REPRESENTATION
“The views on Turkey and Turks are not the same in every piece of media. There are different shades. But the media doesn’t write about individuals. it’s political, they are politically motivated - from Turkey as well. The Turkish government is culpable for how badly people talk and write about Turkey.”

“People should not look at female migrants and their experiences and views as if they are looking at animals in a zoo. “Oh, they have longing for the sea and the sun”. They shouldn’t know of things only by reading them from the papers or from hearsay. They shouldn’t exclude or exoticize female migrants but realise that migrants also like the sea, they also enjoy a good meal and personal relationships. These things can also apply to an Austrian, a German, or a Spaniard. We are not special because of it. We are human and full of contradictions and longing, but we are not the only ones who are that way.”

 

Theoretical Background

Most dictionaries provide different definitions of the word “representation”:
a person or organization that speaks, acts, or is present officially for someone else the way that someone or something is shown or described a sign, picture, model, etc. of something: the fact of including different types of people, for example in films, politics, or sport, so that all different groups are represented:
(Cambridge Dictionary)
Because the term is used in a wide range of fields such as psychology and philosophy, film and literary studies, media and communication, art and visual culture, politics and government, sociology and linguistics, its meaning has different uses and nuances.
Immanuel Kant already claimed in his works that an external environment is necessary for the establishment of the self: “I am conscious of the identical self in regard to the manifold of the representations that are given to me in an intuition because I call them all together my representations, which constitute one.” Although there is no empirical way of observing the self, we can have different perceptions of the external environment over time. By uniting these representations into one, we can see how a transcendental self emerges. A key point that might be controversial is whether representations are objects of ultimate awareness or are merely a vehicle for such awareness.
The Zulu greeting Sawubona, meaning “I see you”; traditionally invokes the response Sikhona, which means “I am here to be seen”. It is a powerful acknowledgement of an existence and implies that something does not exist until it is seen by something external, until it is represented by this external environment.
In this sense, representation is not an after-occurrence activity, but a constitutive one. Something has no real and fixed meaning until it has been represented (could it be by media, society, politics, etc.). These representations are not reflections of things that already have meaning, things that happen in reality will have the meaning given by the meaning makers. Therefore, these representations also convey the attitude of the meaning makers towards what is being represented. The question is, who has the power to represent these meanings?
Representation is fundamental to people’s existence. It is how we understand our environment and ourselves and help us in the process of being and becoming. Through the different representations to which people have access we produce ourselves and our idea of the world. Representation frames the ever-changing world, and it is a meaningful civic engagement. It inspires the next generation, gives a sense of the possible and allows to envision a more inclusive future.
References:
“Stuart Hall’s Representation Theory Explained! Media Studies revision” by The Media Insider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJr0gO_-w_Q
Webb, J. (2009). Introduction: the terms of representation. In Understanding representation (pp. 1-14). SAGE Publications Ltd, https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781446213131.n1
“Kant: Philosphy of Mind” by Colin McLear
“Why representation matters” by Jesse Beason https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiheM6wSwes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant