Knee jerk reaction
Magazines utilise media language to encode the ideology of the producer. This is in order to shape the ideological perspective of the audience, and ensure that they continue to purchase the magazine
Plan
Semiotics
Codes
Proairetic
Symbolic
Hermeneutic
Referential
Intertextuality
(gender performativity)
Binary oppositions
Composition
Colour
Polysemic
Hyperreality - where the representation is more real than the thing being represented
Aspirational
Hegemony
Lexis - choice of language
Narrative
Atypical
Stereotypes
Neale - genre - repetition and difference
Positioning
Introduction
DAC - definition, argument, context
Ideology refers to the beliefs and values of the producer. Producer’s will typically use media language in order to aggressively anchor and position audiences to agree with their preferred ideological perspective. In this essay, I shall argue that the producers of magazines use a range of media language to engage audiences with explicit ideological perspectives. I shall also argue that by cultivating hegemonic ideological perspectives, the producers of magazines ensure that audiences purchase the same magazine time after time, minimising risk and maximising profit. To explore this idea I shall look at the Aug 1964 edition of Woman, a mass market woman’s weekly magazine first published in 1937 that targets a white, working class female target audience, and Adbusters (Aug 2016 edition), a countercultural anticapitalist magazine that targets a varied set of niche audiences who are involved in activism.
Paragraphs
PEA - Point, evidence, argument
Woman magazine’s front cover presents a stereotypical and hegemonic representation of women to engage its target audience. This clearly uses media language to reflect the ideology of the produce
The MES of the cover model’s pink and flowery dress is symbolic of stereotypical representations of women, and provides a feminine mode of address to the target audience
Despite the magazine’s target audience being women, the main cover line and pull quote on the front cover is a quote from a powerful man, Alfred Hitchcock, which constructs a patriarchal mode of address
Lexis of your kitchen is a direct mode of address to the target audience, and allows the producer to encode patriarchal hegemonic ideological perspectives surrounding women
Lexis of extra special on men uses a sans serif font to place symbolic emphasis on the word men, which encodes an ideology that men are important and above women in a social hierarchy. Additionally, the lexis of “getting to know them” further dehumanises women and others women through the construction of an explicit binary opposition
The smile of the model presents a positive mode of address, and reinforces the hegemonic ideology that women should constantly be happy
The composition of the mes of the hegemonically attractive women including her hair and makeup serves to reinforce and cultivate an aspirational mode of address for the working class female target audience
Analysis
By cultivating a hegemonic ideological perspective and presenting a hyperreal representation of women, the producers of Woman magazine, IPC, are using media language to both shape and position the ideology of their target audience. By cultivating such a compelling and aspirational ideology, IPC are able to ensure that the mass market target audience for women buy the magazine week after week, in order to minimise risk and to maximise profit.
Changing fashions and styles are used to create an anxious mode of address, and to deliberately provoke the target audience
Adbusters
The water double page spread
A binary opposition is constructed between the upper middle class luxury encoded through the detourned image of the luxury Zucchetti tap and mysterious mid shot of a young woman in a bath, that connotes a working class identity.