Abstract
In proceeding from understanding to analysing stereotypes, the first step is to classify them so that they can be easily identified in media content. As noted in the previous chapter, media stereotypes embedded in folk-psychological narratives as part of stigmatising discourses activate corresponding mental stereotypes in ingroup viewers. Various disciplines have sought to classify media stereotypes in relation to particular social categories, such as disability (e.g. Worrell, 2018) and race (e.g. Ramírez Berg, 2002). However, the aim of this chapter is to devise a more general classification system suitable for adaptation to representations of any outgroup. Thus, it can be used by scholars who wish to interrogate stereotypes in media discourses or by filmmakers wishing to avoid or reconfigure them in order to reduce stigma. This classification must be based on different kinds of stigmatising stereotypes, which this chapter will formulate as a list of ‘types of “others”’. This list, which includes the primitive other, the incapable other, the amoral other, the victimised other and the extra-capable other, does not claim to be exhaustive, but new types may be added as and when they arise. These types of ‘others’ are best regarded as umbrella categories, under which subtypes may be added depending on specific ingroup–outgroup contexts.
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Brylla, C. (2023). Types of Others. In: Documentary and Stereotypes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26372-9_4
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