Applied theories Flashcards
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Regulation
Livingstone & Lunt
Media Industries
While the magazine industry is largely self-regulated (they are able to publish what they want within certain boundaries of accuracy and taste within a code which they produced) there are sometimes concerns regarding the issue of monopolies or oligopolies.
During the 1960s, when our set edition of Vogue was published, this role was performed by the Monopolies Commission, who ensured that there was fairness and one company did not dominate to much over others.
Power and media industries
Curran and Seaton
Industries
Major publishers like Conde Nast build power by merging with other rival publishing companies. This reduces competition, as power is concentrated in the hand of fewer companies.
This form of media concentration of ownership not only limits variety, creativity and quality, but also reduces choice for the audience. This may result in companies taking less risks with regards to new titles being published, while minimising costs and maximising financial profits.
Semiotics
Roland Barthes
Loren Cover
Main image – direct gaze/mode of address, but aloof (chin slightly raised, not smiling) – connotes star status, sense of mystery or mystique. Embodies the ‘mythic’ notion of femineity that is aspirational, potentially a sense of the ‘desired self’ that a reader wishes to become.
Turquoise colour palette connotes glamour, luxury, wealth, emphasised by the shimmering scarf, feathers, pearls and jewels. Links to the green masthead. Make-up clearly emphasis Loren’s dark brown eyes, stereotypical of female beauty.
It is a ‘glossy’ high quality magazine printed on high quality audience. In 1965 it costed 3 shillings (the equivalent in todays money is £6.33) meaning it was out of budget for many women.
Identity
David Gauntlett
Loren Cover
Vogue is offering straightforward messages about the ideal female type fashion-conscious, aspirational. Sophia Loren, the models in the fashion shoots and to some extent the women featured in the adverts, could be seen as acting as role models for the audience, while the female journalists highlighted on the Contents page and the money article might offer an alternative path in career and aspirational contexts. The type of products we consume help us form our identity.
Cultivation
George Gerbner
Loren Cover
Repeated exposure to glamourous models and luxury beauty products may cultivate the idea that women should always look glamourous (possibly to abide by the male gaze). Repetitive adverts for luxury products persuade the aspirational reader to purchase these to achieve the luxurious lifestyle aim to live, using the models as an icon.
Reception
Stuart Hall
Loren Cover
Preferred reading – attracted by the glamour of Loren on the cover, articles on art, food and exotic travel, adverts for appealing products.
Negotiated reading – women who might aspire to this life, but are aware of their own limitations due to location, finance and social status.
Oppositional reading – women might reject the message of aspiration as it is beyond their financial and social means, put off by the cost of the magazine, and may see the women being used as commodities, in a way of selling expensive material goods.
(perhaps reflecting the social changes of culture and the start of feminism in the mid-1960s)
Representation
Stuart Hall
Imperial leather
Imperial Leather advert idealising the image of a woman in the home as a motherly nurturing figure. Stereotypical notions of female beauty- blonde and slender. Repeated use of ‘soft’ and ‘gently’, ‘safely’ reinforces stereotypes of women as weaker/dependent.
Feminism
Van Zoonen and Bell Hooks
Imperial Leather
The underlying frame of reference is that women belong to family and domestic life and that femininity is about care, nurturance and compassion- Vogue supports this through the codes and conventions portrayed in adverts such as Imperial Leather.
Given the social and historical contexts of Vogue, we can understand why these representations have been constructed in such a stereotypical. POC should develop an opposite gaze due to lack of representation of women of colour
The ideal woman
Jennifer Holt
Imperial leather
Magazines did not passively participate in enforcing gender roles, but were in fact an active force behind the creation of the feminine monster. The manufacturing sector had decided to make women better consumers of home products by reinforcing and rewarding the concept of womens total fulfilment through the role of housewife and mother.
Womens magazines spread a very uniform picture of women as household-family orientated consumers.
Uses and Gratifications
Bumler & Katz
Imperial leather
The reader may use the magazine for a variety of purposes and needs. These may include; Surveillance for an understanding of the worlds fashion, money and travel; identity in allowing the reader to aspire to be like the cover star or featured models, Relationship through purchasing a copy every month to keep up with the lifestyle choice; and Entertainment for the pleasure of reading a quality publication featuring the lives of the glamourous.
Representation
Judith Butler.
Imperial leather
theory can be easily applicable to Vogue through the codes and conventions portrayed in adverts such as Imperial Leather. The underlying frame of references the arguable ‘restrictive’ and stereotypical view that women belong to family and domestic life and that femininity is about care, nurturance and compassion.
Second Wave feminism may have threatened Vogue, the rise of woman independence contradicted the very stereotypical representations of femineity found within the magazine, they potentially would have wanted to keep on enforcing this traditional idea of feminity in order to remain successful.
