Rain for Good Advert
Significance of subverting genre conventions:
Semiotics – Roland Barthes
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How media language influences meaning:
Structuralism – Claude Lévi-Strauss
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Selection and Combination:
Social context
David Gauntlett’s theory of identity
Claudia acts as a role model for the type of lifestyle changes that the audience could be responsible for creating if they donate to Water Aid. |
Stuart Hall’s theory of representation
The images of a dry, dusty African environment in which people may be struggling to survive form part of the “shared conceptual road map” that give meaning to the “world” of the advert. The more positive audio codes then work to challenge these stereotypical representations, creating enigmas around why Claudia appears to be so positive. The solution to these enigmas is given to the audience at 01.00 when we first see the water pump. Liesbet Van Zoonen’s feminist theory
By assuming the stereotypically male roles of ‘protagonist’ and ‘provider’, Claudia is perhaps contributing to social change by representing women in non-traditional roles. The work involved in collecting the water is physically challenging (non-traditional for female roles) though the advert does reinforce stereotypes of women being associated with care of children. • Gilroy’s ethnicity and post-colonial theories that media texts reinforce colonial power could A level Media Studies – Set Product Fact Sheet 3 be applied, as Water Aid is encouraging its British audience to ‘help’ those like Claudia who live in ‘less developed’ countries. |
Social/cultural context:
In December 2016, this advert had been viewed about 47 000 times on Water Aid’s YouTube channel and this page also actively encourages the sharing of the advert through social networks. Further evidence that the likely target audience are literate with technology is that donations are encouraged through the imperative “Text SUNNY to 70555” and the use on the YouTube page of a twitter hashtag (#ShareSunshine). The advert’s cover of Zoe’s 1990 song Sunshine On A Rainy Day could indicate that the target audience are in their 30s–40s as they’re likely to remember the original and get pleasure from the nostalgic value of hearing a song with which they’re familiar. Consider theoretical perspectives:
Reception theory – Stuart Hall • The use of handheld camera shots and indirect mode of address made by Claudia connote that the audience is following her story, but Water Aid rather than she herself have constructed this narrative for us. This, according to Hall, is the dominant or hegemonic encoding created by Water Aid. • The fact that she’s named creates the preferred reading that she is a real person and that the audience should invest in her narrative, sharing Water Aid’s ideologies. |
Consider how industries target audiences, and how audiences interpret and use the media:
• The likely audience demographic is constructed through the advert’s use of a young woman with whom they might personally identify (Uses and Gratifications Theory). Parents might make similar readings, identifying empathetically with the ‘better life’ that Water Aid’s clean water provides for the children represented in the advert. • Water Aid acts as an Opinion Leader for the target audience who would assume the “650 million people…” statistic (01.14) is true and reliable. • The unconventionally positive visual codes, audio codes and representations would, the producers hope, give the advert unique selling points compared to other charity appeals and therefore make the audience more likely to donate. Cultivation theory – George Gerbner
• This theory might suggest that audiences have become used to the conventions of this sub-genre of advertising and perhaps somewhat ‘immune’ to pleading, earnest nondiegetic voiceovers by well-known voices and black and white, slow-motion, emotive representations of people suffering. • The target audience’s likely liberal political perspectives will have been shaped by exposure to previous, generically similar adverts, shaping their world view that the suffering of people less fortunate than themselves can be alleviated by charitable donations. |