Study Task 2 - Finding research sources - Study Task 3 - Reading and Understanding a Text - Study Task 4 - Summarising and paraphrasing

Last week we were told that we had to choose one of the following questions to base an essay off:

• “To what extent have Modernist design principles influenced contemporary Graphic Design?”
• “How did Postmodernism impact on Graphic Design practice?"
• "To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender?"
• “Discuss the role that Graphic Design can play during periods of political and/or social upheaval."
• “What is the relationship between branding and The Consumer Self?”
• "What is the role of print media in the digital age?"

The question which I choose to pick is '' To what extent does advertising construct our ideas of gender ''. The reason I choose to study this question is because I felt that personally I could write about more for this question than I can for the other questions.

After we had to pick a question we then had a small lecturer about different ways we can research to get the most valuable and accurate research, these are the ways we were told we could use to research: 

• Library 
• Google books 
• Magazines 
• Newspapers
• Online 
• University websites

We were also told about websites that we shouldn't use, as it can give information that isn't correct or just lacks in information and just shows general information rather than descriptive.  One of the main website which is on good for general information is Wikipedia. 

From having that lecturer we were then told to choose a book which was posted on estudio for us, that related to the question which we choose. We then were told to find points and quotes that we could find in the pages from the book, this is what I found:

Gender in movies: 

• Representations of gender in movies may have certain predictable trends, but are quite diverse. 
• When it comes to films women and men tend to have similar skills and abilities in films today. Although if you look  at any bunch of fils which are in current realising, identify the main leading character in each film, which is likely to be more male leading actors than women. 
• What's also common is that male men often have to save the women in a moment of trouble. 
• Women in movies have to be attractive as do men also. 
• Men can get away with being older, there are far more main characters that are men that are around 40's up to there 60's.

Gender in Advertising:

• There are also a small number of cases where advertisers seem to have decided that it is ok to show women as 'housewives'. This is seen in commercial advertisements for cleaning products as mostly on cleaning adverts is women using the cleaning product. 
• Also the UK supermarket Iceland was still using the slogan ' That's why mums go to Iceland' , yet the male figure is never mentioned. 
• Women in 1998 were twice as likely as men to be in domestic commercials for products and men were twice as likely as women to be in non-domestic cleaning adverts.
• An analysis found that main characters advertisements have more authority if they were white or men. 
• The women we expect to see in Adds these days is the busy, confident, attractive, successful, in control of her professional and social life and a kitchen slave to no-one. Men do not tell her what to do: Instead she sometimes gets to have  a laugh at the expense of a man.

Selling beauty:

• There are more publications on women in advertising than there are on women in TV programmes.
• Magazines reach young girls  that they need makeup and train them to use it,so establishing reliance on beauty products.

Quotes:

• 'That's why mum's go to Iceland'.
• 'Every women knows that, regardless of her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful'.
• 'In the present study, the character ratio was 46.4% female  and 53.6% male'. ( In advertisements).
• 'Occasionally 'ironic' adverts patronise female  characters in a knowing way which is  meant to be funny,  though this may not always be successful'.

Tone of voice:

Due to the use of words and quotes used by the author  I believe the text is chatty and conversational and seem's to be laid back, we can see this as they are using words such as 'I', and 'Remind you', which are conversational words. Personally I prefer it this way, as it's easier to depict information out of the piece of text. Also It feels like I'm  having a discussion with the author as it's tone of voice feels like it's asking you questions but it's not so it almost feels like there asking you a rhetorical question. 

Summary: 

In summary to the points in which i've made, I've learnt that the men are  seen as the stronger gender when it comes to movies, as the characters they play in movies are often big strong men who have to save a women, never the opposite way round, which is incredibly sexist. Women are shown to be housewives on quite a lot of adverts, adverts still pursue this idea today, when do you ever see a man on a cleaning product advert on tv? Yet again sexist. 

Book: Gauntlett, D. (2008) Media, Gender and identity. London: Routledge (Advertising and gender)

In the design , advertising and gender book by Gauntlett  it depicts how movies can be sexist, he explains that  how in movies these days, men and women get equal parts in movies/films, he further explained that if you looked at films which are currently being produced or about to be realised and you look for the main leading character that the leading character is  normally man,' Women and Men tend to have similar skills and abilities in films today, but if you look at any bunch of films on release and identify  the one leading character are also more likely to be more men than women'. The reason which I believe that he has said this is because it's completely and utterly true men are ten out ten times used as the main character as they are seemed as the ''stronger'' gender when infact they are equal to women. 

