Key Assessment One

Component one - Media products, industries and audiences

Section A - Analysing media language and representation

Briefly define the following terms: [6]

Ideology: Ideology is the beliefs behind a media text. It is the thoughts that the media producer is trying to convey through the media product.

Intertextuality: These are textual references to another media product from within a media product.

Positioning: All media texts have messages encoded by the media producer and it is down to the audience to decode these messages. Most audiences will decode the messages differently and as a result take different readings from the product.

Lexis: The language that the media product/text uses.

Diametric opposition: Two groups that are radically different and come into some form of conflict.

Paradigmatic feature: They are signs, signified and signifiers and they are essentially the meaning behind a media text.

Which two theoretical perspectives have we studied that can be 'credited' to Stuart Hall? [2]

The two theories developed by Stuart Hall are the theory of presentation and the theory of reception.

Media language

Choose two of the following advertisements: Tide print advert, Wateraid audiovisual spot advert, Kiss of the Vampire theatrical poster.
How do codes and conventions create meanings in these adverts? Please make reference to the key terms you defined in 'short answer questions [30]

Tide Print Advert:

Codes and conventions create meaning in the tide advert because the lexis that is used throughout is very centred towards the target audience. This is evident because the primary audience is clearly women/housewives from around the time of the 1950s. The lexis appeals to this group of people because it has tag lines such as "Tide's got what women want!" and "No wonder you women buy more Tide than any other washday product. This is effective because it uses direct address to make the audience feel as if they are being spoken to directly from the advert. This is a good way of advertising because it builds a stronger connection between the audience and the product. "No wonder women buy more Tide than any other washday product" could be a hermeneutic code because the audience would question why other women think it is so good and they would want to find out for themselves if it is as good as everybody says. A relationship between the audience and the product is also formed because the advert has a main image of a woman hugging a box of Tide. This builds a relationship because it makes it seem more personal as the woman is performing an affectionate gesture towards the product which is a sign that the product is good. What is also evident is the fact that people do not regularly hug cleaning products which helps to single out Tide as being an exceptional product that isn't like the rest. This means that the image of her hugging the product is a symbolic code because what it is symbolising is that if you are a mother/housewife then you will end up getting really attached to Tide as a brand because it is so good. Furthermore, the ideology behind the advert is that they want to appeal to the primary audience which is women and housewives and also the secondary audience which could be the children of the mothers because they are the people who also benefit from the washing product and they may often end up going shopping with their mother. The secondary audience is addressed and appealed to because there is a comic strip at the bottom of the advert which adds fun and excitement to the product. It also allows it to become less serious and as a result, more appealing. The font that is used throughout the product is also appealing to the target audience because is is always in a sans serif font which means that it is less formal. This appeals to the secondary audience of children because it again makes the advert seem more fun. Richard Dyer's theory of stereotypes could also be applied here because obviously women at this times would not have been seen as the money earners and it was a generalisation that all women would to the washing and cleaning. The avert exploits this stereotype by including lots of images and tag lines that would appeal to women, therefore, making them more likely to purchase Tide. Dominant ideology is also clear in this advert. This is because when the advert was made (the 1950s) the dominant ideology was that women would to all of the washing and care for the men of the house and because this was a commonly held belief it meant that the advert could get away with addressing women like this.

Wateraid Audiovisual Advert:

First of all the Wateraid advert is a charity advert which means that they are trying to raise money for the cause of children in desperate counties in Africa so they can afford to put a water pump in their area. This is important because the advert is not trying to get money for their own personal gain. 

Although the advert is generally much more uplifting than most other charity advertisements the beginning of the advert is a view from a stereotypical British kitchen window. It is identifiable as British because there is a woman speaking on the radio with a British advert, it is raining and most people in England could probably relate to the kitchen featured. The reason why this is effective is because the view from the kitchen window features a tap with running water to show how we freely waste water in England when people barely have enough to survive in Africa. This means that the advert has a strong use of Levis-Strauss' theory of binary oppositions between the relatively easy lifestyle that most people watching the advert would lead and the tough life that people like Claudia (the woman featured in the advert) leads. These binary oppositions are further accentuated because the clip featuring a British kitchen has a darker filter overlaid over it and the scenes shot in an african village has quite golden lighting. This could also be used to show that although life in England is easier we are much less happy than the people living in Africa. The fact that Claudia is singing a happy song and the lighting is very golden whilst she is struggling to get water and passing young children who are working hard, doing jobs such as farming could show that the advert is trying to make light out of a bad situation and it is showing what our donations can do to the people in the advert. This is because at the end of the advert the people living and working in the village are shown to be really happy and playing in the water that they have been giving. This idea of showing the results of the donations is very effective as most advert s do not give you an idea of what happens after you send them your money which makes the advert unique and stand out more. The advert itself doesn't give us much of a background about Claudia's life but because of Richard Dyer's theory of stereotypes we already have a perception of what Claudia is like because we have been given lots of information from the media about African people which lead us to believe the generalisation that most people in Africa are poor and can not afford much. This means that we feel as if we already know about Claudia from the first shot we see of her which helps us to build a relationship with her. The fact that it is a charity advert means that the ideology of the advert is to gain as many donations from the people watching the advert as possible which means that the target audience of the advert is anyone who can afford to give away money. Some symbolic codes may have been used when the children are farming and working because it symbolises the fact that their parents may not have been able to work so young kids are stepping up to be the head of the family. This shocks the audience because you wouldn't generally expect a child to be looking after their family.

Representation

Explore how ideology is conveyed through the representation in this film poster [15]

I would say that the ideology of the film poster is that it is trying to go against the stereotype that women are weaker than men. I would say that this ideology is conveyed by showing a main image of five different women and no men. Some of them are also shown to be carrying some form of weapon to show their strength. I think that this ideology is also conveyed by the use of Stuart Hall's theory of Presentation. This is because his theory is about the presentation of different groups of people and the group of people, women, are presented as much more powerful and stronger than they usually are in the media. They go against the stereotypes because none of the women pictured would appeal to the male gaze because they are not wearing revealing clothes. David Gauntlet's theory of identity can also be applied here because the advert is going against the traditional rules of women being weaker than males. The tag line below the main image that reads "One way in. No way out." in a sans serif font is used to convey the ideology of the advert because the sans serif font means that the text is quite blocky and easy to read and the tag line gives us an insight into what the film may be about but it is also a hermeneutic code because it doesn't give us too much information about it so we have to actually watch the film to find out about it. Steve Neales theory of genre is also presented in the advert because we can clearly see that the genre is some what sci-fi because of the background looking like it is underwater and you can just make out faces in the coral. There are also genre paradigms because another genre of the film would be action because of the weapons that we can see on the women holding. The genre of the film helps to convey the ideology because the audience of sci-fi and action films is largely male and because the main characters are female is shows that they are trying to break through the stereotype and get more women interested into these types of films.