Representation of Gender in Magazines

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Representation of Gender in Magazines

• National lifestyle and leisure/hobby magazines
  for men and/or women

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Introduction

• What do we mean by representation?
• the process of making meaning in still or
  moving images and sounds/words. In its simplest
  form, it means to present/show someone or
  something
• OCR syllabus

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Useful Quotes

• We live in a society of the image . . . (Jameson)
• Immersed in media experience, conscious of media
  experience, we no longer experience any realm of
  human experience as unmediated, immediate,
  natural (Sobchack)
• The text directs the reader through the
  signifieds of the image . . . Remote
  control(ling) him towards meaning chosen in
  advance (Roland Barthes)

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At A2 you are required to learn . .

• How to identify the sources of representation and
  the link between ideologies and the processes of
  construction
• The issues and debates, academic/critical and
  personal, arising from representation in media
  texts and its ideological associations.

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Focus on technical and cultural codes.

• Technical codes are specific to one medium, eg
  camera work, editing, sound, effects.
• Cultural codes are a feature of other media too,
  eg clothes, gesture, action, props, voice.

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To summarise . . .

• Textual analysis we need to explore the
  denotations and connotations of what we are shown
  of groups within society
• Institution and Audience we need to investigate
  who produces these representations and how they
  can be read by different audiences
• Theory and Ideology we need to make connections
  between our responses and the work of others.

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Representation of Gender in Magazines

• Background
• History
• Funding
• Demographics

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Representation of Gender in Magazines

• What is gender?
• To what extent do Mens and Womens magazines
  construct ideas about gender rather than just
  reflect them?

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Images taken from Womens and Mens Magazines

• Look at the following images and identify the
  cultural codes that are used to construct them.
• Do these images reflect ideas about gender or
  construct them?
• Look at the text on the front covers. Does this
  add to the representations? In what way?

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Mens Health
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Mens Health
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New Woman
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Cosmopolitan
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Weblinks

• www.reddirect.co.uk
• www.cosmopolitan.co.uk
• www.uploaded.co.uk
• www.newwomanonline.co.uk
• www.menshealth.co.uk
• www.elle.com