C2- Magazine: Vogue Flashcards
Context
-British Vogue is the UK edition of American-based magazine Vogue, and was founded as the first international spinoff in 1916.
-Vogue is owned by Conde Nast, and is part of their global collection of VOGUE media.
-Conde Nast is a global mass media company founded in 1909. The company’s media brands attract 72m+ consumers in print, 394m+ in digital and 454m+ across social media platforms. These include Vogue, The New Yorker, Condé Nast Traveler, GQ, Glamour, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Pitchfork and Wired among many others.
-Anna Wintour serves as US Vogue’s editor-in-chief and Conde Nast’s Global Chief Content Officer.
-It is said to interlink society and class through it’s editorials
-Vogue continued successfully throughout the beginning of the 20th century, providing audiences with an idealised, aspirational lifestyle.
-Vogue did very well during both wartime eras partly to do with its audience and its ‘dream-like’ brand, providing escapism from the harsh realities of what was happening in the world.
-In the post-war period, Vogue continued to perform good financially, as many women were enjoying the consumerism and emphasis on “treating yourself” with the influx of luxury due to the growing economy in the 1940s and 50s. That popularity has continued even as magazines as a whole are declining in sales due to technologial developments.
Media language- Technical codes
-The layout is used on the set edition front cover to show the classiness of the magazine. It focuses on the main image and there aren’t any distracting coverlines
-The camera shot of the image on the front cover is a medium shot, which is highly typical of a magazine, which could show Vogue’s professionalism but also them fitting in with the status quo in that respect, as they may challenge it in others.
-The lighting is key high key, which again is typical of a magazine front cover image, but it also has been done to show off her hair, makeup, and jewellery, as the magazine’s aim is to influence it’s readers into buying the same, or similar lower-priced, products as a way of controlling society.
Media language- Visual codes
-The setting is a minimalistic backdrop, which is quite typical of magazine front covers, although quite a lot also use different settings and scenarios for their background. This would’ve been done to accentuate her outfit and show off the jewellery, again typical fo fashion magazines.
-The iconography already of the Vogue masthead shows a level of quality, class, and elegance, attracting readers to it’s magazine as a ‘quality’ one, meaning they are happy to pay the price tag.
-The expression of Sophia Loren on the front cover is quite neutral, but there seems to be a hint of a lignering smirk, which could show her playfulness, despite being in character for the shoot, as well as it being a similar expression to Vogue’s other cover stars, forming a house style.
-The colour emplokyed on the front page, greens, blues, show a sense of exotic-ness, which lend into Sophia Loren’s character and the movie she is promoting. Also, it reinforces Alvadoro’s theory on key themes of racism with the ‘exotic’ aspect, that the producers have constructed Loren into this sense of ‘otherness’ through making her seem exotic, which can be used by producers positively and negatively.
-The costume of Sophia Loren on the front cover is a very similar point to that one above. It is done to advertise the film as Loren completes the photo shoot in character, but it also constructs her as ‘exotic’, which does so be relying on the reinforcements of racial stereotypes.
-The composition of the magazine front cover is that it is built around the photo of Sophia Loren. The rest of the magazine is constructed into segements, divided by adverts, which reflect how advertising is a key factor of how Vogue and other magazines generate their revenue.
-Images are used in the magazine as a way of constructing a viewpoint, and giving audiences a glimpse into the prodcut their advertising, the life of someone their interviewing, a snippet of the place/setting of an article, etc.
Media language- Lingustic codes
-Hyperbolic language is used to create enigma codes on the front cover to entice viewers and make then want to buy and read the magazine.
Media language- structure
Masthead- used for branding, and recognition. This can be shown in different colours/partially hidden, but this doesn’t matter due to it being known.
Strapline- Conveys a sense of the magazine’s identity and ethos
USP- Tries to demonstrate to the audience why they should be buying the magazine.
Main image- It is a key signifier of the magazine and it’s brand identity. It can reveal to you the genre and target audeince of the magazine.
Main coverline- acts as anchorage text for the main image
Coverlines- Are short descriptions of the magazine’s content used to entice readers to pick it up and buy it. The amount used can provide a lot of information.
Representation of Sophia Loren
-A very famous actress in the 60s.
-The front cover is a close-up shot of her that makes herm seem, important, powerful, exotic and like a role model.
-The exotic nature of her image could show her being represented as “other”.
Representation of Sheila Black (Finance)
-Featuring a working female expert on finance would’ve been quite unusual in the 1960s. Sheila Black work for the Financial Times.
-She talks about women being financially independent and wanting to invest money- this is very unusual for its time as women didn’t have that much power over finance. This started an influx of second-wave feminism. An article about a women making investments and having financial power challenges the historical context when women were often financially controlled by their husbands.
-The choice to represent women as having financial power might reflect the class and wealth of the typical Vogue reader (normally seen in the ABC1 category). The inclusion of an article that gives base definitions of financial terms might suggest that women don’t understand economic and investments, this may represent the new changes in the 60s of women gaining a little independence from their husbands and fathers, but not completely- the article copy suggests that women still are reliant on their husbands in many ways an unable to keep finances secret.
