Research & Contextual Analysis

Researching my chosen topic:

I am creating a magazine, most probably a print magazine, about the evolution of women's representation in the media throughout the decades 1960-present. I think the main reason why I chose to start from '60's was because that was when advertising started to steer away from war propaganda and started to advertise generally. It was the first time women were used in advertisement in a way that was still negative but wasn't about their role in war but there role/position in society. I am going to do my magazine about print adverts and campaigns. As in, ads and campaigns that were released in magazines, newspapers, billboards or later on, on social media or websites. I have chosen this topic as I am very passionate about it and I think it is something we need to discuss more. Throughout time, women have been misinterpreted and wrongly represented in the media. When asked, women in the media industry are appreciative of the progress made so far but still feel there is a long way to go. A writer for www.marketingweek.com said 'There’s a genuine desire to move with the times. But there’s still a long way to go. We need to stop featuring women as peripheral characters.' 

What are the differences between print and digital media?

Both types of media have their advantages and disadvantages. 

Print media is the more traditional layout for media. Some advantages would be that you have it in a physical form and there is a standard format that companies can follow to ensure consumers will buy into their brand. Another advantage would be that print media, such as magazines, have a subscription scheme and people buy into that monthly physical delivery more than they do to online subscriptions. Print media is an easy medium to spread awareness or advertise to any particular geographical area. Like, a local newspaper is the best way to spread the news about any local event of the place. However, print media has it's disadvantages. For example, even though print media has a standard format that could be easy to follow, print publishers do not always break the rules so print can become very repetitive. Another disadvantage would be the waste of material and the expenses spent on printing. 

Digital media's advantages would be that you essentially have unlimited space as you don't have to worry about the cost of printing several pages in colour ink, essentially meaning you can be a lot more creative and push the boundaries a lot more with digital media. Another advantage would be the use of sound and video to add to the consumers experience. Another advantage would be that digital media is modern and up to date and would reach more audiences globally and would be easier to carry over to other countries. Some disadvantages would that digital media can not be taken seriously and would be hard to make money from a people don't feel the need to pay a monthly subscription when they don't receive a physical reward. Another disadvantage would be it is very hard to control advertising on digital media, whereas, in print media, you know exactly which advertiser you sold space to. 

Vertical and Horizontal Integration:

Vertical Integration:

Vertical integration is when the production company has the ownership of the means of production, distribution and exhibition of the media product by the same company, because of this they receive all of the profit.

Horizontal Integration:

This is where a production company expands into other areas of one industry. This means that the company can develop in a particular area of production or they can buy out another company that deals with these areas. 

Research on timelines:

The definition of a timeline is 'a graphical representation of a period of time, on which important events are marked.' I chose two timelines about women's rights. There weren't actually any timelines about my chosen topic but these were the two closest. It was helpful researching timelines as they discuss a gradual progress in something. In the case of the two timelines above, the show the progress made in women's rights over the years. Overall, I think researching timelines in general was more helpful for my project than these specific timelines were. 

Researching advertisement in each decade:

1960’s:

The 1960’s was a very weird time in advertisement. War propaganda had started to come to an end and ads started to steer away from that. However, the feminist stance that was taken in war ads was forgotten and sexist ads were back in publication.  Adverts in the 60’s that featured women would completely and conveniently forget that women built war craft and bombs a few years prior to the ads release, and would just highlight a stereotypical women’s weak nature and inability to complete simple day to day tasks. Women were seen as weak and inferior in almost every ad. In some ads, they showed that women could be tamed by brute force and treated in an animalistic nature. Advertisement in the ‘60’s was a strange thing to witness. Ads took one of two approaches. They slated women and treated them and inanimate and inferior or alternatively, they put a huge emphasis on the independent woman who, although married, drove their own cars, had a fulfilling job and participated in or made major purchasing decisions.

