Main task: detailed analysis - Crème Puff by Max Factor
Advertising is essential to the production of magazines, and a significant proportion of a magazine's revenue comes from selling advertising space. Magazines with specific, large audiences like Woman can charge significantly more for advertising space, as the producers can guarantee the ad will be seen by the kind of person who may buy the product! A full page advert in a weekly woman's magazine is therefore very expensive indeed, and will be pulling out all the stops to target, address and involve the female target audience.
Each of these mini questions corresponds to a media concept or theory, so this is a great way to revise theory and media concepts. Just read the explainer, then answer the question. At least two sentences per question. Yeah!
Task: read the following revision prompts, and then answer the following questions in no less than two sentences each
Audience positioning is where the audience are placed in a media product, using techniques such as mise-en-scene and shot types. Are we near or are we far? Who are we positioned with? And what does this mean?
Q1 - How are the target audience positioned in this scene? Make reference to media language
Modes of address refers to how a media product 'speaks' to it's audience. But this 'speaking' doesn't have to be verbal or through text! For example, a film targeting a mass market male audience may use stereotypical elements of mise-en-scene such guns, knives, explosions and Tom Hardy looking grumpy to speak to men...
Q2 - In what ways does this advert use mise-en-scene to address it's target audience?
Van Zoonen argues that media language is used to construct male and female representations in different ways in media products
Q3 - Check out the textual analysis toolkit (this should always be open anyway!) nd note at least three ways that men and women are represented differently in this advert. It's like Spot The Difference but you're 17...
Van-Zoonen also argues women’s bodies are used in media products as a spectacle for heterosexual male audiences, which reinforces patriarchal hegemony. Patriarchal hegemony, simply put, is the hegemonic expectations of women in society as reinforced by men who occupy power
Q4 - In what ways can it be argued that this advert encodes ideologies of patriarchal hegemony? How do you know? And why is this important?
The intradiegetic gaze refers to how a diegetic character looks at another diegetic character. (Diegetic literally means 'in the world of the narrative, so it's any element which exists 'in the story'). So that guy, looking at that woman? That's intradiegetic gaze. Easy!*
Q5 - How does the use of intradiegetic gaze reinforce certain representations of women?
Lexis refers to the choice of written or spoken language
Q6 - "Frantically rushing to meet that exciting someone? Dashing out on an important date?" Explore how the lexis of these two sentences reinforces certain stereotypes about women
*You, the audience looking at the woman could be referred to as extradiegetic gaze, the male gaze (if you identify as male) or even just the gaze!
Extension: "They're like snow-capped volcanoes"
Liesbet Van-Zoonen argues that gender and our expectations of gender is constructed through codes and conventions of media products. This could be through the selection of image, the shot type, costume, camera angle, anchorage of mise-en-scene, or any other contributing factor. Crucially, she also argues the idea of what is male and what is female changes over time. This interview with the then famous, now legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock is an excellent demonstration of the ideological representation of women, and allows us to explore the sociohistorical context that Woman was published in.
Task: Refamiliarize yourself with the Alfred Hitchcock interview, and answer the following questions in as much detail as possible
If you already have notes answering a particular question, i.e if you've already discussed it in class, you can safely skip it!
- Read the Alfred Hitchcock article and make notes on content, ideology and lexis. Make sure to pick out several (at least three) example sentences that you can ultimately quote in the exam!
- Analyze two of the images included in this article. Consider shot type, costume, and especially the anchorage provided by the lexis of the captions. What ideological perspectives are being constructed?
- How does this interview reflect the representation of women in 1964? How does it differ from how women are represented in 2018?
- In what ways does this article confirm patriarchal hegemonic ideologies relating to women?
- Research Alfred Hitchcock, particularly accusations made about him by the actor Tippi Hedren. Discuss your findings.