SEMIOTICS, PRINT LANGUAGE & REPRESENTATION
dominant ideology of body image
dominant signifier = the man (vin diesel)
dominant blue colour to represent the stereotypical male
negative stereotype of men having to be strong (repetition of losing fat)
constructed reality – men should be strong
collective identity = men all striving to lose weight and be strong ‘build a six pack for life’
counter-type – old people being weak – 69 year old man marathon running
blast, demolish, burn = violent language represents attitude to fat
Steve Neal – genre – genres all contain instances of repetition and differences
- magazines repeat the same idolisation of the ‘standard’ man and woman
Barthes – all narratives share structural features that each narrative weaves together in different ways
- Positive and negative stereotypes
- Counter-types
- Misrepresentation
- Selective representation
- Dominant ideology
- Constructed reality
- Hegemony
- Audience positioning
- Fluidity of identity
- Constructed identity
- Negotiated identity
- Collective identity
The school of life video ‘how to be a man’ presents the ‘cool’ man and the ‘warm’ man. This links to Gauntlets notion that identity is fluid and negotiated. Aklthough this is not a theory we can see examples of the ‘cool’ man and the ‘warm’ man in Men’s Health.
For instance, on the front cover we can see Vin Deiseal positioned as the ‘cool’ man. I can tell this from his alpha-male stance and face expression. Additionally, you can see the ‘warm’ man represented in the contents page.
Men’s Health (UK edition) has a circulation of around 120,000 (down 16% year-on-year and including 40k free copies) and a readership of closer to 1 million. It began as a health magazine in the USA in 1986 and has gradually evolved into a men’s lifestyle magazine. The UK edition launched in 1995.
Although Men’s Health was founded in the US, its international editions have made it the world’s largest men’s magazine brand. These magazines reach over 71 million readers worldwide.
Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, television channels, and television stations, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. It owns 50% of the A&E Networks cable network group and 20% of the sports cable network group ESPN, both in partnership with The Walt Disney Company.[4]
In the 1920s and 1930s, Hearst owned the biggest media conglomerate in the world, which included a number of magazines and newspapers in major cities. Hearst also began acquiring radio stations to complement his papers.[16] Hearst saw financial challenges in the early 1920s, when he was using company funds to build Hearst Castle in San Simeon and support movie production at Cosmopolitan Productions. This eventually led to the merger of the magazine Hearst International with Cosmopolitan in 1925.[17]
