INTRODUCING MEDIA LANGUAGE...

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 What happened in the 1950s?

First organ transplant Seat belts are Remote control was

1950s introduced invented
1952 1956

Colour TV was born Disneyland opens,

1951 McDonald's is
founded
1955
 First…
draw your idea of a woman in the
1950s…
 Brief History
With marriage and
Housekeeping and
birthrates booming,
raising a family were
women were
considered ideal
becoming wives and
female roles during
mothers at
the 1950s
unimaginable levels.
What were the roles of Woman?
By 1956, 35 percent of
However, working all adult women were
women had yet to members of the labor
attain many positions force, and nearly a
of influence quarter of all married
women were working.
More women were
entering the work-
place as well as a
result of World War 2.
 Rising Opportunities Media views

Many women were By the 1950s only a few While advertisers continued to depict women as
torn between women held national domestic servants, real women were finding
traditional office: out of the 531 fulfillment in jobs, volunteer work, and social
expectations and the members of Congress in organizations as well as homemaking.
opportunities available 1956, 16 were women.
to them. Since women bought
65 to 80 percent of all
goods sold in the
United States,
advertisements and
With a wife making most of the family's product designs were
purchases, it made sense that she also frequently aimed at
controlled the family finances. feminine concerns
 T I D E
What is Tide?
Tide is a laundry/ detergent manufactured by Procter
& Gamble, introduced in 1946.
Why was it designed?
...for heavy-duty, machine cleaning.
 Media Language Semiotics
The way in which the How meaning is
meaning of a media text is constructed through
conveyed to the language and codes.
audience.
Firstly there is the "Signifier
One of the ways Media which is what is there in
Language works is to front of us, what we see Ferdinand de Saussure
a Swiss linguist and semioti
convey meaning through and the form the sign cian. His ideas laid a
signs and symbols takes. foundation for many
significant developments in
suggested by the way a both linguistics and semiolo
scene is set up and filmed. Then there is the "signified" gy in the 20th century
which is an idea associated
with the signifier – the
concept it represents.
 This advertisement
Tide advertisements from
presents fast, effective
the around the 1950s only
and "miracle" results.
portrayed woman as
washing the laundry.

TARGET AUDIENCE The main image of the

woman hugging "Tide"
suggests happiness
They fit right into the and love as well as a
category of women close relationship – she
being somewhat doesn’t want to let it
degrading in go.
comparison to men
The use of the tagline
categorizes women as
Women are shown it is suggested that all
cleaning and showing women want the
off the same thing.
“miracle tide".
 The popular use of
The use of the colour exclamation marks
red connotates love - evokes excitement – note
emotionally intense of admiration – and
colour feeling of astonishment
The women smiling and surprise of the
suggests happiness amazing results of TIDE.
and joy because of
the product The repetition of the
advertised word "tide" reminds the
audience of the brand
– drilling the idea of
buying the product in
PERSUASION their head –
encourages fast selling
– use of hyperbole.

"The Perfect Woman“, Direct address –

the ideal image – personal - involves and
audiences would engages the reader
admire her. and drawing the
audience to buy th
product
 In addition, the advert
The red typography overall is very colourful
The red text enables them to
symbolises the red box & and aesthetically
quickly understand the advert
packaging of the actual pleasing to the eye.
and what it is about.
product. This allows the reader
to be drawn in.

The key phrases are

highlighted in red such The choice of
as ‘cleanest’, ‘whitest’ &
‘brightens’ so that the VISUAL CODES colours are
simplistic yet
audience will notice effective
these key terms first
which positively
promotes the product.
Visual codes are seen in the TIDE from the 1950s. The target
The white background again audience will unintentionally identify the clothing she is wearing;
reinforces the element of cleanliness, it is pure white which symbolises cleanliness – enhancing the
complementing the initial idea of this main concept of the product.
concept from her clothing etc.
overall.
 LAYOUT AND DESIGN CENTRAL IMAGE
How is the advert constructed? Why has it been chosen?
Where are the images and text What does it
placed? communicate?
What effect does this make?

TYPOGRAPHY AND GRAPICS

COLOUR What can you say about the font
What do the colours
suggests?
ANALYSIS style?
How does the graphics help
Is it part of the branding? persuade the audience?

LANGUAGE AND MODE OF ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS

ADDRESS What attitudes and beliefs
How does the advert “speak” are conveyed?
to its audience? Does the product advertise
Is it a hard sell or a soft sell that it will change you life?
advert?
AUDIENCES
1950’s to Present Day
Audiences in the 1950’s
◦ In the 1950’s the target audience of a product was very different to today’s day in
age.

This is due to reasons such as… 1950’s

◦ Stereotypes
◦ Social contexts of audience
◦ Technology Breakthroughs

Today’s
Stereotypes in 1950’s
Audiences

◦ What do all of these have in common? They all

depict housewives.
◦ The stereotype around the housewife was that
they always wore lots of make up and loved
doing all of the washing hence the many print
adverts that show women hugging washing
detergent.
◦ Also, if you look at the ethnicity of all of the
women in adverts shown and if you look online
you will find that all of them are Caucasian so
this could be seen as a stereotype also it
reinforces the bell hook’s feminists theory that
lighter skinned women are considered more
desirable.
Social contexts of the audiences.
◦ When the Tide advert came out in the early1950’s the world had been several years
removed from the devastating World War 2 in which women played a pivotal part in
medical, engineering and driving work. After this the housewife stereotype kicked in to
full effect all across the advertising scene in the USA.
◦ However, over 60 years times have changed and with that so have stereotypes and
although the stereotype does still exist it is less prominent and used in a less extreme
way. We now live in a time where technology dominates the life’s of the human being
and many stereotypes are now created by the media.
How technology breakthroughs
affected the new era of audience
With the introduction of dishwashers and liquid washing capsules have rendered
manual washing redundant or just extra effort and energy. Also, washing up powders
have been replaced by more liquid based products.

The brand Tide itself has seen a major decrease in popularity over the years with brands
such as Ariel, Fairy and Surf booming in popularity and taking over the screens of the
masses as Tide faded off shelves across the world.
REPRESENTATION
Representation
◦ •Women were seen as secondary citizens to men
◦ •Their primary purpose was to cook, clean and cook after the home which this print
adverts conveys. The woman is hugging the product which implies that this is the one
thing she wants in her life. As an audience we are able to decode this message from
the advert.
◦ •The advert may have been constructed in this way to suit society's view of women at
this time. this may therefore have appealed to the company's target audience.
◦ •there are also pink hearts coming off of the washing powder. This could link tot he
stereotypical colours and images associated with women and the idea that at this time
they were expected to clean and nothing else.
◦ •As well as this, women at this time were seen to be overly emotional which could be
another reason why the women in this advert was presented in this way.
Representation continued

“Women were twice as likely as men to be in commercials for domestic products and
men were twice as likely as women to be in adverts for non-domestic products” In the
past media products tended to convey straightforward messages about the ideal types
of male and female identities.- David Gauntlett’s theory of representation.
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