Category	Familiarities	Differences	Theory
Characters			Propp
Narrative			Todorov
Themes			Levi Strauss
Representation			Semiotics
Technical Codes	The character was sweaty

Cultivation Theory examines the long-term effects of television and talks about how more we indulge in television the more we believe artificial television reality as a norm.

vertical integration is when a production company owns the means of production, distribution and exhibition of their film and are of the same company, because of this they will receive all of the profit.

A conglomerate owns many companies which are involved in mass media enterprises like television, radio, publishing, motion pictures, theme parks, or the Internet.

Synergy is the concept that the combined value and performance of two companies will be greater than if tthey were separate individual parts. 

Character types: a character type is a certain trait or role a character will have to progress the story = examples are the Hero(protagonist), Villain (antagonist), princess(the character who gets rescued in one way or form) etc. This relates to the boss life advert as the hero in the advert isn’t necessarily a hero but the product themselves and Manny and the Bell Boy gets changed into a better version of themselves, they were the princesses but as the woman introduces the product she could also be seen as a hero.

A story has Three parts to it the equilibrium where everything is balanced and good nothing, in particular, affects the story yet which then shifts into disequlibrium/Disruption as their is conflict,change, issue that is introduced and finally finishes into resolution/new equilibrium where the story gets balanced again after the issue or change is fixed or accepted.

equilibrium in the boss Life advert is when Manny goes to his new apartment this is emphised by when he says “this room is everything”, everything is balanced there nothing new of interest yet disequilibrium

Disruption in the boss life advert is when the product arrives and causes the environment and people to change.

resolution/new equilibrium In the Boss Life advert is when the people are transfered into this better bossed up look where the are all blinged up nad the whole aura of the advert becomes golden and bright.

Glamour

1. Big Shot Mascara by Colossal​
2. Two firsts for the brand= teamed up with influencers and its first-ever partnership with a man as the star of the campaign ​
3. Makeup brands are more understanding that makeup isn’t just for girls​
4. In October CoverGirl made James Charles as its first-ever Cover Guy​
5. Brands like Milk Make and Anastasia Beverly Hills have been advertising Men in ads and social media for a more inclusive and universal approach to beauty​
6. Giorgio Armani launched a gender-neutral lip balm the his/her Lip care​
7. Manny the beauty vlogger and social media influencer  with almost 3 million followers and gives makeup advise and inspiration to men and women he was thrilled to be working with a global brand like maybe line​
8. His inclusion in a nationwide ad especially hits home following the Internet backlash that went down this week over ASOS’ choker necklaces for men. (As writer David Yi over at Allure put it, the backlash “promotes the dangerous sentiment that men are supposed to adhere to hypermasculine culture.”)​

Your Story Manny G

1. Boundaries are being broken in the beauty and modelling industry​
2. The ‘Tall, white and skinny’ expectation now has diversity with different races, sizes and genders being represented​
3. Examples such as Manny MUA as Maybelline’s first male ambassador, as well as being an online gay role model is showing development throughout the industry ​
4. Having representation in the media of a wide range of identities is important and provides support and confidence for younger generations to be confident and secure in themselves

Media Magazine

1. This article tells about the difference between advertising the 1960s to the present. It describes an old still advert for a hair product which depicts 5 women carrying a masculine man adoringly, and advertises the product as highly masculine, only made by men and makes you appear powerful. This shows the heavy gender expectations set on men at the time, that they must be in control and adored by woman.​
2. It tells how the ideas represented in the media were forced on their audiences and everyone was expected to fit into one idea of what they should aspire to be like​
3. Maybelline’s ‘The Boss Life’ advert shows how much the media has advanced, with a gay man promoting a beauty product with an upbeat happy style and setting, exploring the ideas of different representation in the beauty industry. It challenges the expectations of masculinity and showing progression through time in the media

Psychology In media

1. To have a successful marketing campaign the understanding of the target customer is crucial. ​
2. Consumer psychology relies on social cognition ​
3. By analyzing basic background factors helps marketers develop techniques, they can implement to get a better response to the product and keep a customer’s attention. Persuasion is implemented during all the stages of marketing. 