1970’s:

In the 1970’s, women’s adverts were still pretty sexist. Almost every advert highlighted every little flaw in women and constantly put them down. It wasn’t until 1975 that women started to stand up for themselves and one of the first all-female written articles was released, whose tagline was ‘This as insults women!’ This was a very big deal for society back then; women wanted their voices to be heard. One of the turning points in advertising's portrayal of women came with a landmark campaign from Revlon in 1973. The Charlie perfume campaign featured confident young women in tailored pantsuits pursuing traditionally male-oriented activities. In 1975, a new agency, ‘Advertising to Women’, was founded. Its intent was to reach the confident and career-oriented woman who was not inhibited by her sexuality. Research was conducted in the late ‘70’s and showed that women were responsible for 30% of house sales and 60% of car sales. 

1980's:

In the 1980's, major companies started to cotton on to the rise of the feminist movement and started to show women in a more of a positive light. Advertising in the 1980's portrayed career-minded women as "supermoms," and the industry began to grapple with integrating the traditional and contemporary roles of women. One classic ad from the period was one for Enjoli perfume, which depicted a sexy but capable woman who could "bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let you forget you're a man."

(Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert:):

A breakthrough advert that went global for it's up to date and ahead of it's time approach to promotion was Apple's 1984 Super Bowl advert for the release of the Macintosh (Mac) computer. There are several reasons why this advert was so monumental. It was released during the ad breaks in between the Super Bowl. This is one of the most watched events and so already they have reached a wider audience then they would on any other release date. But obviously this advert was talked about for more reasons they just being the Super Bowl ad. It clearly shows a large group of men, helpless and in need for someone to come and rescue them. Throughout the advert, they cut back and forth from the men to this woman. She is stereo typically 'pretty' and runs in slow motion. This creates the sexual appeal that women are more known for, then towards the end, the women is the one to rescue the men and destroy the evil. Another reason why this advert was so clever was because it was based off of the novel '1984' by George Orwell. 'The novel is set in the year 1984 when most of the world population have become victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and propaganda.' So by having an advert released by one of the biggest companies in the world,  that starts to break stereotypes and also references a book that was highly talked about at the time, it reaches other companies and starts to change how women are represented in the media.

1990’s:

The ‘90’s was all about girl power. Popular girl band The Spice Girls were thriving with their independent and strong outlook on life. The message being portrayed in music and the culture was then being mirrored in adverts. 

By the 1990's, dramatic changes had occurred in the depiction of women in advertising. One ground-breaking ad was for Maidenform, which pictured some of the objects representing slang terms for woman—a fox, a tomato, a doll and a chick. The text accompanying the ad read, "While images used to describe women are simple and obvious, women themselves rarely are. Just something we like to keep in mind when designing our lingerie."  Lingerie ads showed women from the neck down wearing a one-piece undergarment and one ad was captioned, "While you don't necessarily dress for men, it doesn't hurt, on occasion, to see one drool like the pathetic dog that he is."

In 1992, there was a breakthrough for women of colour when Tyra Banks, an African-American model, signed a contract to represent Cover Girl in its ads; she was the first non-white woman used in major cosmetics advertising.

Other advertisers ditched the idea of women as inferior and started to focus on the idea of female consumers and targeted them. In the ‘90’s a new movement was introduced in the media known as ‘reverse sexism’. This was where men were shown as inferior and as previously mentioned women were the strong ones being targeted as consumers.

However, with all this positive advertisement there was a major downside. With women now being shown in such a positive light, the correlation between the ads being released and the increase in eating disorders and body self-confidence issue in women doubled. Young women were trying so hard to be the women they were being show in the media that they were making themselves ill. By the 2000’s, things progress even more. 

2000's:

The 2000’s was a start of the new millennium and more progress was made in given women equal representation in the media. By the turn of the 21st century, many key positions in advertising were occupied by women, enabling them to have a major influence on ad campaigns. Some critics of the portrayal of women in advertising hoped this situation would give rise to more positive images of women. Technology was growing and becoming more important in advertisement.

