WOMAN MAGAZINE 1964

• Everything you study in component 2 will come up in the exam
• You will get unseen texts in component 1
• In component 2, you need to voice your opinion
• You need to refer to the historical context of the magazines
• You need to make up the question yourself (no definitive question means no definitive answer)
• You don't need to give a balanced argument

ROLAND BARTHES SEMIOTICS 

REFERENTIAL, SYMBOLIC, PROAIRETIC, HERMENEUTIC 

CLAUDE LEVI STRAUSS STRUCTURALISM

BINARY OPPOSITION (WE SEE THE WORLD THROUGH WHAT IT ISN'T)

What makes a magazine a magazine?

• glossy covers - quality
• a lot more advertisements - keeps prices down
• full-page photographs - more about the look and design
• free samples/gifts 
• more gossipy mode of address (colloquial) 
• editorials - less formal and can take a specific point of view 
• can take an exclusionary mode of address - can help sell editions to target audience 

• published weekly by IPC
• set edition: 23-29th august 1964
• price: 7d (7 old pennies), about 80p
• became popular in the post-war period
• in the 1960's, the sales reached 12 million per week

• sans-serif, feminine font - attracts women to the magazine, handwritten looks personal and friendly 
• model looks about 35 - mature readership 
• 7p in 1964, font is larger than other writing = about 80p now - cheap magazine, doesn't exclude any women, stands out so people know it's affordable 
• floral dress - feminine and traditional, not inspiring them to branch out, reinforces hegemonic rules about how women should dress 
• Alfred Hitchcock was one of the most influential filmmakers - readers will believe him, audience may feel proud of themselves
• "FOR YOUR KITCHEN" - ideology that the kitchen is a woman's priority, audience assumes she is a stay at home wife
• lilac background - feminine, appealing to women
• "Every Wednesday" - maintains their readership
• "LINGERIE GOES LIVELY" and "British women have a special magic" - sexualised
• white airbrushed teeth, eyes and font - connotates purity, teeth stand out, aspirational 
• short hair - practical, sensible, mature 
• model is plain and uninteresting - audience can identify as her
• delicate key lighting - women should be bright and optimistic 
• "ARE YOU AN A-LEVEL BEAUTY?" - ideology that women should wear makeup and read the magazine to become an "a-level beauty", hermeneutic code
• "YOUR KITCHEN" - direct address
• through male audiences seeing model and finding her attractive, women may aspire to look like her
• "SEVEN STAR" - even a 5 star kitchen isn't good enough, inadequate   
• not every woman will buy this - plain and boring model, uninteresting plugs, not targeted to upper and middle class 
• masthead large and bright - audience may feel empowered, "woman" includes every female (unlike "girl" or "lady")
• model looking at us - direct address, affectionate, not sexual

• "making the most out of bacon" - housewife role 
• everything is feminine-related - stereotypical 
• image of Jacky Kennedy - inspirational woman
• "makeup to work miracles" - assumption that women aren't attractive without it, hegemony 
• "Beauty" as a heading - rather than "health", more important what a woman looks like 
• "back to school clothes" - targeted towards mothers, reinforces the fact that children are their priority 

DAVID GAUNTLET

THEORY OF IDENTITY

Audiences are not passive 

Media products allow the audience to construct their own identities

• Referred to as the 'pick and mix' theory
• Audiences are more intelligent and can pick what ideologies they want to believe

• "any girl can do it" - "girl" refers to a children and symbolises weakness
• "get the man in your life to do it" - reliant on men, assumption that the audience is straight
• encourages women to be creative - positive approach, stereotypically masculine 
• mode of address is formal, dry and boring - doesn't appeal to all of the audience
• "wise money-saving guide" - need to be smart with your money, women don't have a lot of money to begin with
• "your kitchen" - ownership, positive 
• image of woman teaching their son to cook - encourages men to cook, steering away from stereotypes. However, the image of a woman cooking could cultivate view that women belong in the kitchen 