Motivation and Perception

1. First of all, it is important to understand what motivates the consumer. Marketer’s task is to discover what motivates the consumer and awakens the triggers. ​
2. Another pressure point is emotions. Certain emotions a human is experiencing can be a motivation for the purchase. Marketing activities can be used in a way to cause, shift and influence the emotions and as a result increase the response and attention to the product.​
3. Additional important attribute affecting decision-making is perception. Perception forms through unconscious response to and interpretation of stimuli. Vision is the most powerful stimulus and the easiest one to implement in marketing. Colour, shape, size or align of the advertisement can affect perception. For example, cool colours such as blue have a calming effect. ​

Use of Fear

1. One of the most widespread techniques in advertising is playing on human’s fears. Fears come in different forms and what is surprising though is that fear is in a way attractive. In addition, fear is known to bring humans together uniting them against a potential threat.  This comes in handy for marketers. ​
2. There are high-fear and low-fear approaches in advertising as well. High-fear approach emphasizes such aspects as death. Low-fear approach creates anxiety and as a result, a son attempts to eliminate the feeling of tension. Each approach, however, implies that using a certain product can prevent negative outcome.  ​
3. Most have a fear of failure. Beside the idealistic self-image the person aims to, there is also a feared self they try to avoid. Sometimes marketers go further and start influencing subconscious by showing the insecurities people were not aware of​

Task: Write up a 750-word formal essay (ie beginning, main body and conclusion) that compares the representation of gender in both Men’s Health and Tomb Raider, Use key language and specifically show your knowledge of SEMIOTICS, PRINT LANGUAGE, REPRESENTATION & AUDIENCE THEORY.

The Men’s Health magazine and the Lara Croft Cover are both signifiers of strength and sexualization, a pair to which is regarded as quite commonplace but when paired together can be classified as unique when we consider the gender of the main image of the magazine and gaming front cover, Vin diesel and Lara Croft, which is merely one of the similarities that both forms of signifiers have in common but there are differences as well what I will be discussing further in this essay.

when I use my range of knowledge of Semiotics to break down the two forms of media I discovered that the denotations of the magazine and gaming front cover as well as the connotations were similar. the magazine denotes Vin Diesel as a strong, tanned man which of whom is similar as it’s connotation is of a strong, sexualized, idealistic man which of whom correlates with Lara Croft who is denoted as a rugged explorer also connoted as quite sexual as well as idealistic. To further develop the understanding of Semiotics we must comprehend its meaning which is the interpretation of symbols and signs, in this regard I had identified the interpretation/ signifier to be idealistic and strong as well as sexual which both media forms main image had in common. The page that was taken from Men’s health also has the main signifier of being strong and masculine as it is all quite chunked and blocked together with images of products that will make you stronger and slimmer, to focus on the word I mentioned beforehand I associated masculinity with strength and power and this is considered a myth, stereotype or dominant ideology as universally the thought of strength, power and dominance was seen as a more masculine quality but as time progresses this feature seems to slowly be changed and the best way to emphasise this point is with the media, main image Lara croft as she is a counter type as she has what is considered as masculine qualities like being strong and independent and so to compare the representation of our media’s Men’s Health is more stereotypical as it emphasises typical masculine men must be strong types whereas Lara croft is a counter type as I mentioned previously.

to enhance our understanding of gender representation of Semiotics we need to consider Representation but first, we must understand stand what representation means the portrayal of a certain thing or person. The Men’s Health magazine front cover and inside page both portray a negative stereotype of how men should be strong and independent which in a sense there a not negative qualities but men should also be allowed to have the qualities that women are stereotyped to have like being kind and for the sense of understanding representation the stereotype of women being kind is called a positive stereotype. The main character of Tomb Raider, Lara croft is what I mentioned beforehand a counter type, to give more clarification, a counter type is an opposition and contrast against a stereotype in usually a more positive manner. The counter type is interesting to discuss especially since we are evaluating the representation of genders as we have the more old, dominant ideology of stereotypes like men’s health but then we have a more different New, opposing character like Lara Croft but we can argue that Lara also has the old negative stereotype due to the sexual manner of the character. As I have mentioned As well previously is how the media’s show the signifiers of idealistic views of how a person should be perceived as the main images are selected representation, what is when a certain group or person is specifically chosen to be focused on, as in our media Lara Croft and Vin Diesel were specifically chosen to show strength and sex appeal. These qualities were specifically chosen due to our dominant ideology and constructed reality of how women should be kind and sensual and men should be muscular and strong, constructed society is something I want to focus on as it is argued by sociologists that what they call habitualization where society is created and formed by human interactions and humans themselves, what this has relevance is due to our habitualization of portraying men  as strong and cool who always attract women we have created this stigma and dominant ideology and agree that is how a man should be but as time is progressing this ideology is being changed. Something I also wanted to discuss is how the men’s health magazine page, the editors letter, shows a block of things of stereotypically associated with men, for example, the weights and the “flower power” which emphasises this point that men should be stronger whereas woman it isn’t reinforced or portrayed in that way.

