Magazines Industry

 “Representations are a fundamental tool to allow producers to successfully target audiences”. To what extent do you agree with this statement? Make reference to Woman and Adbusters to support your answer (30)

Knee Jerk Reaction:

Representations are absolutely essential for both of the magazines to target their audiences, they do this is in very different ways. Woman magazine is a simple, straightforward, sexist and stereotypical, while Adbusters is atypical, challenging and not for profit. 

Woman:

• Front Cover
• A present for your kitchen
• Alfred Hitchcock

Adbusters:

• Front cover
• Loubtions
• Water double page spread

Plan:

• Patriarchal hegemony - The expectations reinforced on women by men in society
• Stereotypes
• Reception theory
• Anticapitalistic
• Semiotics (codes)
• Anchorage 
• David Gauntlet - Identity (pick and mix)
• Activist
• Complicated ideology
• Van Zoonen (the male gaze)
• Airbrushing
• Extremist ideologies promoting an activist lifestyle
• Gender performativity

Paragraphs:

How does the creme puff advert use representations to target its simple, mass audience?

Woman magazine often resorts to using simple gender binaries to effectively target its mass audience. An excellent example of this can be found in the Crème Puff advert. The advert explicitly constructs the ideology that women must look hegemonically good in order to sexually attract men. The MES of the product itself is presented as a main image, which anchors the hegemonic attractiveness of the female model. A clear binary opposition is constructed between the model’s outfits. White has symbolic connotations of innocence while black has connotations of attractions and professionalism. This  reinforces the ideology of traditional gender roles, and cultivates a very clear ideology and aspirational mode of address for the target middle aged female audience. This advert makes it absolutely explicit that to wear makeup is to attract heterosexual men, which reinforces patriarchal hegemony. These simple and sexist representations target the audience through an aspirational mode of address. Yet beyond simply targeting audiences, it can be argued that woman magazine functions as a tool of female oppression, and helps to cultivate a patriarchal hegemony and construct a society where any kind of female revolution is suppressed. 

Curran and Seaton argue that media industries are generally controlled by a small number of powerful companies whose main purpose is to create a profit. Evaluate this theory of power and media industries. Refer to Woman and Adbusters in your response. [30]

The media industries are controlled by powerful companies to a high extent, but some industries are independently owned and not for profit.

PLAN:

Vertical integration- Where a media organisation owns other organisations at different stages of production and distribution

Horizontal integration - Where a media organisation owns another media organisation at the same stage of production and distribution. Reach PLC.

Multimedia integration: Integration involving digital technologies. Integration involving digital technology

Monopoly - One company owning the entirety of the media industry

Power and profit: (Power is the ability to influence media industries)

Stereotypically representation

Cover price:

Advertising revenue: (30%)

Minimising risk

Conglomeration (Where one company buys out another company)

Diversification Where a company branches out in to a sector they do not specialise in)

Anti capitalism

Hegemony (the norms and typical expectations in society that we consent to )

Mass vs Niche audience

Digital convergence (the coming together of previously separate industries thanks to digital media)

Woman

Produced by IPC, a both horizontally and vertically integrated company

Vertical - IPC also owns the means of production, including a significant amount of printing presses, a clear example of power

Horizontal - specialise in magazine production, including other women's magazines such as Woman's Realm

IPC acquired a number of magazines such as Woman's Realm to buy out the competition, minimise risk and maximise profit.

Target demographic of 30-50 year old working class, British white female housewives

12 million woman's weekly magazine sold in the UK in the 1960s

Mass media

A straightforward and stereotypical representation of women

1/3 of a magazines revenue comes from advertising - typically

Weekly circulation of 3 million copies circa 1960s (50x more than Adbusters modern worldwide circulation)

Cover price circa 1964 + 7d (80p in modern money)

Cultivates a hegemonica capitalis and stereotypical ideology surrounding women to reinforce hegemonic norms and to minimise risk  

Complete lack of diversity or reference to 2nd wave feminism to minimise risk 

Adbusters:

Adbusters cover price varies from issue t issue, through the most recent RRP is £10.99.

Adbusters has no advert, which explains the high cover price.

Adbusters is not for profit

A niche and ill defined target audience

2022 circulation is 60,000 worldwide

Anti consumerist ideology

Anti-consumerist ideology

First published in 1989

Canadian magazine though internationally distributed 

Orinially a subversive newsletter than became a magazine in 1992

A bimonthly release frequency is typical of independent magazines

Total lack of brand identity with a different masthead for every edition