Tide Theoretical Approaches

Question 1

Roland Barthes

Semiotics

Answer 1

• suspense is created through the enigma of what women want (Barthes hermeneutics code) and emphasised by the tension building use of multiple exdamation marks (proairetic code)
• Barthes semantic code would be applied to the use of hearts above the main image. The hearts and the women’s gesture codes have connotations of love and relationships. It’s connoted that this is what women want
• hyperbole and superlatives (“miracle”, “worlds cleanest wash”) as well as tripling (“no other”) are used to oppose the connoted superior cleaning power of tide to its competitors
• this symbolic code (Barthes) was clearly successful as protector and gambles competitor products were rapidly overtaken, making tide the brand leader by the mid-1950s

Question 2

Levi-Strauss

Structuralism

Answer 2

• texts are constructed through the use of binary opposites, and meaning is made by audiences understanding theses conflicts
• in this text “tide gets clothes cleaner than any other washday product you can buy!” And “there’s nothing like procter and gambles tide” reinforces the conceptual binary opposites between tide and it’s commercial rivals
• it’s also “unlike soap” gets laundry “whiter…than any soap or washing product known” and is “truly safe” - all of which connoted that other, inferior products do not offer what tide does

Question 3

Stuart Halls

Theory of representation

Answer 3

• the images of domesticity (including the two women hanging out the laundry) from part of the “shared conceptual road map” that give meaning to the world of the advert. Despite its comic strip visual, construction, the scenario represented is familiar to the audience as a representation of their own lives

Question 4

David Gauntlett

Theory of Identity

Answer 4

Women represented in the advert act as role models of domestic perfection that the audience may want to construct their own sense of identity against

Question 5

Van Zoonen

Feminist theory

Answer 5

While their role sodally and politically may have changed in the proceeding war years, the advert perhaps contradicts Van Zoonens theory that the media contribute to social change by representing women in non-traditional roles and using non-sexist language

Question 6

bell hooks

Feminist theory

Answer 6

Argues that lighter skinned women are considered more desireble and fit better to the western ideology of beauty and the advert could be seen to reinforce this by only representing modern white women

Question 7

Gilroy

Ethnicity and post-colonial theory

Answer 7

Media texts reinforce colonial power. Hence the total domination of Caucasian characters within the media text. Contextually, this power has perhaps been challenged at this moment in American history by the events of ww11