Thursday 14 March 2019

Compare and contrast the ways in which viewpoints and ideologies are encoded in Woman and Adbusters




  • Adbusters presents a deliberately confusing and subversive ideology to challenge it's audience
  • The MES of the models wrinkly hands are a symbolic code of poverty and misfortune
  • The CU shot focusses on the models hands and knees, and is deliberately un-sexualised. This is highly subversive, and goes against Van-Zoonen's theory
  • The double page spread is polysemic and lacks anchorage. The preferred reading is unclear, suggesting the target audience is educated and knowledgeable.
  • The fact that both images are high angled draws a link between the bath woman and the tap. However the images are extremely different, forming a binary opposition between rich and poor.
  • The text is rough, unaligned and badly printed, suggesting a complete lack of effort, symbolising a division between the rich and poor in our society
  • A direct criticism of a luxury brand and a legal grey area
Thanks to T block for these excellent suggestions!





  • colour, soft and gentle pastel colours, reinforces the expectations on behaviour towards women - purple symbolises, flowers and elegance, a stereotypical colour we associate with females
  • woman in the shot is welcoming, her smile makes her feel friend- like
  • seven star improvements for you kitchen- reinforces the idea of consumerism, in order to be the perfect housewife, you must buy into capitalism
  • Her costume and makeup is also very stereotypical for the era, she conforms to the expectations of patriarchal society, she wears makeup to enhance her features
  • The pastel colour of the background further reinforces the welcoming ideology to the female readers. The mise-en-scene of the model taking up most of the front cover is physically appealing which gives the female audience an aspirational figure, while also looking warm and welcoming too


Cheers to Abi and Kieran in R block for these suggestions which I ripped from your blogs (with permission!)