REVISION WEEK 5

Explore how the set editions of Woman and Adbusters reflect the historical context of the time they were made in?

Woman
1964
offers singular and straightforward representations of women
targeting a basic, mass market audience
Women's liberation movement - object to the ideology presented in this magazine
Challenging hegemonic expectations

Adbusters
2016
Subversive - breaks rules of magazines and in society
Adbusters hates adverts - 0 ads in the magazine. Non profit
Typically 1/3 of a magazines typical revenue comes from advertising
Adbusters costs £10.99
Anti Capitalist
Anti consumerist

 

Breeze Advert - Woman
Genre Conventions -

• Woman's lifestyle magazine
• This advert aims to sell a lifestyle that can only be achieved "with breeze". Makes audience feel like they're missing something
• This advert is aspirational - presents idelistic body image and makes women feel inaequate about their bodies

Mise En Scene -

• Costume - naked woman, dry hair, full makeup, overall pampered look to her - unrealistic for bath setting. Presents an unrealistic image of women and the female body

Font -

• Sans Serif font - informal - creates the idea that this is one woman talking to another

Anchorage -

• "Because you're a woman..." Anchors audience to be a woman and reinforces the idea that this is what women should look like
• Patriarchal hegemony and expectations of beauty at the time

Language -

• Soft words - "gentlest lather", "kindness" & "please" - clearly aiming for a female TA
• Use of elipses - very airy and spaced out - soft tone
• Almost like reading an actual conversation - appeal to TA of working class women

Mode of Address -

• Direct mode of address - use of words e.g. "you're","Darling", "please"

Codes -

• Gesture code - quite promiscuous and racy
• Just about covering herself - appeal to secondary TA of men who buy this soap for their wives
• Proairetic codes - "please, bath with breeze" - slightly sarcastic tone - attacking women who don't use this soap, makes them feel like they're unhygienic

Images -

• Mid shot of woman - she has been sexualised. Audience can see a naked woman in bath
• Voyueristic

Layout -

• Main image dominates this advert - her beauty is most important
• Caption underneath image for anchorage - and to sell the product 

Colour -

• Limited colour - typical of magazines at the time

Ideology -

• Women need to be pretty and take care of themselves in order to appeal to men
• This woman is hegemonically/stereotypically attractive - selling a dream to audience - she is an aspirational figure and this is true femininity 

Adbusters

Genre Conventions -

• Anti capitalist magazine - attacks luxury brands 

Curran and Seaton - Media Industries are driven by profit and power. Power is concentrated in the hands of a few extremely wealthy corporations. Makes it hard to individual users and independent corporations to compete.

Livingstone and Lunt - Media industries are regulated in a variety of different ways however there are serious flaws in each method of regulation, primarily due to digital technologies.


"All media products are purely created to ensure financial success" To what extent do you support this statement? Make reference to Adbusters and Woman.


Knee Jerk Reaction

While most magazines are driven by profit and power for example woman, however Adbusters is a clear exception to this rule

Adbusters

• £10.99
• Bi-monthly
• Non profit - 0 ads
• Independent magazine - culture jamming
• Confronting front cover 
• Lack of anchorage
• TA is weird - working class ideology but high cover price to 
• Self publishing - The Adbusters Media Foundation
• Satyrical, independant magazine - only appeal to a niche audience
• Non mainstream
• Counter Cultural
• Indirect mode of address
• Subverts capitalist ideology
• Anti consumerist
• 120,000 circulation per bi month - small circulation
• No page numbers
• 2016
• 
  
• sophisticated lexis - suggests an educated audience
• Lack of anchorage - forces reader to create their own readings/beliefs - alienates the audience
• gesture codes - man with first clenched - subversive and aggressive front cover - not appealing to the mass
• deals with issues in world today - e.g. homeless page
• attacks on luxurious brands - e.g. louboutin and zuchetti 
• Broadly left wing ideology 
• Subverts male gaze theory - unconventional
• atypical structure - magazine is divided into chapters

Woman

• 7 old pence equivalent of 80p - cheap 
• Weekly 
• 1/3 of revenue comes from advertisements and 2/3 from sales 
• Targeting a mass audience e.g. title "Woman"
• 3 million copies per week in 60s
• Targets working class women aged 30-50, heterosexual, white
• Direct mode of address
• Published by IPC - horizontally integrated corporation 
• IPC also published several other women's lifestyle magazines. Reducing competition to ensure financial success
• Social Historical - after WW2 - trying to sell a happy lifestyle to women who were struggling with returning to normal life after WW2
• Reinforces capitalist hegemonic norms
• singular straight for representations of women
• 1950
• Breeze soap advert - selling a lifestyle
• sans serif font - women are uneducated - easily read mode of address
• MES of woman on front cover costume - stereotypical confirming to hegemonic norms
• "Are you an A level Beauty?" - conforming to standards
• Contents page - idea that this are the only things that appeal to women. Women live in a patriarchal society
• Adverts published in this magazine are there to make women feel like they need more in their life
• Alfred Hitchcock article - Star appeal 
• Stereotypical woman in the magazine - Grace Kelly. Thin, middle aged, stereotypically attractive - cultivates the ideology that there is one way to look like a woman

EXAMPLES

ADBUSTERS

Changing masthead every publication - brand identity
Lack of coverlines on front cover - Audience does not know what is inside
subversive representations of women


