representation of Britain 30 mark question

Great Britain has many different representations across today's media. The popular TV soap 'Eastenders' offers a more complex and diverse representation of Great Britain within it's east-end setting. the characters of the show come from different backgrounds despite living in the same area; with characters that come from different ethnic backgrounds, such as middle eastern origins, and from different social classes, with people who own business alongside those who are struggling to hold a job. nevertheless these people all go through hardships and make bad decisions. this presents Britain as a diverse country where those from different backgrounds are united, and by showing the characters intertwined in the main plot lines it shows that no one is above the struggles of day to day life. the preferred reading of this text is that all people are relatively equal in Britain when it comes to the problems they face and that if people sooner accept that fact the sooner people can start enjoying life through its many hardships. when conflict arises on the program it is almost always due to someone's actions, not their appearance or background and their is almost always conflict going on. this may be an attempt to normalise Britain to a world that puts heavy value on its historical importance; portraying it as a standard country with people that face similar quarrels to the rest of the world, not some upper class establishment with gents that drink tea and eat crumpets.

'The Daily Express' is an extreme right wing publication that takes a view on the opposite side of he spectrum compared to 'Eastenders'. It tries to invoke a sense of national pride, which places importance on Britain as opposed to normalising it, by using an image of a knight with the English flag as their mascot/logo. this is further reinforced by the reporting of the royal family in many of its front page stories; the royal family are one of Britain's distinct features that impresses tourists but is often not regarded highly by the general public and so by promoting them they are trying to promote the nation's status on a global scale. However The Daily Express i not very welcoming of migrants and views them as a foreign collective trying to ruin Britain. they reinforce the view that many right wing nationalists would have, that migrants rebel against British values and steal our resources. they also heavily pushed for the EU exit under the banner of granting Britain freedom from the EU and migrants. This combined with their anti migrant view has created an equally damaging oppositional reading, that those who voted and backed the leave campaign are racist. this text and other like it create 2 representations of Britain, one that it is a proud nation that shouldn't compromise for outsiders and another that portrays it is a nation of close-minded bigots; both of these interpretations are separate extremes that assume too much on behalf of the population and don't hold that much reliability or accuracy.

This representation attempts to appeal to an outsiders perspective more so than the other texts. 'VisitBritain.com' is the official tourism website for Great Britain so it's focus is going to be on promoting it. this specific advertisement focuses on the historical element on Britain's appeal by selecting an image of Stonehenge with the caption  'Heritage is great' to further emphasise the value this location holds. the image is organised to put the Stonehenge in the centre of the frame with it lining up with the lower and side lines in the rule of thirds. one half of the union jack, a british icon and flag,is displayed along the right border with the other half missing; implying that sites like Stonehenge make up a part of Britain. the use of the word Great is a play on words based of Great Britain. the sunlight that shines through the Stonehenge makes the image look more impressive and allows it to better push this idealistic view of britain. the sky takes up the upper portion of the image and is completely clear, showing a lack of pollution and a lack of the stereotypical bad british weather. the font for the primary caption is white with red and blue(the sky) backgrounds to further reinforce the image of  unified country through the union jack. this representation pushes Britain as an idealistic haven for history and monuments in an attempt to promote britain beyond The Royal Family and London.