Advertising assessment learner response

Learner response 

) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential).

WWW- Good range of theories and keywords used.

EBI - Lose focus on gender in Q3 and more on ethnicity

2) Read the whole mark scheme for this assessment carefully. Identify at least one potential point that you missed out on for each question in the assessment.

1- Stereotypical ideals of beauty – slim, twenty-something, white.

2- Emphasis on traditional hegemonic masculinity perhaps a reaction against the gains made by women during the 1960s culminating in the Equal Pay Act in 1970.

3- Social and ethnic hierarchies: the belief that certain groups or races are superior to others.

3) Look at your answer and the mark scheme for Question 1 (Diamonds advert unseen text). List three examples of media terminology or theory that you could have included in your answer. 

• Armani ‘Diamonds’ advert constructs a traditional, hypermasculine message – fiercely heterosexual. Suit, white shirt, tie – classic masculine mise-en-scene.

• Monochrome (black and white) – stylish, sophisticated, reinforces traditional heterosexual meanings; consistent with aspirational branding. Low-key lighting, ‘chiaroscuro’, backlighting visible in shot – suggests stage lights/spotlights, fashion show?

• Costume barely visible for female models – flesh on display. Heavily made-up faces – constructed/Photoshopped image. Links to Kilbourne’s analysis of women in advertising.

4) Look at your answer and the mark scheme for Question 2. What aspects of the cultural and historical context for the Score hair cream advert do you need to revise or develop in future?

• Advert does not support Gauntlett’s suggestion there has been a “decline of tradition” – this is a very traditional representation of masculinity.

• Representation of gender reinforces Judith Butler’s idea of gender as performance – dominant/submissive gender roles clearly reinforced in construction of advert.

• Does Armani advert fail to reflect social and cultural changes or does this mean social and cultural changes have been less significant than first assumed?

5) Now look over your mark, comments and the mark scheme for Question 3 - the 9-mark question on Sephora Black Beauty Is Beauty. List any postcolonial terminology you could have added to your answer here.  

• ‘Othering’ or racial otherness: Paul Gilroy suggests non-white representations are constructed as a ‘racial other’ in contrast to white Western ideals.

• Racial essentialism: This refers to the linking of a person’s cultural and racial heritage to a place of national origin. It is also used to suggest that people from a certain heritage are ‘all the same’ and therefore to make value judgements about people from certain backgrounds.

• Double consciousness: Paul Gilroy used the term double consciousness to reflect the Black experience in the UK and USA. One aspect is living in a predominantly white culture and having an aspect of identity rooted somewhere else. He describes this as a “liquidity of culture”. He also uses it to highlight the disconnect between black representations in the media and actual lived experience. Often, these representations are created by white producers.

• Cultural conviviality: This refers to the real-world multiculturalism and racial harmony that most people experience on a day-to-day basis. It is in stark contrast to the racial disharmony and binary view often presented by the media.