life. An example of this is the television programme “Will and Grace”, showing the character of Jack as being extremely camp. Unfortunately because T.V. portrays this type of person to be gay, a person in real life who acts like this is automatically thought of to be homosexual.

On television there are hardly any programmes dedicated to disabled people. The programmes available for deaf people with the person showing sign language in the bottom of the screen only appears late at night.
“There are 8,945,000 deaf and hard of hearing people. Dividing that by the current UK population gives us: 15 percent of the population of the UK are deaf or hard of hearing.”
This means that 15% of the united kingdom are not full catered for in terms of watching television.

Technology, can watch whatever you want at anytime now. Due to advances in the Internet we are able to watch whatever we want and when ever we want online.

People are more interested in other people that are socially below us to boost are ego, “least our life isn’t as bad as there’s” This make people feel better about themselves.

A Contrast between fictional characters and real life celebrities.

Magazines such as heat are used as a source for women to learn how to become the “ideal” woman. They give advise about dieting and how to have a perfect body.

Having fame power and money does not determine which class a person is defined by. Prince Harry has all three of these but live the lifestyle of a chav. In numerous occasions he has been photographed by the newspapers taking drugs, being racist and being drunk. If he was being described to people, these would not the actions of an upper class person.

When American shows show British people on television, there idea of British society is drinking tea at three and being posh. Comparing the sitcom’s friends and Coldfeet, they are both programmes revolving around 6 friends and there life’s. Friends is very upbeat and shows the fun side to the friends problems whereas Coldfeet has many of the same problems but is a lot more serious and depressive than Friends. An example of this is the season finale of the shows. Friends shows the friends all moving away from each other and having new life’s to look forward to whereas Coldfeet one of the main characters was killed off. This shows that British television shows the depressing side of life, creating a more realistic view of the world than American sitcoms.

Another example of this is the office. The British version of the office is very realistic and involves the uncomfortable situations that people can relate to or have been in themselves. This compared to the American version of the office shows a much more slap stick comedy, which is quite unrealistic.

The class that people are defined is by how rich they are or how famous or how powerful they may be. People from a working class background that have lots of money doesn’t make them middle or upper class. Michael Carroll won the national lottery and is from a working class background who defines himself as “The king of the chavs”. In no respect who this man be put in a middle class categories even though he has fame money and power.

Gordon Ramsey is a famous chief, but is more famous for is bad language and strict attitude. The reason for this is because of T.V shows such as Hell’s Kitchen and Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. These shows exaggerate his bad attitude towards people. This is done by only editing the parts where he shouts at employees and the dark sound effects creating a mood for the show. The show’s represents Gordon Ramsey as a chef with a bad attitude, which his characteristic that made him famous, of at least how he is famous now.


The media have the control to give or take power away from people. Today the public are obsessed with celebrities. We enjoy looking at people (The gaze.) The problem is that with the media give people this power, celebrities are being prosecuted for crime and having lighter sentences than say the general public.

In 2007 Brittany Spears shaved her head and was described as metal, but since then she has had a number 1 single and has brought out two albums. She is another person that the media have built up, crashed down and built back up again. Her life is made by the media.

The media today does help to define what class or social group people belong to. Today people worship celebrities more than god. Are role models are not the virgin Mary and Nelson Mandela but Paris Hilton and Liam Gallagher. Big brothers Chantelle was so obsessed with Victoria Beckham; she based her entire image upon her, and is now famous for it.

People with either fame power or money are able to use one of these to enhance another. For example, if a person is arrested and has a lot of money, they are able to offer a bribe to get out of a situation. Quote!!

In conclusion today’s class system is more of a social system. People are not defined by the amount of money, how famous they are or how much power they have, but in stead of who they look like and what they do with the money they have made. These opinions are high based with the media and television. Celebrities and T.V. programmes are today’s form of religion giving people morals, what is right and wrong, how to live there lives and how we should look like and how to make us on par with our new Gods, The celebrities.