To what extent do the genre conventions of the magazines you have studied reflect the socio historical context of when they were made? Refer to the set editions of…
Knee jerk reaction
The genre conventions of both these magazines reflect the changing sociohistorical context of our world to a massive extent.
Plan
MES
Ideology
Pull quote
Lexis
Main image
Steve Neale -genre -
Genre conventions
Genre hybrids
Genres are constructed through repetition and difference
Woman magazine = simple and straightforward, conventional
Women’s lifestyle
Adbusters - heavily hybridised: political, educational, photography, anticapitalist
Unconventional
Criticism of brands and brand identities
Culture jamming
No paid for advertising
Edgy
Patriarchal hegemony
The rise of second wave feminism
Heteronormative
The rise of countercultures, eg the use of psychedelic drugs
The contraceptive pill and changing attitudes to sexual promiscuity
Conservative
Social and class issues: poverty, the rise of the populist far right, inequality and designer products, war, and climate change
Anchorage
Commodity fetishism
Fetishistic disavowal - ignoring the social cost of something because the commodity fetishism is so strong
Consumerist ideologies
Generic hybridity
Introduction - DAC
Genre refers to a type of media product. Genres comprise of conventions, which help to create meaning for the target audience, and ensure the producer is able to target specific audiences in order to minimise risk and maximise profit. However, over time, genre has diluted in to many different categories. This process is known as genre fluidity, and leads to the significant hybridisation of genres. In this essay, I shall the genre conventions of both these magazines reflect the changing socio historical context of our world to a massive extent. To explore this idea I shall the examples of Woman magazine, a 1964 British women’s lifestyle magazine that sold approximately 3 million copies a week in the mid 60s to a middle aged, working class and socially conservative female target audience. I shall contrast this with the set edition of Adbusters, published June/July 2016, an anticapitalist Canadian magazine that challenges not only conventions of magazine genre, but also dominant hegemonic social conventions.
Paragraphs - PEA
One way in which genre conventions reflect the socio historical context of the time in which these magazines were made can be found through the generic convention of advertising. Typically, a third of a magazine’s revenue comes from advertising, and this helps a magazine offset its cost of production, and to lower the cover price.
Wo - Max Factor Creme Puff. Helps to cultivate a patriarchal hegemonic viewpoint
Ad - Loubiton DPS
Another way in which genre conventions reflect the socio historical context of the time in which these magazines were made can be found through the magazine’s inclusion or exclusion of social issues
Ad - Homeless dps
Wo - A present for your kitchen
However yet another reflection of socio historical contexts can be found through the treatment of political issues
Ad - Front cover
Wo - Front Cover
The representations of gender
Wo - Breeze Soap
Ad - Zucchetti/water dps
Explore the choices producers make when constructing representations. Refer to [the magazines you have studied] to support your answer.
Knee jerk reaction
In this essay I shall argue that producers choose to construct representations in both simple and straightforward, or complex and alienating ways
Plan
Complex and straightforward representations
Adbusters is complicated and confusing
Woman is simple and straightforward
Sexist
Stuart Hall
Stereotypes - identity, audience targeting, shortcut
Target audience
Constructing audiences
Curran and Seaton - deffo woman NO adbusters!!!!
Lacks anchorage no adverts
Advertisers dictate content
David Gauntelet identity pick and mix
Women and gender
Van Zoonen - representations have changed over time
Feminism and bell hooks - intersectional
Gender performativity
Hegemonic value
Patriarchal hegemony
Second wave feminism
Consumerism
Capitalism/ anticapitalism
Fetishtic disavowal - ignoring the very real issues with something due to wanting to obtain a product
It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than a world without capitalism
Culture jamming - rerouting the meaning of something eg an advert
Symbolic annihilation - complete lack of representation of a group
Gilroy - othering
Masthead
Coverlines
Main image
Caption
Grace Kelley
Airbrushing
Colour
Introduction DAC
Representation refers to the ways in which an issue, even, group or place are constructed through media language. Representations are constructed by the producer for the purpose of demonstrating an ideological perspective, which the audience will decode depending on their social and cultural upbringing. Furthermore, producers use representations to manipulate the ideology of their targets, cultivating hegemonic and often patriarchal ideologies, and ensuring that the target audience engages with the product every week. In this essay I shall argue that producers choose to construct representations in both simple and straightforward, or complex and alienating ways. In order to explore this perspective, I shall use the examples of the set edition of Woman magazine, published August 1964, and demonstrating a conservative and straightforward ideology. I shall also explore the set edition of Adbusters, published June/July 2016, which presents a complex range of representations to confuse and alienate the target audiences.
