Analysing the Big Issue

Go to Moodle and click on the folder titled: Big Issue education front cover
Class Action/Intertextuality

• When one media product ("text") is only understood in relation to another media product ("text")

Intertextuality on "Class Action" cover:

• Harry Potter: Harry, Ron, Hermione
• Handmaid's Tale: Offred
• Benedict Cumberbatch: Hollywood actor
• Ozzy Osbourne: Rock Star
• Miss Jean Brodie: Schoolmistress

The Big Issue - Theories around representation

Barthes and semiotics

• Denotation
• Connotation
• Anchorage
• What this tells us about who/what is represented

Hall and ideology

• Hall believes that the media reflects dominant ideologies, and the majority of mass media artefacts reinforce generally agreed messages around gender, culture / ethnicity, consumerism, the family, social class and so on. Some artefacts are polysemic (more than two meanings), but most have a limited number of readings, favouring a preferred audience reading.
• Some audiences take a negotiated position.
• A small minority might make an oppositional reading.

Prince William Front Cover

• Dominant: "Prince Charming", Archetype, Privilege - royal
• Oppositional: Republican - Anti-monarchy, What does the prince know about homelessness

Bake Off Front Cover

• Intertextuality - to Trump
• Dominant: Britishness - a "mythical" version, safe, homely
• Oppositional: all white, not diverse

Gauntlett - a post modern approach

• Identity is complicated
• Building your own identity. No fixed representations
• Post-modern/ mix and match approach
• Might link to intertextuality: explicit reference to other media products, where the meaning is only apparent in reference to this other text (inter-text).

Van zoonen and Hooks: feminist theories

• Van Zoonen: Women’s bodies as objects
• Men’s bodies as spectacle
• Gender performativity: what we do rather than what we are
• Gender is contextual
• Bell Hooks: intersectionality. (Black female) audience to develop an “oppositional gaze.” This refuses to identify with characters

Madonna Front Cover

• Portfolio - objectified, sexual
• Contrasts with Big Issue where "uncovered" does not link to her sexuality and she is visibly older.

Gilroy and post-colonialism

• Diaspora* has constructed a transatlantic culture
• “Other”ness: most non-white representations emphasise otherness (from white, middle-class, male dominant representations), rather than any inherent characteristics
• (* originates from the movement of Jewish people from middle east Europe, later USA. Refers now to movement of immigrants to the west.)

The Big Issue Notes

Notes

• In 1991, John Bird and Gordon Roddick (founder of the Body Shop cruelty-free toiletries) founded the Big Issue.
• Made "A Publishing Revolution".
• Social Enterprise - a business that makes profit, but has social benefits
• Sold over 200 million copies in the UK since 1991.
• Expended their business portfolio and expanded their brand to the big issue shop which sells products with a social agenda
• The big issue invest is also another brand extension which invests in other social enterprise
• They buy products and doubles the amount

"Ethical Capitalism" - John Bird - making profit, but morally right

"A hand up, not a hand out" - John Bird

"Social exclusion" - refers to those outside of society. Mentally ill, homeless, offenders, addicts

UGC - User Generated Content

The Big Issue