Adbusters

Deliberately challenged the image. Its childish defacing.

This defacing plays on the ideology that nothing is too high up to take down.


Banksy Drawing of Policeman snorting cocaine.


This is know as detournement. It is a form of high-jacking or re-routing. It is more commonly seen as Culture Jamming.

Culture jamming is often obsessed with the idea of destructing consumerism/capitalism.

Culture jamming - the practise of criticising and subverting advertising and consumerism in the mass media, by methods such as producing advertisements parodying those of global brands.

Adbusters potential genres:

Pop Culture - Sans serif font has informal connotations

Satirical Comedy - Attacks something.

Adbusters uses a lot of negative white space which connotes purity but directly contrasts with the image shown on the background.

Masthead changes every time.

Every magazine cover is unique which shows they are challenging.

There is no reference to anything that is inside.

No adverts.

Issue 125

Facial expression suggests victory. Man on the front is shown to be a terrorist. Suggests that the terrorists have won.

It's different from other magazines.

Crumbling effect on text could be used to suggest that the world is crumbling apart.

The cover line is in the same font as the masthead and it is dominantly positioned in the lower third.

Front cover is not fully anchored

magazine show colours on a negative background for most of the pages to add emphasis to the page contents.

'skip-ad' is used to show how anti consumerism this magazine is.

Adbusters and Genre - 

Coverline - Used on front pages to caption the picture.

Adbusters coverline is 'post-west' in this edition.

Lacks a barcode, has a subversive genre.

_________________________________________________________________________________

"Genre conventions in magazines are completely informed by the social and historical context to which they are made" - Michael Collins

Evaluate this statement with reference to Adbusters. Make reference to Genre hybridity.

_________________________________________________________________________________

In this response, I would talk about genre using words like subvert and conform.

I would talk about the ideologies of the producer.

Historical Context - When it was made (Adbusters - 2016 ... Woman - 1964)

Social Context - How society has changed.

'Completely' - Shows its biased.

Evaluate - Work out whether I agree/disagree

Paragraph Structure ----------- Point - Evidence - Terminology - Analysis - Link ----------

Steps:

1. Read question and underline key terms.

2. What is your opinion? What argument will you make?

3. Plan on the answer paper

4. Introduction. CDA - Context, Definition, Argument

Context - Background (Political Magazine)
Definition - Defining key terms from the question.
Argument - Saying whether you agree or disagree. "I shall argue that..."

5. Main Paragraphs - PEA - Point, Evidence, Argument (This proves that...)

Point - Make your point
Evidence - Give detailed evidence from the media
Argument - Give Your argument about why you agree/disagree with statement

Theory - Discuss a theory if you haven't in your point.

6. Conclusion





Codes and conventions -

Symbolic - Shoes may be symbolic of the actual quality of the shoes

Proairtic - Makes you ask the question of how the shoes were made

Hermeneutic - "Red soles are always in season" creates mystery around why the soles are red. Red has negative connotations.

Has a very unconventional design with se of negative space to emphasise the images shown.

Small font size is used to emphasise the pictures.

Intertextuality - When a media product refers to another media product.

Direct referential code to charity adverts.

Christian Louboutin shoes have cultural capital.

Binary opposition - necessity vs luxury.

Ideology - we desire unnecessary luxury.

The target audience for Adbusters is middle class audiences who may be able to afford these shoes. This advert may make the audience feel bad about themselves due to their anti-consumerism ideology

This is a construction of a stereotypical view on ethnicity.

The tagline is ironic.

Commodity Fetishism - When somebody has a strong desire for a particular product.

Fetish - small statue to symbolise power.

Karl Marx - That the working class are used by the upper class so that they can live in luxury.



Audience may think that the tap looks appealing and search.

Buying this product may give you cultural capital.

Somebody may have a commodity fetish for taps.

Adbusters placed this advert in their magazine to emphasise how ridiculous it is to spend a lot of money on a tap.

Binary opposition between the presentation of the pages.

There is a massive amount of assumed knowledge.

Symbolic code of woman looking into her hands suggests that she has nothing.

A potential audience reaction is to share the media to a wider audience through social media networks.

How does Adbusters use representations to present ideologies to position it's audiences? Make reference to explicit examples for the Kill Yourself, Save the Planet article.

'Kill yourself' could offend people and be seen as an instruction

Has a direct mode of address.

Marxism

Political hegemony is used to manipulate the working class by the ruling class.

If there are things you cannot get into then this is a form of social exclusion.

'necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity'

Stereotypical - When something conforms to its general categorisation by society. Having the qualities that you expect a particular type of person to have.

Conforms - When a media product complies with societal ideologies.

Subverts - When attention is drawn away from something using a distraction provided by something else

Objectification - When somebody/something is portrayed as having no feelings.

Sexualisation - To make something sexual in character or quality, or to become aware of sexuality, especially in relation to men and women. Sexualization is linked to sexual objectification.

Hegemony - Leadership of one group over another group

Patriarchal Hegemony - When a person is believed to be correct in what they are saying because they are of a higher power. E.g : Teacher, Parent

Challenges - When an audience goes against a specific ideology

Fetishisation - when something is given godlike characteristics in the views of a person.

Symbolic annihilation - The absence of representation, or underrepresentation, of some group of people in the media

Scopophilia - Sexual pleasure derived chiefly from watching others when they are naked or engaged in sexual activity; voyeurism.

In Adbusters, women are shown in many different ways and this reinforces the ideology that women are equal and could also go against the ideologies of Lisbet Van Zoonen that women are only in media products to be looked at by men in a sexual way. This is evident in the images above where there is a woman sitting on a pavement next to a road drinking a cup of tea. She fits the stereotypical image of somebody in the working class. The woman's legs are glamourised no the catwalk but the image overlay shows that she is weak and trying to escape. The busy mise-en-scene of the woman on the pavement suggests that she isn't important and would be overlooked by society whereas the woman's legs being shown on the catwalk have nothing behind them which makes them the main focus. This shows that all women are seen differently in society with these two women being binary oppositions of each other. The image lacks anchorage forcing the audience to make an assumption.

DON'T LEAD WITH THEORY


Huck Magazine article about adbusters:

Adbusters ideology - anti-capitalist/consumerist

Uses images with no anchorage which is subversive as it doesn't follow stereotypical magazine conventions. Uses no advertising which is 'fucking amazing'.

Magazine assumes that they have an intelligent audience so they can work out the meanings behind their anti-capitalist images.

Adbusters rejects the rules of hegemony in relation to industry.
Adbusters purpose is to subvert the norm.
Adbusters uses culture jamming to ridicule adverts the already exist.
Adbusters preach to the converted.

Adbusters had a buy nothing day where they gave people tasks to do to disrupt the norm on black Friday.

Occupy wall street was a campaign by adbusters to get people to print out posters and stick them on buildings all over wall street tot protest about economic inequality.

Adbusters have made offensive references to the holocaust.

Capitalism provides a structure to people's lives.

Consumerism is a distraction.

Capitalism gives people their own identity.

How does the website reinforce the brand identity?

Spoof ads make up most of adbusters because they use culture jamming to ridicule actual advertisements. They also have a donate page.

House style - there is not a clear style on the magazine or website.

Website has a soundtrack to reinforce the anti-capitalist ideologies which the magazine doesn't have.

The website has a shop with shoes that cost $135 which is a bit hypocritical considering they are anti-capitalist.

Readers can submit their own content to adbusters.

Adbusters can also be contact via Twitter.