Paragraphs: PEA
P - One way in which we see the choices of the producer affect the construction of representations is through the explicit representation of women
Wo - Breeze Soap
Ad -Water double spread
P - Another import difference in the choices made in the construction of representations can be seen in the different representations of ethnicity
Wo - Symbolic annihilation, the Alfred Hitchcock interview and the fetishisation of nationality
Ad - Red shoes double page spread - Gilroy and othering
P - representations and ideals of men…
Wo - Creme Puff. Men: active, powerful, patriarchal
Ad - Front cover constructs a representation of men in a stereotypical and deliberately problematic ways
P - the representation of social issues
Wo - a complete disavowal of social issues. ‘ A present for your Kitchen’ reinforces sexist stereotypes
Ad - Save the planet kill yourself
Magazine fact file
Woman (Aug 1964) | Adbusters (June/July 2016) |
7d (80p in today’s money) First published in 1937 Total circulation of women’s lifestyle magazines in the UK at this time = 12 million Woman magazine’s circulation at this time was approx 3 million!!! Simple, straightforward sexist Published by IPC, a large, UK and horizontally integrated organisation IPC acquired Woman’s Realm and it’s publisher to eliminate the competition Use of sans serif font for copy and simple straightforward lexis Conservative First published 1937 - pre war Circulation of 3 million in the early 60s Total of 12 million women’s lifestyle magazines sold in UK every week IPC published Woman, but also horizontally integrated by buying out competitors, forming a near monopoly. A mainstream, mass market magazine Price: 7d (80p) About 30% of revenue comes from advertising. Magazines typically form good relationships with advertisers
| Approx. £10.99/issue. Currently in the UK: £9.99, but cover price frequently shifts 120,000 circulation circa 2017… Adbusters shifts it’s brand identity with every issue. The masthead and the format (size and shape) of the magazine regularly Adbusters is published by the Adbusters Media Foundation, which mainly publishes Adbusters, and also distributes a few other business endeavours, e.g. shoes, flags, coffee table books AMF involved in a number of campaigns, including constructing spoof adverts, instrumental in the occupy movement, The Third Force (related to extinction rebellion), Fuck It Friday, Buy Nothing Regularly involved in scandals: has been withdrawn from sale by many shops for comparing the Israeli occupation of Gaza to the Holocaust Left wing, anticapitalist A niche and specialised publication targeting a cult audience Not for profit Skirts with copyright infringement; a legal grey area Bi monthly Current newsstand price: £9.99, however price changes frequently and arbitrarily Adbusters lacks a definitive brand identity, with the content, the masthead and even the size/format changing every issue 120,000 circulation Adbusters media foundation. Specialises in producing the magazine, but also produce overpriced books, flags, shirts and even shoes. Also heavily involved in activist movements, such as the occupy movement, fuck it Friday, the #thirdforce, boycotting various organisations, encouraging audiences to vandalise SUVs, and the semi-famous ‘buy nothing day’, the ‘secret society…’
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4. Curran and Seaton argue that media industries are generally controlled by a small number of powerful companies whose main purpose is to create a profit. Evaluate this theory of power and media industries. Refer to Woman and Adbusters in your response. [30]
Knee jerk reaction
While many magazines exist solely to use their power and influence to minimise risk and maximise profit, there are examples of magazines that absolutely so not. In this essay I shall argue how Woman magazine is purely constructed for power and profit, while the non-profit Adbusters completely disagrees with the dominant hegemonic and capitalist ideologies of our society.
Paragraphs and points
Examples from the magazines
Adbusters - Save The Planet Kill Yourself - a direct mode of address wich is potentially triggering for audiences with mental health issues (Bandura’s effects model). The article outlines in horrifying detail that resembles a horror story how hopeless the environmental situation is.
Woman magazine - A Present For Your Kitchen. Presents a consumerist ideology that the issues that the target audience face can be solved through purchasing consumer products. This blatant example of commodity fetishism is typical of a mass market magazine, and cultivates a target audience who will continue to buy the magazine, Additionally, the article promotes a patriarchal, conservative and sexist ideology, that once more reinforces conservative values, and ensures the target audience will buy the magazine over and over.
(b) Explore how Woman magazine targets and attracts a specialised audience. [15]
Gerbner’s cultivation theory. The fashion featured in Woman captures a particular zeitgeist, that reflects the dominant, conservative and hegemonic ideologies of the time, helping the magazine target a conservative and middle aged audience
The hegemonically attractive cover model invites the heterosexual gaze. However, the target audience for the magazine are straight women. A heteronormative ideological perspective is constructed, with an aspirational mode of address. Woman magazine is filled with idealised and patriarchal representations of women to appeal to the conservative female audience
Woman magazine adopts a relentlessly manipulative mode of address, reinforcing the ideology that the target audience are lacking in something fundamental that can only be obtained through the magazine. This in turn serves to minimise risk and maximise profit.
(b) Explore how Adbusters targets and attracts a specialised audience. [15]
The cover image and model is a middle eastern man screaming directly at the target audience, positioning us in a confusing mode of address. Furthermore, the anchorage constructed the low production values, in particular the smeared and apparently badly printed ink further distances the audience. This combination of media language constructs a purposely edgy and controversial mode of address which appeals to a cult and specialised audience
‘The magazine industry is shaped by it’s unique forms of regulation.’ To what extent do Woman and Adbusters support this claim? [30]
Regulation refers to the rules and restrictions a media industry must follow. While some industries like the newspaper industry will attempt to bypass regulations, other media producers will follow regulations to the letter to avoid alienating audiences. Broadly, it is clear that the magazine industry is shaped through its regulation. However, Woman magazine is a conservative and straightforward magazine that deliberately does not breach any rules. On the other hand, Adbusters is a deliberately edgy and controversial magazine that deliberately breaches international journalistic regulations. I shall argue that regulation has completely shaped these magazines into completely different products, with completely different target audiences and ideological perspectives.
Magazines in the UK were regulated by the Press Council in the 1960s. Now known as IPSO, the press council was also a voluntary regulatory body that upheld standards in journalism. The producers of Woman magazine constructed a product which does not go against any regulatory guideline, in order to appeal to a conservative and easily offended audience. One example of this unique form of regulation can be found in the article…
Adbusters, on the other hand, is not bound by the same need to minimise risk and maximise profit as the mainstream Woman….
Woman magazine - sexist, straightforward and simple
Adbusters - complex, anti capitalist, unconventional
Woman magazine - A present fro your kitchen. No regulatory guidelines breeched, but instead cultivates a consumerist ideological perspective that will please advertisers.
Adbusters - Save The Planet, Kill Yourself. Clearly and perhaps deliberately breeches regulations on protecting vulnerable people and reporting on suicide
