- Codes and conventions – changes over time?
- Layout and design
- Composition - positioning of masthead/headlines, cover lines, images, columns
- Font size, type, colour
- Images/photographs - shot type, angle, focus
- Mise-en-scene – colour, lighting, location, costume/dress, hair/make-up
- Graphics, logos
- Language – headline, sub-headings, captions – mode of address
- Copy
- Anchorage of images and text
- Elements of narrative
The front cover of a magazine serves to sell the product to a target audience. In the 1960s, the magazine would have substantial competition against noted competitors. Yet rather than simply selling a product, Woman clearly sells a lifestyle of making the best life one can on a modest budget.
The layout of the magazine sees the face of the cover model as the focal point. Presumably, the cover model represents the ‘ideal’ woman. She is clearly hegemonically attractive, yet is far more relatable and realistic than contemporary models like Sophia Lauren and Grace Kelly.
Extensive airbrushing has radically changed the models appearance to remove certain features. Here all wrinkles have been removed, all spots. Pigmentation, pores, stains on teeth and veins. By removing all of these aspects, she not only becomes an aspirational figure, and cultivates an ideology that in order to be hegemonically beautiful, one needs to be young. This notion is anchored through the lexis ‘are you an A-level beauty’, a qualification typically sat by older teenagers.
The Alfred Hitchcock pull quote ‘British women have a special magic’ has connotations of British women possessing a supernatural level of good looks. This presents a flattering, if condescending mode of address, as well as stirring patriotic feelings.
The model’s dress is conventional, has connotations of a housewife lifestyle, and generic. This dress is clearly off the rack, and could be bought in any UK town or city. Makes for a relatable mode of address.
The font of the masthead is cursive, with curly, serif letters being selected. This not only connotes a sense of elegance and subtle luxury, yet also resembles a women's handwriting, with feminine cursive lines and curves. This handwritten quality makes the masthead informal and with a personal level of identity.
The title of the magazine is woman and not women. It is singular, which has personal connotations. Yet it also simplifies and even objectifies women by reducing them to a single person.
The coverline 7 star improvements for your kitchen, situates the female target audience in a kitchen. This potentially sexist mode of address is anchored through the explicit target audience being women, and further cover lines on makeup and lingerie. This confirms only two broad representations of women on the front cover as being involved in the kitchen and looking beautiful.
The address is simple, straightforward and sexist. This suggests the target audience have a lower level of education. This is a highly risk averse strategy, as the target audience are conservative and mainstream
The model’s smile is awkward and forced, and suggests that the model is uncomfortable with the situation. By selecting an uncomfortable looking model with a look of anxiety, the magazine targets a less confident and more mainstream audience
The MES of purple as a background colour are highly polysemic. It could connote wealth and luxury. Yet is also connotes femininity, a fact which is anchored through the stereotypically feminine cover model
The model is hegemonically attractive, yet also is coded in a more natural and perhaps more representative of a typical, contemporary, middle aged target audience.
The font of the masthead is both informal and feminine. The serif font resembles handwriting, which connotes an almost childish, but definitely naive mode of address. Yet it also polysemically encodes authenticity. Audiences will clearly obtain an inclusive and real experience from purchasing this magazine
The MES of the eyes and teeth of the model are alarmingly white. Her eyes lack tiny veins, her teeth are an unnatural colour and her skin lacks any visible pores. Additionally, her forehead notably lacks any wrinkles. Clearly this image has been extensively airbrushed, which was commonplace in the 1960s. By removing the model’s ‘flaws’, a representation of perfection is constructed. This reinforces the hegemonic assumption that in order to be visible, that women need to be perfect. This perfect example of the male gaze is clearly supported by Van Zoonen
Straightforward and often sexist ideologies are encoded on the front page of this magazine. For example the coverline “seven star improvements for your kitchen” reinforces and anchors the ideology that women are supposed to be situated in a kitchen, which is further anchored not only through the extremely main image of a woman, and the pull quote ‘British women have a special kind of magic’
The pull quote ‘British women have a special kind of magic’, made by the film director Alfred Hitchcock gives credibility to the notion that British women in particular are amazing. This helps the magazine effectively target a British audience with a patriotic mode of address.
World’ Greatest Weekly For Women - strapline/slogan presents a convincing sell line to the audience. This use of hyperbolic language is speculative and fanciful
The model’s dress and hairstyle is typical of the 1960s, presenting a casual mode of address that reinforces the traditional and even conservative values of the 1960. The stark lack of sexualisation is in contrast to more sophisticated representations of contemporary models like Sophia Lauren.
The age of the model is indeterminate, yet she is coded as middle aged. Her hairstyle in particular in mature and conservative and modest
Woman, singular, is the name of the magazine, which connotes a single, perfect and hegemonically appropriate variety of woman. Namely, the hegemonically appropriate woman is located in the ‘kitchen’, is fixated on ‘lingerie’ and ‘beauty’, and is located in the house rather than at house
The ideological perspective of this magazine is simple and straightforward and sexist. It is clearly target a simple and straightforward target audience