Place Representations

Places are not only experienced directly but are also represented — through art, literature, film, media, music, and increasingly through social media and digital platforms. These representations shape how places are perceived by insiders and outsiders alike, influencing everything from tourism and investment to identity and belonging. This lesson examines how places are represented across different media, the concept of the tourist gaze, and the politics of selective and contested representation.

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Representations in Art

Artists have long shaped how places are perceived and valued. Artistic representations are never neutral — they select, emphasise, and interpret.

Landscape Painting

• John Constable (1776-1837) — his paintings of the Stour Valley (Dedham Vale, The Hay Wain) helped create the English pastoral ideal, representing the countryside as harmonious, timeless, and beautiful. The area is now marketed as "Constable Country"
• L.S. Lowry (1887-1976) — his depictions of industrial Lancashire (matchstick figures, mill chimneys, terraced streets) defined the popular image of northern England as working-class, industrial, and gritty
• David Hockney — his paintings of the Yorkshire Wolds and of swimming pools in Los Angeles represent very different place identities through colour, light, and composition

Photography

• Documentary photography has powerfully shaped place perceptions. Nick Hedges' photographs for Shelter (1960s-70s) exposed the reality of slum housing in Birmingham and Glasgow, influencing public opinion and housing policy
• Landscape photography can romanticise places (tourism brochures, National Trust calendars) or challenge idealised images (photographs of industrial decay, pollution, homelessness)

A-Level Analysis: When analysing artistic representations, consider: What has the artist chosen to include and exclude? What mood or atmosphere is created? How does this representation compare with the lived reality of the place? Whose perspective does it reflect?

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Representations in Literature

Literature creates powerful and enduring place images that shape cultural understanding.

Key Examples

Author	Work	Place	Representation
Thomas Hardy	Wessex novels	Dorset/Wiltshire	Rural England as timeless, tragic, shaped by landscape and fate
Charles Dickens	Oliver Twist, Bleak House	London	Victorian London as dark, polluted, socially divided
George Orwell	The Road to Wigan Pier	Northern England	Industrial poverty; working-class resilience
Alan Sillitoe	Saturday Night and Sunday Morning	Nottingham	Working-class urban life; factory culture; rebellion
Andrea Levy	Small Island	London	Post-war London through the eyes of Jamaican immigrants
Hanif Kureishi	The Buddha of Suburbia	South London	Suburban identity; multiculturalism; class aspiration

Literary Geography

Geographers study how literature shapes place perception:

• Readers who have never visited a place may understand it primarily through fictional representations
• Literary tourism — visitors seek out places described in novels (Bronte Parsonage, Haworth; Hardy's Cottage, Dorset; the Harry Potter locations)
• Literature can challenge dominant representations — giving voice to marginalised communities and alternative place narratives

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Representations in Film and Television

Film and television are among the most influential media for shaping place perceptions.

How Film Represents Place

• Location shooting — filming in real places lends authenticity but selects particular views and angles
• Set design — constructed environments create idealised or exaggerated place images
• Narrative framing — the story determines whether a place is presented as threatening, romantic, exotic, or mundane
• Music and sound — soundtrack choices evoke emotional responses to places

Case Studies

The Full Monty (1997) — Represented post-industrial Sheffield as a place of unemployment, deindustrialisation, and social decline, but also of humour, resilience, and community solidarity. The film shaped external perceptions of Sheffield and northern England more broadly.

Trainspotting (1996) — Presented Edinburgh not as a festival city of Georgian elegance but as a place of heroin addiction, poverty, and social exclusion in housing schemes like Muirhouse and Leith. The film's opening monologue ("Choose life...") became iconic.

Downton Abbey (2010-2015) — Filmed at Highclere Castle, Hampshire, the series represented the English country house as a place of elegance, tradition, and social hierarchy. It boosted heritage tourism significantly — visitor numbers to Highclere doubled.

This Is England (2006) — Shane Meadows' film represented the Midlands in the early 1980s: council estates, National Front activity, skinhead culture, unemployment, and the impact of Thatcherism on working-class communities.

Film Tourism

Film and television representations drive significant tourism:

• Harry Potter — Warner Bros. Studio Tour; filming locations across the UK
• Game of Thrones — Northern Ireland tourism increased substantially
• The Crown — renewed interest in royal palaces and locations
• Peaky Blinders — boosted tourism in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter and the Black Country

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Representations in Media

News Media

News media representations powerfully shape place perceptions, often in problematic ways:

• Crime reporting — certain areas are repeatedly associated with crime, antisocial behaviour, and gang activity, creating stigmatised reputations that persist long after conditions change
• Poverty narratives — programmes like Benefits Street (Channel 4, 2014) represented James Turner Street, Birmingham, through a lens of welfare dependency, reinforcing negative stereotypes
• Regeneration narratives — media coverage of regeneration projects tends to emphasise physical transformation (before/after photographs) while underrepresenting community displacement

The Role of Media Framing