How does the front cover of the set edition of Woman reflect the socio-historical context in which it was made?

The contents page of the "Womans" magazine creates many assumptions about the target audience for the magazine. This is because 

Betty Friedan (American feminist) said that advertisements portrayed women in a particular way: "Women are shown solely as: men's wife, mother, love object, dishwasher, cleaner and never as a person".

How does the magazine's contents page reflect:

• Codes and conventions of the sub-genre of magazine?
• Social and cultural context of the magazine?
• The target audience?

The contents page of the "Woman's" magazine creates many assumptions about the target audience for the magazine. This is because the contents page displays all of the articles that will be featured throughout the magazine. Most of the headings are very stereotypical of women at this time because they are things such as: beauty, cookery, fashion, home and knitting. This means that the magazine assumes that women would naturally enjoy and want to read about these things just because they are a woman. The magazine assumes that women have limited income so it talks about things such as low cost cooking.

This is a clear indication of the time this magazine was released because in the 1950s the culture of women because women were seen to enjoy things to do with home and they had to do things to please their husband. The fact that it talks about low cost food and 'making the most of bacon' suggest that the magazine is printed in a post war time with food shortages and rationing. It also suggests that women should be making things rather than buying them: knitting, sewing etc.

The sub-genre of the magazine is a woman's lifestyle magazine. We know this because from the articles that are featured in the contents page are what you expect to see in a woman's lifestyle magazine because it is talking about cooking, fashion and beauty. There is also imagery of women which associates the magazine with a women's magazines. Uses language to help you understand that it is a woman's lifestyle magazine.

Key theory 7 - David Gauntlet - theories of identity

Audiences are not passive, and media products allow the audience to construct their own identities.

By the way of example, what subcultures exist around

Genres of music

Certain genres of TV show (eg sci-fi)

Certain genres of video game (eg MMORPGs)

This theory is often called the pick and mix theory, where audiences can choose which ideologies suit them and ignore the elements of the product that they do not agree with.

1. What is the purpose of this article? Does the lexis of highlight 1 confirm or deny your expectations of the target demographic of woman?
2. What are the connotative aspects of the selection of the lexis 'present'?
3. Give a brief textual/semiotic analysis of the image in highlight 2. In what ways does this image conform to and/or subvert hegemonic expectations of women circa 1964?
4. Write out three sentences from highlight 3 and 4 that demonstrate the sociohistorical context in which this edition of Woman was released
5. Explore the image in Highlight 4. How is the woman dressed? What do the aspects of mise-en-scene connote?
6. How much were d's, S's and £'s worth in 1964? Use a currency converter and a little Googling to get your head round pre-decimal money
7. How can audiences reject certain ideologies yet still enjoy and take use from this article?

1. The purpose of the article is to try to appeal to the target audience by including assumed interests. The lexis used in highlight one confirms my expectations of the target demographic of "woman" because i would assume that the demographic for women do not have much disposable income and usually stay at home and cook. This is confirmed because it gives the reader a money saving guide and tells you how to improve your kitchen. Direct address for the reader with "your kitchen" and the title is in a clear sans serif font in capital letters to make it easy to read. It is selling the ideology that women should be thankful for the fact that they have a kitchen to develop.

2. The lexis with the word 'present' suggests that the article is a surprise for the audience and they perhaps do not deserve the gift of the article but they are being nice enough to give it to them. This would mean that the women reading the magazine would feel grateful that they were fortunate enough to read the magazine.

3. In some ways highlight 2 conforms to the hegemonic expectations of women in 1964 because the picture presents the woman cooking with a child. This conforms to the expectations of women because women were seen to have to do things like cooking all of the time and look after the children and the woman pictured is doing both. However, it also subverts to hegemonic expectations of women because you wouldn't expect a woman to take control and teach the child something new. It also subverts because she is teaching a boy instead of a girl. 

4.  "Ideal for a kitchen that's so narrow you bang your back bending down", "Ideal for storage",  "Get the man in your life to glue".

5.  The mise-en-scene with the clothes that the woman is wearing are quite practical for cleaning and cooking because there are no sleeves to get in the way. This suggests that women should be dressed for practical use rather than how they want to dress. 

6.

7. David Gauntlet's pick and mix theory says that audiences can choose which ideologies suit them and they can reject and completely ignore ideologies they do not agree with. This means that the audience for "Woman" magazine can read about things in the magazine that they enjoy and find useful and ignore the aspects of the magazine that they dislike. For example, when the article is stating how to put up a cupboard for your kitchen it says that you can get the man in your life o do some of the work. People who do not agree with this statement can just read past it and put up the cupboard themselves.