INTRODUCING MEDIA LANGUAGE... 

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First organ transplant 1950s

Colour TV was born 1951

Seat belts are introduced

1952 

Disneyland opens, McDonald's is

founded 1955

Remote control was invented 

1956

What happened in the 1950s? 

First…draw your idea of a woman in the 1950s…

Brief History 

What were the roles of Woman? 

Housekeeping and raising a family were

considered ideal female roles during

the 1950s

However, working women had yet to

attain many positions of influence

By 1956, 35 percent of all adult women

were members of the labor force, and

nearly a quarter of all married women were

working.More women were entering the work-place as well as a

result of World War 2.

With marriage and birthrates booming,

women were becoming wives and

mothers at unimaginable levels.

Rising Opportunities  Media views 

Many women were torn between traditional expectations and the opportunities available to them.

With a wife making most of the family's purchases, it made sense that she also controlled the family

finances. 

 By the 1950s only a few women held

national office: out of the 531 members of Congress in 1956, 16

were women. Since women bought 65 to 80 percent of all

goods sold in the United States,

advertisements and product designs were frequently aimed at feminine concerns

While advertisers continued to depict women as domestic servants, real women were finding fulfillment in jobs, volunteer work, and social

organizations as well as homemaking.

T  I  D  E   What is Tide? Tide is a laundry/ detergent manufactured by Procter & Gamble, introduced in 1946.Why was it designed? ...for heavy-duty, machine cleaning. 

Media LanguageThe way in which the

meaning of a media text is conveyed to the

audience. 

One of the ways Media Language works is to

convey meaning through signs and symbols

suggested by the way a scene is set up and filmed.

SemioticsHow meaning is

constructed through language and codes. 

Firstly there is the "Signifier which is what is there in front of us, what we see and the form the

sign takes. 

Then there is the "signified" which is an

idea associated with the signifier – the concept it

represents.

Ferdinand de Saussure 

 a Swiss linguist and semiotician. His ideas laid a foundation for many

significant developments in

both linguistics and semiology in the 20th century

Tide advertisements from the around the

1950s only portrayed woman as washing the

laundry. 

They fit right into the category of women

being somewhat degrading in

comparison to men

Women are shown cleaning and showing

off the “miracle tide".

This advertisement presents fast, effective and

"miracle" results. 

The use of the tagline categorizes women as it is suggested that all

women want the same thing. 

The main image of the woman hugging

"Tide" suggests happiness and love as

well as a close relationship – she

doesn’t want to let it go. 

AUDIENCETARGET

PERSUASION

The use of the colour red connotates love - emotionally intense

colourThe women smiling suggests happiness and joy because of

the product advertised 

"The Perfect Woman“, the ideal image – audiences would

admire her.

The popular use of exclamation marks

evokes excitement – note of admiration – and feeling of astonishment

and surprise of the amazing results of TIDE.

The repetition of the word "tide" reminds the audience of the brand – drilling the idea of buying the

product in their head – encourages fast

selling – use of hyperbole.Direct address –

personal - involves and engages the

reader and drawing the audience to buy

th product

VISUAL CODES

Visual codes are seen in the TIDE from the 1950s. The target audience will unintentionally identify the clothing she is wearing; it is pure white which symbolises cleanliness – enhancing the main concept of the product.

In addition, the advert overall is very colourful and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. This allows the reader to be drawn in.

The red text enables them to quickly understand the advert and what it is about.

The choice of colours are simplistic yet effective

The red typography symbolises the red box & packaging of the actual product.

The key phrases are highlighted in red such as ‘cleanest’, ‘whitest’ & ‘brightens’ so that the audience will notice these key terms first which positively promotes the product.

The white background again reinforces the element of cleanliness, complementing the initial idea of this concept from her clothing etc. overall.

LAYOUT AND DESIGN How is the advert constructed? Where are the images and text placed? What effect does this make?

CENTRAL IMAGE Why has it been chosen? What does it communicate?

TYPOGRAPHY AND GRAPICS What can you say about the font style? How does the graphics help persuade the audience?

COLOUR What do the colours suggests? Is it part of the branding?

LANGUAGE AND MODE OF ADDRESS How does the advert “speak” to its audience? Is it a hard sell or a soft sell advert?

ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS What attitudes and beliefs are conveyed? Does the product advertise that it will change you life?

ANALYSIS

AUDIENCES1950’s to Present Day

Audiences in the 1950’s ◦ In the 1950’s the target audience of a product was very different to today’s day in

age.

This is due to reasons such as… 1950’s◦ Stereotypes ◦ Social contexts of audience ◦ Technology Breakthroughs

Today’s

Stereotypes in 1950’s Audiences

◦ What do all of these have in common? They all depict housewives.

◦ The stereotype around the housewife was that they always wore lots of make up and loved doing all of the washing hence the many print adverts that show women hugging washing detergent.

◦ Also, if you look at the ethnicity of all of the women in adverts shown and if you look online you will find that all of them are Caucasian so this could be seen as a stereotype also it reinforces the bell hook’s feminists theory that lighter skinned women are considered more desirable.

Social contexts of the audiences.◦When the Tide advert came out in the early1950’s the world had been several years

removed from the devastating World War 2 in which women played a pivotal part in medical, engineering and driving work. After this the housewife stereotype kicked in to full effect all across the advertising scene in the USA.

◦However, over 60 years times have changed and with that so have stereotypes and although the stereotype does still exist it is less prominent and used in a less extreme way. We now live in a time where technology dominates the life’s of the human being and many stereotypes are now created by the media.

How technology breakthroughs affected the new era of audience With the introduction of dishwashers and liquid washing capsules have rendered manual washing redundant or just extra effort and energy. Also, washing up powders have been replaced by more liquid based products.

The brand Tide itself has seen a major decrease in popularity over the years with brands such as Ariel, Fairy and Surf booming in popularity and taking over the screens of the masses as Tide faded off shelves across the world.

REPRESENTATION

Representation ◦ •Women were seen as secondary citizens to men◦ •Their primary purpose was to cook, clean and cook after the home which this print

adverts conveys. The woman is hugging the product which implies that this is the one thing she wants in her life. As an audience we are able to decode this message from the advert.

◦ •The advert may have been constructed in this way to suit society's view of women at this time. this may therefore have appealed to the company's target audience.

◦ •there are also pink hearts coming off of the washing powder. This could link tot he stereotypical colours and images associated with women and the idea that at this time they were expected to clean and nothing else.

◦ •As well as this, women at this time were seen to be overly emotional which could be another reason why the women in this advert was presented in this way.

Representation continued

“Women were twice as likely as men to be in commercials for domestic products and men were twice as likely as women to be in adverts for non-domestic products” In the past media products tended to convey straightforward messages about the ideal types of male and female identities.- David Gauntlett’s theory of representation.

Thanks for watching!◦Now please take our end of presentation Kahoot!

◦ https://create.kahoot.it/#quiz/90612e98-181b-4b4a-97ba-68ffb1ea4026