Compare and contrast the ways in which viewpoints and ideologies are encoded in Woman and Adbusters.

Compare and contrast the ways in which viewpoints and ideologies are encoded in Woman and Adbusters.

Woman and Adbusters are both magazines but both have completely different and contrasting ideologies. The ideology for women is that the producers believe all women should be housewives, this can be seen encoded on the front cover of their Woman magazine (published 1964).  Women magazine are aimed towards heterosexual women. Since their ideology is that of housewives, whoch are stereotypically are straight.

In the title, the hegemonic norm during the time is that women belong in the kitchen, we can see that the mise-en-scene for the mid-shot woman on the cover is that her dress code includes shoulder length hair, and is a brunette which is stereotypically the average colour hair of women during the time of the magazines publication. Also brown eyes and she is an attractive, supposedly middle age woman. The bold text at the top “WOMAN” reinforces this ideology the producer are trying to show, that the hegemonic norm of women of 1964 was the woman in the picture. In addition the way she looks at the audience with her pearly white teeth and fake smile suggests that she is relatable. Being relatable could suggest that the target audience is that of middle age housewives, which the ideology of the producers is trying to reinforce onto the target audience. That all women should be housewives, to further reinforce this ideology on the cover it say at the bottom “seven star improvements for your kitchen”. This not only shows signs of exaggeration on how great the magazine is but also reinforces the stereotype that women should be in the kitchen. This is further reinforced by David Gauntlett’s theory about pick and mix, in that audience select which ideologies suit and ignore the elements of the product. And in this case, middle age, heterosexual working class women select the images of the beauty of the women on the cover and would start acting and looking more like the hegemonic norm.

For Adbusters, their whole ideology is that their anti-consumerist, anti-capitalist and has a hatred towards adverts as they are so called “Adbusters”. The way they introduce their ideologies through their magazine is by having an ad of a very rich and expensive product and then using Claude Levi-Strauss’ theory on binary opposition in that everything in a magazine or product has an opposite to contrast it, in Adbusters the binary opposition is that of contrasting the rich and expensive product for higher classes with that of people in poverty and near to death. One such example of this is their 2016 publication of Adbusters, in it we have a Zuchetti Tap, mid/ high-angle shot, with “him” as a masthead of the advert contrasted by a (assumed) women (as the stereotype of skinny legs and smooth skin indicates that is could be a woman) (mid/high-angle shot also!). She seems to be in poverty as the mise-en-scene is that she is supposedly sitting in a poorly cleaned bath tub naked, with the wrinkled hands suggesting that she is in a position as if she’s a beggar, and is symbolic imagery of poverty and misfortune. Also her tattoos and her wrinkled hands highlight that this is what magazines don’t want you to see as this (such as Woman) is no the ideal woman as tattoos is stereotypically seen as rebellious or rather not seen as beautiful as many fashion magazines of soaps and conditioners shows women with “perfect” skin which is smoothed and is blank with no tattoos. With Adbusters contrasting this with the Zuchetti tap shows clearly their anti-consumerist nature as it shows that people would rather spend money on rich useless items rather than help the poor. The poverty page is also rough as the text is unaligned and badly printed, whilst the image itself looks like as if it’s trying to get covered up by the white, which is symbolic imagery of Ads trying to cover up the bad side of them selling their products, the lack of effort for both the rough edges of the image and the text symbolizes division between the rich and poor in society.

Adbusters here is trying to subvert Gerbner’s cultivation theory, wjhich is about heavy exposure to too many brands and products on the TV reinforces ideology and stereotypes of certain people groups. Adbusters tries to be subversive of this theory, by bringing up the woman in poverty shows that Zuchetti is more of a money grabber, which Adbuster’s ideology is trying to explicitly trying to say. Woman on the other hand follows Gerbners theory a lot as it believes it’s audience/ target audience follows societies rules that all women are housewives, Woman Magazine is also helping cultivate the hegemonic norms of the British society.