Key assessment - Magazine
Woman magazine is published by IPC, for this particular edition it was published in 1937, since this was a mainstream magazine company at the time, there were standards and regulation standards to keep up with therefore this magazine was published weekly with a very low cover price, and it was more conforming and narrow minded on the ideologies they would convey to the audience. With affordable prices, many women imparticular could purchase this during the post-war period, and consequently this magazine had a massive influence on the audiences aspirations and lifestyle they wanted to achieve. In contrast to this, Adbusters runs parallel, and is only published six times a year by the Adbusters Media Foundation, 1989 to present with the price of £10.99, which is expensive and can be seen as contradictory since they agree on anti-consumerist/capitalist ideologies shown in the other sources of the media. Both magazine publishers encodes deeper meaning to manipulate the audience into certain viewpoints and perspectives.
For Adbusters front cover they use the less conventional and conforming features and codes to make the audience really focus on what they are trying to show, since the front cover is the first thing the audience would see before opening up the article. The publishers purposefully make the cover confusing so the audience can use their own personal preferred reading to gather the deeper meaning then look on with intention of finding out more. The idea of the reception theory can be credited to Stuart Hall, who believes that texts may intentionally have multiple meanings but audiences can potentially get whatever they want out of any media source/product. The cover is very intense and subversive to a typical magazine. It contains no cover lines, tag lines or multiple images which is seen as anti-conventional. The Mast-head is plain with white sans serif font which is clearly visible at the top of the cover which is partially covered by the 'pasted over' effect, to the audience this makes this cover look more like a movie advertisement rather than a magazine, this makes the audience pick up on the ideology that they are going against stereotypes. Adbusters in all their magazines raises social and political issues and messages in order to persuade the audience into the viewpoint of a radical rethink of what is considered a normal lifestyle. This can be seen as upsetting or controversial since that may include upsetting or distressing images which are typically hidden in the media.
In contrast to this, in Woman magazine they use more conforming codes to address the viewpoints in patriarchal society by using a very 'maternal', stereotypical housewife to set standards and what society is looking for. Due the magazine/media industry being dominated and mostly run by heterosexual male publishes they objectify women's identity to convince the audience that this is what they should live up for by using dominant readings. The bleak, pale but very 'typically' feminine colours dominant the front cover and make the image of the women look very innocent and nothing out of the ordinary. The model is white and English and uses gesture codes of smiling to suggest the ideology that if you buy this magazine you will look like her and have her lifestyle. The rhetorical question as the subheading at the bottom of the page manipulates the audience into questioning themselves about the life they live currently. Whereas, Adbusters uses preferred reading to allow the audience into thinking the viewpoints the want to think.
The tap advert in Adbusters is a perfect example to show how they use culture jamming to mock more conventional and capitalist industries to show the bigger image of what message they are actually trying to show.
Woman magazine is published by IPC, for this particular edition it was published in 1937, since this was a mainstream magazine company at the time, there were standards and regulation standards to keep up with therefore this magazine was published weekly with a very low cover price, and it was more conforming and narrow minded on the ideologies they would convey to the audience. With affordable prices, many women imparticular could purchase this during the post-war period, and consequently this magazine had a massive influence on the audiences aspirations and lifestyle they wanted to achieve. In contrast to this, Adbusters runs parallel, and is only published six times a year by the Adbusters Media Foundation, 1989 to present with the price of £10.99, which is expensive and can be seen as contradictory since they agree on anti-consumerist/capitalist ideologies shown in the other sources of the media. Both magazine publishers encodes deeper meaning to manipulate the audience into certain viewpoints and perspectives.
For Adbusters front cover they use the less conventional and conforming features and codes to make the audience really focus on what they are trying to show, since the front cover is the first thing the audience would see before opening up the article. The publishers purposefully make the cover confusing so the audience can use their own personal preferred reading to gather the deeper meaning then look on with intention of finding out more. The idea of the reception theory can be credited to Stuart Hall, who believes that texts may intentionally have multiple meanings but audiences can potentially get whatever they want out of any media source/product. The cover is very intense and subversive to a typical magazine. It contains no cover lines, tag lines or multiple images which is seen as anti-conventional. The Mast-head is plain with white sans serif font which is clearly visible at the top of the cover which is partially covered by the 'pasted over' effect, to the audience this makes this cover look more like a movie advertisement rather than a magazine, this makes the audience pick up on the ideology that they are going against stereotypes. Adbusters in all their magazines raises social and political issues and messages in order to persuade the audience into the viewpoint of a radical rethink of what is considered a normal lifestyle. This can be seen as upsetting or controversial since that may include upsetting or distressing images which are typically hidden in the media.
In contrast to this, in Woman magazine they use more conforming codes to address the viewpoints in patriarchal society by using a very 'maternal', stereotypical housewife to set standards and what society is looking for. Due the magazine/media industry being dominated and mostly run by heterosexual male publishes they objectify women's identity to convince the audience that this is what they should live up for by using dominant readings. The bleak, pale but very 'typically' feminine colours dominant the front cover and make the image of the women look very innocent and nothing out of the ordinary. The model is white and English and uses gesture codes of smiling to suggest the ideology that if you buy this magazine you will look like her and have her lifestyle. The rhetorical question as the subheading at the bottom of the page manipulates the audience into questioning themselves about the life they live currently. Whereas, Adbusters uses preferred reading to allow the audience into thinking the viewpoints the want to think.
The tap advert in Adbusters is a perfect example to show how they use culture jamming to mock more conventional and capitalist industries to show the bigger image of what message they are actually trying to show.
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