Monday 15 May 2023

Explore the ways in which magazines utilise media language in order to encode ideological perspectives. Make reference to the set editions of Woman and Adbusters to support your points.



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.