LISBET VAN ZOONEN
FEMINIST THEORY

• genre is constructed through codes and conventions of media products, and the idea of what is male and what is female
• women's bodies are used in media products as a spectacle (the male gaze)for heterosexual male audiences, which reinforces patriarchal hegemony

• "any English man who hasn't been caught off guard by an english woman...doesn't know what he's missing" - women's purpose in life is to please men
• British women are exotic to men - mysterious and different to men 
• "creatures" and "snow-capped volcano"  - dehumanised/objectification
• saying it's okay to objectify women if your married 
• images of Hitchcock - looks confident, not attractive, symbolic code of film reel, not supposed to find him appealing
• image of Grace Kelly - young and attractive, meant to find her appealing, aspirational model 
• monologue (only person talking) - suggests power and importance
• "the mystery of British women" - saying all women are mysterious, generalising them
• 'sex appeal provides the ideal complement to other thrills I produce on the screen" - sex appeal makes a good film

BELL HOOKS
FEMINIST THEORY

• feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the domination of women
• feminism is a lifestyle choice, it is a political commitment 
• race, class and gender all determine the extent to which individuals are exploited and oppressed
• "feminism is for everyone"

• useless - ruined the dinner 
• emotional - burst into tears, failed at being a woman
• wearing feminine clothes in the house - always trying to impress her husband, still stereotypically attractive
• beer is the main focus - objectification, beer is better than her 
• men are the beer drinkers - the man is the one worried about it 
• women belong in the kitchen - cultivation theory
• dependant on her husband - uses his handkerchief 

Advertising in magazines:

• to pay for them (sales of copies isn't always enough)
• advertising accounts are approximately 1/3 of the total revenue across the industry
• important that the adverts are directed towards the target audience, so that the brands benefit from increased sales 
• high audience engagement with the adverts 
• less distraction from other activities (if you've bought a magazine, you create time for it)
• ability to target niche audiences
• high production values
• potential for placement in highly relevant editorial environment 
• non-intrusive (readers can turn the page)
• long shelf life

• "because you're a woman" repeated - emphasizes that they are expected to do something because they're women, demanding
• (alternative reading) - women are a community, builds a target audience
• women are sexy - not in a bath or shower, can be even sexier if she uses this soap
• naked and feminine pose - sexualised, ideology that men will find them attractive if they use the product
• she is positioned above the text - model is the first thing you see, audience may aspire to be like her and go to find out what she's using
• hair up and makeup on - not what women usually look like when washing
• small font - woman is the main focus 
• "darling" - lexis could be men speaking, want to impress their husbands 
• "gentlest lather" - women are delicate 
• closed body language - not nudity for men, empowering women
• "destroys perspiration odour" - breaking a sweat whilst working at home
• binary opposition between cleanliness and destruction

• mid shots of women looking at her makeup, whilst ignoring the man - emphasises her interest in the makeup and looking good
• putting on makeup to look good for the man - man won't stop looking at her when she has it on 
• first image she already has makeup on - patriarchal hegemony that women should always be wearing makeup
• primary goal of women is to attract a man 
• he is looking at her the same way she looks at the makeup - he likes that she's making the effort to look attractive
• "beauty at a moments notice" - shows how easy it is to put on, no excuse for women not to be wearing it 
• could argue that is empowering - she's not looking at the man, subverting stereotypical hegemonic representations of women 
• set at a train station or working environment - women is out of the house, progressive
• female is object of his gaze - Lizbet Van Zoomen

WOMAN MAGAZINE RELAUNCH 1985

• model looks like she's going out - less house-wife based
• masthead has changed - doesn't look like handwriting, more of a fun mode of address
• lots of bright colours - more confident
• competitions to win cars - women driving is new, encouraging them to go out
• assumptions about women are different 
• still has focus on kitchen - not completely progress, still holds similar ideologies 
• "high street fashion" - working class, target audience hasn't changed 
• "exciting again" - suggests it didn't used to be exciting 

IPC sells audiences to advertisers

SONIA LIVINGSTONE AND PETER HUNT

REGULATION

• IPSO (independent press standards organisation) is how magazines are regulated