Another interesting matter Gaunlett talks about is the fact that men in movies tend to always have a part in a movie where they have to save a women from a distressing situation,' Whats also common is that male men often have to save the women in a moment of trouble'. It's very rare in movies that you see the women saving the man. This is because  men like to be seen as the stronger and more powerful sex, which gives men an ego boost. Because of this method which we would see mainly in older movies, it does make women seem incapable of doing ' A mans job '. Another factor in how gender has effected 

Context of practice - Study Task- 1

   

Context of practice notes

first picture notes

  

The uncle Sam range (1876) advertising image by Schumacher & Ettlinger, New York & empire

1. It has a font that we would most commonly see in western films 
2. They are trying to make the image look American as possible 
3. They've targeted the British public.
4. They are trying to insinuate that if you buy one of there cookers you're on you route to a better lifestyle.
5. There is a male dominance in the picture as the women are doing everything for them 
6. The women seemed to be viewed as slaves and less important.
7. It depicts the idea of the American dream.
8. The menu which is coming of the table, which is a list of food, gives the view like there trying to rub it in the public's face saying this is what we have, this is what you could have to if you bought one of there cookers.
9. The target audience is middle class to lower class.
10. Also on the menu it seems to have headings before some of the foods such as; China, Russia, Italy, Ireland and they all seem to me more of the immigrant races. 
11. It touched on propaganda and politics  as at the time that what it was all about in that time.

second picture notes

Empire marketing board – ‘East African Transport old style’ and ‘East African transport new style’ by Adrian, from the ‘Colonial progress brings home prosperity’ series of posters; 60 x 60 ins, displayed December 1930 – January 1931; Waterlow and sons LTD.

1. Propaganda they are wanting you to give money to the Empire so they can improve your lifestyle.
2. In this first picture we can clearly see that in the first picture that that's there normal lifestyle; walking round with not much on, carrying things on their head, wearing traditional clothing.
3. In the first picture the women is clearly the dominant one of the group.
4. The second picture below the man is dominant, it's almost trying to show you what you could have, kinda of insinuating that women are weak.
5. Trying to show that they've helped Africa by building them a bridge and given them a truck to move around and also some long shorts (uniform) to work in so they think they've been good to them by giving these things to the African people.
6. The lifestyle doesn't change for the African people they are still working in poverty.
7. In the background on the first Picture you can see how they are in the dessert where there is nothing, you can tell this by there trees, they look dry, almost like there working in the dessert.
8. The bottom picture however is trying to say this is what we could give you and have planted palm trees and made a river.
9. They are asking for people money to 'improve' where there people live.
10. The people still have to work manual without machines or cars.
11. They guy who is standing up looks like he's full of himself and by the way he's standing, thinks he's worth more than the slaves.
12. Most of them also always are looking down so it shows how the development that the Americans have done hasn't changed how they feel.
13. Back at the time of this picture this was the type of propaganda used to make the public think people were doing a good job looking after other culture, when in reality we look at it now and we think how its helped the Americans not the people working for them.
14. Trying to show how the Empire brings prosperity.

COMPARISON 

society

1. In each picture women are viewed as slaves
2. Both have a male dominance 
3. Patriarchal society

culture 

1. Empire the idea that one culture is dominated by another (Americans & Africans)
2. Technology will improve your life automatically 
3. Skin colour clearly sets how high your priority is.

POLITICS

1. Empire and escaping from empire (declaration of independents)
2. History of imperialism is a mistaken truth.
3. Propaganda which is used to say something is good when it isn't.

summary COMPARISON

In both images women are viewed as slaves and not as powerful as men we can see this by the women which are serving food to the men and the women near the oven who is putting food into the oven and also by how the men are sat smugly and how they are dressed in posh clothes. Also we can see it in the second picture by the two pictures where a man who is stood up who is fully clothed with his hand on his hip and the women in the above picture who is carrying an animal and hardly wearing anything, it's almost like the man is trying to say this is what you could be like. This shows a patriarchal society.

Both show how one culture have dominance over the other, in this case the Americans have dominance over the African's we can see this when the African women in the first image is preparing food for the Americans and we can also see this is the second image's when the Africans are manual working for the Americans.

Both images are trying to show how technology will improve your lifestyle, the first images is showing this by basically saying if you buy one of there cookers this is what you could look like and what you could have and the second image shows it by the two images and how the first one the men and the women are working in a dry dessert and carrying things on there heads, but the second image shows how they've planted trees, made a bridge and created a river. Although in all these images there's no benefits to the the African culture as there still are having to do manual labour so the only people these 'New lifestyles' are helping is the Americans that are already privileged. So they both have used propaganda to pswade people to give money to these Empires/cookers to make there lifestyles better when it doesn't.