Magazines and audience

Can talk about representation in any question (Representation of women in Woman magazine is stereotypical housewives.)

Audience = 
... how does the audience respond to the product?
... how does the producer target/position the audience? 

- Explore the different ways that Adbusters and Woman target their audience through content and appeal.
(like the second question)

Need to give examples of how Adbusters and Woman target their audience - page about A-level Beauty - appealing to the target audience but need to pick out examples showing this. 
Lou boutin one for Adbusters - targets the audience for Adbusters. 

Essentials to always include:

• Need to always come back to media language
• Theorists and their theories (not in every paragraph - don't over do it)
• Need examples!!!!

Bonus theory - Uses and Gratification Theory
Gratification = rewards and pleasure 
- considers the different ways audience use or take pleasure from a media product.

Possible ways audience use or take pleasure from media product = 

• escapism = assumes that our lives are rubbish and we want to watch TV to make it more exciting and get away from our boring lifestyle. 
• voyeurism = taking pleasure at looking into someones life (crime in UK yet we do it when we watch TV shows, films etc) - WOMAN MAGAZINE - BREEZE SOAP - SPYING ON THE WOMAN WHO IS IN THE BATH. 
• relating to the characters within the tv show
• Entertainment - media products are entertaining and fun.
• Sexual gratification - someone they fancy/find attractive on screen.
• Social interaction = once watched a tv show you can talk about it with other people 

Who exactly is the target audience for Woman?

White, middle aged, straight (heterosexual), working class woman

Why would the target audience take gratification from this woman:

- They aspire to be her and can look up to her - escapism - they want to escape from their lives to look like her. 

- In order to look nice they must look like this to be accepted within society and they need to be sexualised etc. - conforms hegemonic beauty standards.

- "Because you're a woman" - it's their duty, commanding them to look nice - DIRECT MODE OF ADDRESS

- "all over feminine" - the product is specifically made for woman showing that if they use this they will be attractive. 

- repetition of the lexis "you" talking directly to woman telling them they must live up to expectation - personally addresses them enabling them to relate to them - direct mode of address making them feel involved.

- advert is telling them that they HAVE to do it and it's their duty. 

- voyeurism - can compare yourself to how she looks - doesn't look like she is in the bath 

Stuart Hall - Reception theory.

Do we accept the ideology of the producer?

Preferred reading - completely agrees with ideology of producer.

Negotiated reading - partial agreement with ideology of producer.

Oppositional reading - audience disagrees with ideology of producer. 

ideology of the producer = 

- the rich take things for granted 

- poor people can't afford anything

- anti-consumerist 

- Africa is poor and we should feel sorry for them. 

preferred reading = 

we should do something to help people out 

we shouldn't buy as much 

Lou boutin shoes are expensive and over priced

African people cant help themselves 

oppositional reading = 

not caring about anything that Adbusters cares about

negotiated

agree with socialist message but disagree with representation of African people. 

Audience positioning where the producer places the audience using the media language. 

Using:

shot types

media language 

mise-en-scene

Feet of African child - we are placed above the child and looking down on the individual - high angled close up

Army man - we are in the war zone with the man - never actually told where this is - we are quite close to this man however we don't want to be too close to the man making it uncomfortable due to his facial expressions. 

Woman applying makeup and man watching - we are pretty close to them and looking into their lives = voyeurism!!!! Voyeuristic close up - supposed to feel romantic

"They're like snow-capped volcanoes" - pull quote from Alfred Hitchcock 
- close up of Hitchcock - suit connotes wealth and power. Masculine and hegemonically normal
- looks old (60ish) connotes he is wise. 
- "They're" = stereotyping women as being like this and is a conversational and a direct mode of address - metaphorically speaking saying woman are nice on the outside but are sexual on the inside. 

Positioning = Adbusters is upsetting whereas Woman is welcoming.