Oh, Comely
Context/Facts
Context:
| Feature | Link |
| Independent media organisation | |
| Owned by Iceberg press | |
| Targets affluent young women who want a “stylishly presented” alternative to the cheap aesthetic of mainstream magazines |
Features:
| Feature | Link |
| Tagline “comely” | connotations towards respectful beauty instead of slang that dehumanises beauty by aiming at the body |
| Includes a diverse range of religion, race and age | |
| Page 15, Somalia headscarf | Usually misrepresented through western media as terrorists |
| Page 15, “Unstoppable force” , “Sister” with capitalised S | surrounded by a syntagm of signs forming a semantic field of strength through words such as “Unstoppable force” and personal pronouns to extenuate her achievements to redesign the stereotype into a counterstereotype- a person of power and positivity. The capitalised proper noun “Sister” creates a collective identity towards the target audience, a group- a sisterhood where readers come together and create. |
| Androgynous hairstyle with modest clothing Surrounded by words such as “power”, “wisdom” and “strong.” | A syntagym of indexical signs such as “Power”, “Wisdom” and “Strong” in conjunction with the picture, that does not conform to the stereotypical portrayal of women in media, form counterstereotypes. |
Language
Semiotics:
A syntagm of indexical signs throughout the words in conjunction with the picture that do not conform to the stereotypical portrayal of women in the media and form counterstereotypes, such as “Power”, “wisdom”, “strong”
Narratology:
Genre:
Structuralism:
Postmodernism:
Representation
Identity:
Explores things that conglomerates usually divert attention from, such as Gauntlets idea of identity such as some androgynous style choices on the front cover model, such as the clothing that doesn’t exploit the models body for sales and profit attracted by the male gaze.
The capitalised “Sister” creates a collective identity towards the target audience, a group- a sisterhood where readers come together and create.
Feminist critical thinking:
Repeated words like this create a semantic field of power of femininity in the media, that counters the stereotypical weak and venerable traditional representation of women that have been embedded in society through repeated exposure to mass media products with those conventions included.
Gender:
Ethnicity:
The magazine includes a diverse range of religion, race and age
Industries
Cultural Industries:
Oh, Comely is an independent media organisation
Regulation:
Audiences
Media uses:
Media effects:
Consumption of media:
Gerbners theory on mainstreaming suggests the excessive consumption of media products the more you will conform to the medias ideologies, therefore by promoting a range of diversity throughout Oh Comely’s magazine’s they’re contributing to recreating the dominant reading (via theory of preferred reading by Stewart hall) that has been mass presented throughout media as reactionary stereotypes to create a common enemy in the media (common enemy via Chomsky five filters of mass media).
Gerbners can also be used to show representation throughout the magazine, he argues that nothing has a representation until the media represents it to try and create a fixed meaning to which the audience can argue against; for example people being perceived as trouble makers from repeated stereotypes of them represented in the media- we can see how Oh Comely tries to oppose the reactionary representations that have been displayed in the media and recreate them as strong.