WOMAN

• In the 1964 set edition we see a clear ideological perspective constructed which is highly appropriate to the socio-historical context of the time it was made. This is typified by the relentless promotion of a hegemonically acceptable heterosexual, working class lifestyle. An excellent example of this is the advert for the Breeze soap , which feature a mid-shot of a stereotypically attractive young woman wearing no clothes. Her body is emphasised through the mise en scene of soapsuds, and the bath itself has been removed to provide the target with the voyueristic pleasure of seeing a hegemonically attractive nude woman. This clear example of sexual objectification is included as a means of manipulating a singular and mass market audience. The advert reinforces and cultivates the ideology that women purely exist to be the subject of a heterosexual male gaze. By reinforcing a patriarchal hegemonic ideology, the producer encourages the primary mass audience to take on this role, ensuring that they adopt a subservient lifestyle
• Woman is creating a standardised product for its standardised audience. It is owned by a media conglomerate and can't break any rules
• It ensures its success by constructing the perfect audience e.g. Contents page. By constructing a specialised and singular audience Woman magazine is able to sell this audience to advertising companies
• Fashion in the magazine is stereotypical and conservative. Conformist.

Adbusters

• However Adbusters subverts the commonly held perspective that all media products are soley motivated by power and profit. In fact Adbusters is a resolutely anticapitalist magazine, that seeks to break the standard conventions of commercial magazine. In the set edition's front cover, the coverline  "POST-WEST" encodes the ideolgical aftermath of decadesof terror attacks on the western world. Adbusters routinely lacks anchorage, however , and there is nothing on the front cover to explicitly suggests any preferred reading. Instead, the audience are positioned in a way that they must for their own conclusions. This makes adbusters hihgly unconventions and goes against the notion that all media products are focused on profit and power
• Adbusters is not motivated by profit and power
• Adbusters takes an aggressive anti commercial ideology. Attacks on well known brands e.g. louboutin 
• The copy occupies very little of the page and there is use of the gutter. Overall damaged look to the magazine - to a mainstream, mass audience this is not appealing
• Front Cover - No anchorage, dirty effect. Preferred reading is unknown

More Paragraphs ideas

Niche vs Mainstream audience

Major conglomeration owned vs independent owned
Save the planet Kill yourself 
Ethics of being purely motivated by profit

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Explore how the set editions of Woman and Adbusters appeal to their target audiences.

Audience terms
Niche
Mainstream
Positioning
Anchorage
Demographic
Preferred
Negotiated
Oppositional
Alienating 
Fetishism
Patriarchal hegemony
Cultivation
Pick & mix
Target
Secondary
Modes of address


WOMAN

Cultivates hegemonic capitalist ideological perspective
Founded in 1937
7d cover price (approx 80p) - cheap cover price for a mass mainstream audience
Target demographic: 30-50 year old working class, housewife, heterosexual, white
Singular stereotypical representations
Reflects the social historical context of the time
Circulation 3 million copies sold each week: big market share!
(12 million women's lifestyle magazines sold in UK each week)
IPC also owned several other women's lifestyle magazines
Published by IPC, a horizontally integrated corporation
IPC buys out rival magazines, reducing competition and increasing specialism
Lack of creativity

ADBUSTERS

Not for profit
Anti Capitalist
First published in 1989
Broadly left wing ideology
£10:99 UK cover price - expensive cover price targeting a niche and middle class audience
120,000 readership/circulation
Bimonthly frequency
Self published: Adbusters Media Foundation
Complete lack of anchorage, and a complete lack of commercial intent
Culture jamming/detournement/brandalism
Ill defined target audience
Lacks brand image - masthead changes every issue
Lack of corporate restriction may lead to creative freedom

Knee Jerk Reaction:

Both magazines appeal to their target audience in different ways. Woman targets a mainstream audience and appeals to audience's through hegemonic capitalist ideological perspective and low price. While Adbusters, appeals to a niche middle class audience through it's anti consumerist ideology and its high cover price. 

Plan:

Woman

• Woman stepping on the man's head. Subversive of patriarchal hegemony at the time. Positions the audience with a cheeky, light hearted mode of address. Appeal to female target audience as they can have a giggle
• Aspirational figure - woman in central image standing on man's head. She is hegemonically and stereotypically attractive but not unattainable 
• Presents men as hyper masculine and mysterious - "man sized bottles" masculinity is power, appeals to the audience by making a gender binary. Hegemonically appealing
• Insider information on men - reinforces the ideology that men are important and this is something that a straight woman needs to understand these ideas in order to secure a man. Extremely heteronormative
• Feminists audiences can pick and mix (Gauntlet) their own ideologies of image of woman standing on man's head

Adbusters

• Left wing ideology - 350 ppm refers to high carbon dioxide emissions. The lettering is plastered across the image of a model, a figure of wealth. Implies that wealthy people contribute to global warming. - Appeal to audience - tackling issues. positions audience as someone who can make a difference as they are neither extremely wealthy or extremely poor. Positioning audience as a hero 
• Binary opposition between homelessness and wealth - shows TA how they can be a hero and help. Appeals to audience
• Damaged mise en scene of photos through the rough post-production technique- rejection of commoditity fetishism - appeal to a niche audience. Subversive of magazines. Edgy.different magazine - appeals to middle class audience
• Steve Neal's genre theory (repetition and difference) - reinforces consumerist beliefs
• Sophisticated lexis - appeal to middle class audience - words e.g. "disintegration of polar ice caps"
• Assumed knowledge of who "Justin Gillis" is 
• Direct mode of address - both images of the model and the homeless woman - asking audience to do something
• Issues surrounding climate change - sophisticated mode of address - presents an agreeable, political message there there is a discrepancy between reach and poor. And this is effecting the climate
• Pick and mix - Oppositional reading - audiences may feel disgusted by the homeless person and might take exception to their presence
• Pick and mix - can enjoy the magazine from a design and aesthetic perspective