Explore how the magazines you have studied both reinforce and challenge stereotypical representations of issues and events. Make reference to…
Woman
- Genre: women’s lifestyle (clear and conventional)
- Straightward messages about…
- Simple, straightforward, sexist
- Women. Specifically housewives. White, British, middle aged, and working class
Adbusters
Genre: politics, art, activism (unclear and unconventional)
Complicated messages about…
Complicated, complex and progressive
An unconventional collection of representations, including issues such as climate change, big fashion conglomerates, gender, war and conflict. All these representations are grouped together with every expectation of the audience being able to understand it
Woman - Breeze soap and Adbusters: water DPS
In woman magazine, the issue of living up to hegemonic gender norms is addressed in a simple and straightforward way. The use of lexis provides a direct mode of address for the target audience, imploring the audience, “Darling, you need breeze”. Here the advert takes the address of a woman talking to another woman, and reinforces the dominant stereotype that in order to be successful, a woman must be hegemonically clean and attractive. This is anchored through the main image of a highly hegemonically attractive, very young and also highly sexualised image of a woman. Here, a representation is constructed of a hegemonically perfect woman that the target audience is highly unlikely to look like. Here, this representation is a highly aspirational image that cultivates the sexist and patriarchal ideology that only beautiful women have value. This reflects the dominant cultural ideal of the time, and allows the target audience to live up to hegemonic standards. A hyperreal representation. In Adbusters, the issue of water poverty is addressed in a complex and highly polysemic manner, with three completely different elements (article quote, bath scene and tap) constructing a guilty and confusing mode of address. A binary opposition between rich and poor is utilised to create a confusing mode of address. While Adbusters features no paid for advertising, the right image is a full page, completely untouched advertisement for a luxury Zucchetti tap. This represents a legal grey area, although no money has changed hands. Regardless, by contextualising this image, and anchoring it with the images of poverty on the other side, the producer of Adbusters has doutourned or culture jammed this advert, giving it a radical and sarcastic mode of address. Here the issue of water poverty is delivered through a complex and mocking mode of address. This ironic mode of address will specifically appeal to a middle aged anti consumerist audience. However, Adbusters, being highly polysemic, also addresses the issue of sexualisation of women in media products. While the preferred reading of this double page spread is to reject luxury brands and coming to face with poverty, the close up high angle shot of a completely nude woman sitting in a bath subversively tackles the hegemonic norm of women being used for a heterosexual male gaze. The closely cropped close up omits the models face and breasts, which is in complete opposition to the almost pornographic Breeze soap advert. Van Zoonen argues that the representation of gender has become more complex and diverse over time. Comparing these two very different magazines makes this absolutely clear.
- Front covers - Woman magazine contemporary female representation, shy and timid and nameless woman. Adbusters, a soldier, a violent individual, with no anchorage, unconventional and highly upsetting
- Woman - A-level beauty, huge amount of information instructing the target audience to look like a teenager vs the 350 ppm DPS, with ambiguous representations of women, one a glamorous model, the other a homeless woman
- Adbusters - “save the planet kill yourself’: extremely depressing, nightmarish mode of address, vs “they’re like snow capped volcanoes’, presenting a relentlessly sexist and reductive ideology. Second wave feminists of the 1960s would object to these reductive stereotypes
- Both magazines take the address of using depressing modes of address to upset and demoralise their target audience. For adbusters, they use the representation of environmental issues to construct a bleak and depressing reality where we have no hoe, but we really must protest. Perhaps even worse, Woman magazine constructs a world where only young, hegemonically attractive and conservative women will succeed in society. By reinforcing these patriarchal values, it ensures the simple, sexist straightforward audience will buy the same magazine every week.