To understand the representation of genders we must understand Audience Theory which mentions how the media consumers will have a specific psychology and physically effect on them when “consuming” media. There is a similarity and difference between how gender is represented in the media in audience positioning, both characters are shown in an attractive and appealing manner, mainly Lara Croft as she is positioned in an unnatural way to emphasise her figure to entice potential consumers to purchase the game front cover Lara is on.  The appeal that Lara is given is unnecessary as most popular games don’t need to rely on the ideology of “Sex sells” for example the very popular game Minecraft doesn’t have any form of sexual content but is still one of the most popular games from even the point of the time where I was young and child and wanted to purchase the game but despite this it’s not like the phrase sex sells is incorrect as a majority of the games sold in this case Tomb Raider Will be sold due to the sexual nature of the main character. Vin Diesel is positioned to be very macho and strong as he is shown to be an idealistic man and his we should be like him and if we use this magazine maybe you will able to learn how to be like him.

To continue the point of how men are represented to be strong we look at Print Language, what are the different types of techniques used in Media. I mainly want to focus on the front cover of men’s health as it’s the most impactful and shows the dominant ideology of how men should be strong as when we look at the sub headings blast body fat and short cuts to t-shirts arms create this idea of how you must be a certain weight that isn’t realistic but is made from a constructed reality where all men are strong as fit and all women are sensual and have unrealistic figures also this an be traced back to the editor’s notes where the image of flour power which once again emphasises the point of how we need to be strong as men and with  the help of the magazine we can be. The impact that the magazine has is negative as it enforces this unrealistic perfect people and with these types of subheadings and images it prays on the self conscious consumers who are manipulated to believe they have to be this perfect human.

To conclude the way genders are represented are negative as we are in an old constructed ideology of how certain genders should be but I believe as we progress in time eventually the dominant ideologies of today will be shaped into a better one which is more accepting and diverse.

Positive and negative stereotypes: Positive stereotypes are when a certain type of person is portrayed positively for example women are warm and caring whereas a negative stereotype is more negative and disrespectful like women can’t drive.

Counter-types: This is when a stereotype normally negative is opposed and contrasted against in normally a more positive sense, like the game Tomb Raider whose main character Lara Croft is portrayed as strong and independent where as women are normally portrayed as weak and reliant on a man.

Misrepresentation: It is when you give fake or misleading information that could have a negative impact on a certain state or action.

Selective representation: Is when a certain person or group is purposely represented and focused more on than others.

Dominant ideology: Is the communal and more dominant beliefs, value, morals and ideas of a group.

Constructed reality: Is argued by sociologists that it is what they call habitualization, which is a society created by humans and their interactions.

Hegemony: A certain type of dominance or authority figure in certain area in life, for example the manager of the office is the authority figure, the boss.

Audience positioning: Is the way the creator has controlled and manipulated how the audience perceive’s and understands the ideology of the media in a certain way.

Statement of intent

The title of my gaming magazine cover is Oh my, Gamer! the inspiration for my title was when I heard my colleagues struggling to come up with a title And I heard one of them exclaim “oh my God” so I thought I would set this as my title but with gaming relevance.

My audience is targeted for boys around the age of 4-6 as I put docile but bold format for my magazine as I made it so it would be understandable for the younger target audience as if the magazine had to complex writing the audience I was targeting wouldn’t want to ask their family but I did add the whole free toy for if the magazine were to be real the toy is the part of the magazine the kids want.

For my niche interest content, I made my game names related to genre’s like fantasy, battle, exploration these are types of games that will appeal to the younger generation as it has “cool” factor especially for names like for example Fortress Fire and the whole idea is the targeted audience even though young are able to comprehend that the game is attractive, “cool”.

My magazine is a viable magazine title because it is attractive and stands out and seems musical in a sense when you read it so it can get stuck in your head this is especially important since I have a young target audience so at their type of age they won’t remember a lot unless its key, rememberable information, for example, most young kid who asks to go to places like McDonald’s because they know that this means chips and chicken nuggets so if my title is rememberable enough the kids will want to buy the magazine when they spot it in a shop.

The proposed use of Language style for my audience is very simple and informal due to their age if they had to read very complex and formal writing my audience wouldn’t be able to understand and wouldn’t be attracted to the magazine and wouldn’t ask their parents to buy it.

My proposed use of representation form for the audience is a Pcgamer magazine but for a younger audience around the ages of 4-6 and I made a more docile version with white and blue with cartoonish character that I drew in photoshop but I kept some similarities with the original PCgamer like putting the main character in the middle of the magazine but there still the contrast to make it different as I mentioned before where I did white and blue when they normally do red and black.

Where I get my content from is just random ideas from my head but are influenced by thing like books and shows that I watch and since I had a cartoon rich childhood it affects how the characters look and are drawn as well I have played a good amount of videogames in my past which will also play a part on my content ideas.