Attitude Online - Theories (Hall & Gilroy)

Misogyny - The hatred of women.

Stereotypes and Inequality in Attitude - Stuart Hall

• Stuart Hall suggests that the media and the power of media representations play an important role in defining the ideological thinking of audiences regarding specific groups.

• Hall's argument that stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits Hall's argument that stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power as subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as different or 'other'.

• Hall's work focuses on the use of stereotypes by the media - arguing that stereotypes work by reducing characters to simplistic physical characteristics and behaviour traits. Hall argues that stereotypes reflect the amount of power that social groups have within society, and that negative stereotypes reflect, in Hall's view, social inequalities or the wider views of society. In other words, the construction of specific groups as 'outsiders' or 'others' by media products mirror their social exclusion from wider society.

Theories around ethnicity and post-colonial theory - Paul Gilroy

• Post-colonialism is the study of the impact that being under direct rule has had on former colonies. For example, despite being a tiny island, Britain colonised and declared ownership of many countries, including India and Australia.

• These ideas and attitudes continue to shape contemporary attitudes to race and ethnicity in the postcolonial era.

• These postcolonial attitudes have constructed racial hierarchies in our society, where, for example, white people are by and large given more positive and important roles than BME people.

• Media producers are also guilty of using binary oppositions to reinforce BME people and characters as 'others'.

Attitude provides a very stereotypical representation of gay men - six packs, stereotypically attractive males.

There are different gay communities other than attitude - the other stereotype of gay guys are referred to as looking young and being 'twigs'. Also another representation of gay males is 'bears' where they are fat hairy men etc.

Magazine 1 - Lesson 4

Lesson Starter - Questions on Woman Magazine

• What messages about female identity are encoded in woman magazine?
• Women need to wear make-up otherwise they will not be considered beautiful.
• Women must rely on men for certain things in their life.
• They belong in the kitchen, need to bring up children - article on kitchens.
• What impact could this have on the target audience?
• Target audience is female, heterosexual and 25-45 years old
• It cultivates the idea of women having to wear makeup.
• It cultivates the idea that women are supposed to be housewives.
• What functions might woman's magazine serve?
• Brings together the female community to construct a target audience.
• What potential advantages are there for reinforcing hegemonic notions of gender in a primarily reader base?
• Reflects the society of which this magazine was released into.
• Its a lot better to keep telling women that they are crap.

Key Theory - Feminist Theory - bell hooks

• Feminism is a struggle to end patriarchal hegemony and the domination of women.
• Feminism is not a lifestyle choice: it is a political commitment.
• Race, class and gender all determine the extent to which individuals are exploited and oppressed.
• Her latest book is called 'Feminism is for everyone' this quote sums up her and her theory.

Advertising from the 1960's

• Female Stereotypes
• Women are useless as she ruined the dinner.
• Women are emotional as she's holding the male's tissue and crying.
• She's failed as being a women as she burnt the dinner and she needs the male to make it better and to consolidate her.
• The male prefers the beer to the women, objectifying the women.
• Men are the beer drinkers and women are not.
• Women are in the kitchen - cultivation theory (Gerbner)
• Nurturing/maternal
• Dependant on man
• Filling a housewife and domestic role
• Romantic element

Advertising in Magazines

• Magazines generate revenue primarily through sales of copies (print and digital) and through advertising.
• Advertising accounts for approximately one third of total revenues across the industry. It is, therefore, vitally important that the magazine and advertising content target the same audience in order that the advertising brands benefit from increased sales as a result of advertising in the magazine.
• Andrew Green identifies the ways in which magazine advertising can benefit the advertisers in an article entitled 'ESSENTIALS: The Power of Magazine Advertising':
• High audience engagement.
• Less distraction likely from other activities.
• The 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.

Representation - Advertising in Woman

• Main attraction is to the naked women, the font is extremely small so the first thing the audience will see is the naked woman, and they will then go on to read the advert to see what it is about.

