tide

Question 1

product context

Answer 1

• The post WW2 consumer boom of the 50s included the development of new home technology e.g., vacuum cleaners.
• All these products were desirable for 1950s consumer

Question 2

Codes and conventions

Answer 2

• Bright, primary colours connote positive associations that producers want audience to make
• Headings/subheadings/slogan written in sans-serif font, informal mode of address
• “ Reinforced in informal language used by 2 women in bottom corner talking “sudsing whizz”
• Technical details in serif font connoting serious or factual info, “1,2,3” bullet point list
• Hyperbole and superlatives “world’s cleanest wash”, connotes that it is superior to competitors
• “whiter… than any soap or washing product known” connotes that other, inferior products do not offer what Tide does.

Question 3

Social and political contexts:

Answer 3

• Intertexts to consider would be WWII adverts for the ‘Rosie The Riveter – We Can Do It!’.
• The representations in these adverts challenge stereotypical views of women being confined to the domestic sphere, something society needed at the time as traditional ‘male roles’ were vacated as men left to fight.

Question 4

How reps are constructed through selection and combination:

Answer 4

• The dress code of the advert’s main female character include a stereotypical 1950s hairstyle incorporating waves, curls and rolls
• The fashion for women having shorter hair was practical as it was safer for when women were working with machinery during war
• The headband worn also was for practicality purposes and connotes that she’s focus on work and could be binary opposed to full face of makeup

Question 5

theory
hall, gauntlett, hooks, gilroy

Answer 5

• Image of women hanging laundry forms part of “shared conceptual road map” that gives meaning to the world of the advert (hall rep theory)
• The scenario represented is familiar to the audience as a representation of their own lives.
• Women may be portrayed as role models of domestic perfection which the audience may identify as (gauntlet identity theory)
• White modern women may be shown as they are considered more desirable and of better fitting in western beauty ideologies (bell hooks)
• Opposes that media contributes to social change with non-traditional roles (van zoonen)
• Media texts reinforce colonial power (Gilroy)

Question 6

social context (audiences)

Answer 6

• Despite women having seen their roles in society change during the War domestic products of the 1950s continued to be aimed at female audiences.
• Target audience of affluent lower-middle class women were, were being appealed due to their supposed need for innovative domestic technologies and products.

Question 7

How industries target audiences:

Answer 7

• The likely audience demographic may personally identify, young newly married women with families, clothes belong to men and children on washing line (uses and grats)
• The preferred reading is reassured by tide as it provides solutions to their domestic chores needs, “truly safe” (hall)

Question 8

theory
cultivation, gerbner

Answer 8

• Advert aims to cultivate ideas that: it is desirable, a brand leader, and nothing else washes to its standard
• Gerbner’s theory would argue that the repetition of these key messages causes audiences to increasingly align their own ideologies with them