Landmark Media Studies textbook features new chapter by AHC academic

First published in 1997, Representation has long been a cornerstone text for students and scholars of cultural and media studies

The third edition of the influential textbook Representation (SAGE, 2024) features a new chapter by Associate Professor Nancy Thumim from the School of Media and Communication.

First published in 1997, Representation has long been a cornerstone text for students and scholars of cultural and media studies, offering tools to critically consider media texts and images. This highly anticipated new edition revisits the work of representation in a time of changing technologies, political cultures, and social movements.

Thumim's chapter, ‘Politics in and the Politics of Representation’, makes three arguments:

• there is easier participation in media spaces for both members of the public and elites, such as politicians, than ever before, but it comes with constraints and challenges
• representation continues to be a site of struggle – now it is a site of struggle for attention (in a sea of voices, whose is heard?) and legitimacy (in a sea of voices, whose story is treated as important and how are stories received?)
• there are some key new politics in and of representation due to what digital technology makes possible, combined with lived social, cultural and economic realities.

The chapter explores movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, and the ways representation continues to be at the heart of cultural and political narratives.

Dr Thumim said:

“I am delighted to have my work included in a book that I have loved and returned to since I first encountered it when I was a student myself. I’m really pleased to engage with urgent new debates about representation in the digital age in this timely new edition of Representation’.

The third edition also features significant updates, including a new preface by Sean Nixon on digital media and representation theories, revised chapters on race, gender, and power, and a new afterword to Stuart Hall’s classic chapter ‘The Spectacle of the Other’ by Kobena Mercer.

For more details on Representation, including reviews and the full table of contents, visit the SAGE Publications website.