• Because the women is heavily sexualised in this advert men will find her attractive and also women will want to be like her to be appealing to men so they're stuck with the ideologies that this soap will make the women look sexualised and appealing to males so they will buy it.

• Stereotypes is that women are thought to be sexy and that this soap will make them look even sexier.

• She looks like she's supposed to be sat in the bath but she's not actually in the bath as if she was then we wouldn't see her legs and her hair is all done up and her makeup is all done.

• The logo is also bigger than the text but smaller than the image so if either the primary or secondary audience decide to flip the page after seeing the naked women their attention will also go on the logo so when they see this soap they will always see the advert of the naked women and it will become memorable.

• The soap states to make you more attractive, more femininity and to be fresh, so it also has connotations of freshening your life so you dont have to worry about anything as this soap will make all your worries go away and will make your life sweet, kind and fresh again.

• The woman is being sexualised in this position as we can still see her cleavage and her legs, so it is an exceptionally racy advert for 1960's.

• Her body language is also extremely shy as her body is closed and makes her seem quite gentle although she is completely sexualised, and her body is saying that she's sexually unattainable, and makes her look as if she's empowering women as she's closing her body off away from men, which adds to the context as this happened when women started going to uni, so its a step in the right direction showing that they've changed how they used to be as this advert came out in mid 1960's.

• A preferred reading could be that women can smell, as she is now working and getting independence so it shows that women can get dirty and smelly too, so it breaks the conventions that women dont work and women are always clean and tidy, it shows that they need to maintain themselves no differently to how males need to.

• There is a binary opposition between clean and destruction.

• An oppositional response could be that through the choice of lexis and the use of 'darling' makes us feel quite flattered, whereas recently if someone said it there are assumptions that its creepy and condescending.

• The word 'freshness' comes back to the ideas of kitchens and women having to belong in the kitchen so if the women is fresh then so is her kitchen.

Key Theory - Stuart Hall - Theories of Representation

Key Theory - Stuart Hall - Theories of Representation

Representation - The way in which a media product (eg. the producer of the media product) constructs the world and aspects in it, including social groups, individuals, issues and events.

Lindt Lindor - 'Do you dream in chocolate?' 

• Sound - Women's Voice - Well spoken middle class women, connotations of luxurious and classy, so makes us think that the chocolate is high end and classy and will taste like luxury as this middle class women is talking about it in a very calmly way. The chocolate is represented as a luxury. 

•  Shot Types - close up of melted chocolate, the connotations of this is that it makes the audience want it and emphasises the smooth texture which makes us think its pure, clean and luxurious. 

• Shot Types - close up of women's face represents the sexualised nature of the video, and she is also in bed, which makes it more sexualised so then the representation of this is that its a luxurious item and replacing this man figure with chocolate, as chocolate can fill their needs. 

• Shot Types - Transitions in editing, rather than a hard cut, there is some kind of movement, this represents the chocolate as soft flowing and reflects the smoothness of the chocolate compared to the editing, it also adds to the sexual nature aswell and also adds to the calming vibes of the chocolate. 

• We've got a representation of chocolate, as its saying if we have this chocolate then we can lounge around on these cream chairs and lay in bed and be in this luxurious state that everyone else is in. 

Superbowl Commercial Break 2015 

• Disabled people are being represented, they are being represented in a positive way saying how you cannot stop them and that they are trying their best to do what they could normally do. 

• In the first advert we had a very clear representation of America, through the hard and empowering music and the big american truck, portraying america as empowering and hard. 

• The american revolution was portrayed and its a cultural code so us as British people do not understand it, the assumption in this is that you should know the American history, and the American viewers would be expected to know so it shows that they know their history.

• A women reckless driver is funny as it goes against a stereotype of women being caring mothers and worrying about their children with strangers, while this women is telling a little boy to get in her car. 

Stereotypes

Definition - A commonly held belief about a certain group of people. 

Richard Dyer - The Role of Stereotypes

• An ordering process
• A short cut (for producers)
• A reference point (for audiences)
• An expression of dominant societal values.