Representation- general
-The other pages offer fairly conventional representations of women for the 1960s, often showing them as domestic or sexualised.
Representation- the ‘Cutex’ advert
-denotes a women with bare shoulders, suggesting nudity, “bare essentials”, “barely decent”.
-The shade names also share this connotation, suggesting that showing flesh and being sexualised is important for women.
-The rhetorical question “Are you woman enough to wear them?” suggests that femininity is linked to nakedness and sexual appeal, which is reflective of the way women were, and are often still represented.
Representation-‘Revlon’ advert
-The ‘Revlon’ has similar representation of that of the ‘cutex’ ad, in that it is encouraging women to be sexualised.
-It calls women “alluring” and “beguiling” which creates an idea that a woman’s role is to attract others visually.
Representation- ‘Imperial Leather’ advert
-The image on this advert clearly reflects the stereotype that women are maternal and domestic.
-Her body language and facial expression show her as an emotional, caring and loving individual.
-Because the advert is talking about soap, and the softness of your skin, it represents women as needing to be soft and gentle, which may mean delicate or weak, or to fulfill their women of being the desire of men.
Representation- Historical
-The picnic articles and fashion pages displays women holding children, nurturing them, presenting them as passive, not doing anything, and just lounging around. Whilst it can seem quite romantic, it also presents women not taking any action.
-The passivity of women in many articles fails to reflect the growing power of some women in the 60s, such as feminists, fuelled by second-wave feminism. This may be because feminism was still considered a new and alternative ideas whereas Vogue was aimed at a mainstream market. May also reflect the fact that richer woman were under less financial pressure to go out and work, so many of them did lead lives more centered around leisure and family life.
-The use of images of young women as mothers reflects the historical context as women in the 60s were typically expected to marry young and start families. Modern women’s magazines aimed at those age 20-35 often choose not to feature content about children, as many women now are able to have careers first, and have children in their 30s or later.
Representation- Class
-There’s quite complex language going on because the magazine is targeted toward middle-to-upper classes with an assumed advanced lexis.
-The costume, specifically the one on the picnic spread, is very formal. In the article’s copy, they talk about lords and ladies, famous artworks, etc., representing upper-class “cultured” women. These upper class people are featured as a utopia, idealised and being aspirational role models.
-This may reflect the fact that readers of Vogue tend to be from the middle/upper classes, or aspire to this.
Representation- Ethnicity
-White models are often pictured in jewels and expensive clothes, representing them as high status.
-White ethnic appearance is normalised, with darker ethnicities being underrepresented in the range of “nude toned” ‘Cutex products- the colour ranges of lipstick and other makeup in the magazine is clearly representing lighter skin tones and not darker tones. The lack of minority models, and makeup aimed at darker skinned readers, reflects the less inclusive nature of Britain in the 60s.
-There are representations for black Egyptian men in the fashion pages but their positions show them as marginalised; they’re in the background of the shots, out of focus, and are seen as working and doing deals, whereas the white women are dancing and enjoying lesiure time, this idea that the black men are poorer.
-This marginalisation of ethnic minorities creates a post colonialist view of ethnicity, with them being seen as “staff”, or less important than the white models. The white man’s suit, tie, watch and writing suggest wealth, status and a Westernised view of “professionalism”.
Media Industries
-There are numerous international editions of Vogue which represents it’s global success
-Many companies avoid taking risks as it could result in less revenue, however, Conde Nast does take risks that make Vogue, as well as their other publications, stand out. Examples include being one of the first magazines to use colour photographs in the 1930s, as well as being one of the first magazines to use black women as models for their front covers. This creates the idea that they are cutting edge, something they have worked into their house style.
-Another house style feature of Vogue is it’s focus on big names,for example, artists have created front covers and guest editied, and celebrities such as Renee Zellweger and SZA have covered recent editions.
-However, Vogue is also synonymous with discovering and nurturing fresh talent from all aspects of the arts, such as writers to designers.
-Vogue and Conde Nast also monopolise on their brand, having events, and pop-ups, as well as online merchandising to support their brand and displaying it as a lifestyle.
-Another feature of Vogue is that individual staff members are essential to their success, as being represented as the pinnacle of fashion knowledge, most notably is Anna Wintour.
-Advertising is essential to the Vogue brand, as whilst in other publications it can be seen as off-putting, in Vogue it is them expressing their thoughts on what are the ‘it’ products at the moment. It also generates them a significant amount of money, as lots of companies want their products published in Vogue.
-Vogue has now moved into a lot of digital media- there’s a digital version of the magazine. They have a strong social media presence, recognising many people are online now. Conde Nast admitted that they think they will be using a lot more modern technology in Vogue in order to target audiences.
Audiences
-The content of a magazine is determined mainly by the target audience of the magazine and it’s editorial philosophy.
-Vogue is aimed at mainly women, young adult and middle aged. It also is aimed at a ABC1 audience, as there is a sense of elitism and upper class society reinforced in some areas of the magazine (luxury holidays, etc.). However, it could be argued that it also targets a C2 audience as the magazine can be percieved as aspiring. There are also questions to be raised about ethnicity and Vogue, as it could be argued that they have underrepresented black people historically, with this only changing more recently.