A breakthrough ad for the 2000’s was Dove’s ‘real beauty’ campaign. This showed women from all backgrounds, shapes, sizes and stories wearing just their underwear and embracing their natural beauty. This as was extremely clever and well needed. It tackled the self-confidence issue in young and impressionable females as thy were taught to except who they are. Whilst still giving females this strong and independent voice in a very elegant way.

2010's/ the present:

Advertisement now is a lot more equal and women are represented how they should have been. There is still a long way to go but with movements such as the ‘Me Too’ campaign, ‘This girl can’ and ‘Like a girl’, young women are growing up in a more equal society and older women can finally notice the change they have been fighting for. Movements such as ‘Me Too’, ‘This Girl Can’ and ‘Like a Girl’, women are shown to be strong and independent.

Companies continue to target women as consumers and have learnt that majority of sales will now come from the female market so they have to be careful how they advertise.

(Serena Williams’ Show them what crazy can do Nike ad):

Adverts released more recently like Serena Williams’ Nike ad. This advert was a very clever and much needed in society at the moment. The advert shows female sports stars throughout time and shows how they had to defy all the odds and battle through the sexism to prove that they were enough.

I still believe we have a very long way to go until women are treated equally in society and that behaviour is mirrored in advertisement.

Researching women's magazines:

When researching women's magazines, I struggled to find a magazine that would feature articles like mine in them. I think that is why it's important I make a magazine from scratch as I can make it an all female, feminist magazine which would not only be new to the market, but would also tackle issues on monthly basis. I would release my magazine as monthly issues as this would be that the content each month is original and not repeated from issue to issue. 

If I was to try and write an article for an already existing magazine, there are 2 possibly three magazines that I could feature in. 

1. Cosmopolitan:

The reason being is because Cosmopolitan, although mainly known as fashion and beauty magazine, there are often featured articles about feminist issues, or campaigns that are very on trend in the month of the issues release.

Cosmopolitan magazine is also a very well known magazine and so my articles would reach a large and varied audience. The only reason why I don't think I would want my article published in Cosmopolitan is because Cosmopolitan has a very specific target audience of older modern women ages around 25 onward. I want to target my magazine/articles at both genders from ages 12 onward and they wouldn't really read Cosmopolitan so it wouldn't reach right the target audience. 

2. Ms:

Ms magazine is an American liberal feminist magazine which tackles issues concerning Women's rights, protests and campaigns. This magazine would be the most appropriate to publish an article like mine in as its a feminist magazines and the articles released in the past have been similar to mine. They tackle feminist issues and discuss the inequality in society between men and women. 

The only reason why I don't think that it would be wise to publish my article in Ms. magazine is because it is an american magazine that isn't in great circulation in the U.K. Feminist, political/ liberal magazines are popular in America but there are not many in the U.K so I would either want to publish my article in an U.K magazine that is in great circulation or produce my own magazine. 

3. Vogue:

As an option, Vogue would have a very big question mark next to it. It is a female magazine but it is really focused around fashion and beauty. It is similar to Cosmopolitan but Cosmopolitan still has feature articles, whereas Vogue's feature article still mainly centre around fashion and beauty. 

The only reason why I could publish in Vogue is because it is a women's magazine and it has recently become big on equality. However, I would reach the completely wrong target audience and my article wouldn't be read by the right audience.  

Overall, doing this research has confirmed that i need to make my own U.K feminist, political magazine. It will be targeted at a reader aged 12 up, both genders and will tackle all feminist issues in society. 

Postmodernism in my magazine:

Becoming more globalised, more increasing global products. E.g. vogue was only sold in USA and UK but is now sold worldwide, technology has also helped increase this development.

We look at the world differently and in a more globalised light. As now we can see that magazine are published worldwide and are adapted to suit different people’s needs, i.e., different languages.  

Fragmented world. For example, Cosmopolitan publish different magazines for different countries. Their work varies from country to country so they can target a wider, multi-cultured and fragmented audience. When you analyse these magazines, you can see the multicultural makeup behind their thought processes as the main goal is always to reach as wide an audience as you possibly can.

When producing my magazine, a consideration of postmodernism and the ideas of globalisation and fragmentation can be applied to my products.