Identity, subjectivity, representation, discourse, and power are among some of the key terms and concepts in Cultural Studies. We saw through Chris Barker in his Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies that:

“Representation is thus an act of symbolism that mirrors an independent object world…. However, for cultural studies representation does not simply reflect in symbolic form ‘things' that exist in an independent object world, rather, representations are constitutive of the meaning of that which they purport to stand in for. That is, representation does not involve correspondence between signs and objects but creates the ‘representational effect' of realism.”