Assesment

 Explain how viewpoints and ideologies are communicated by the media language used in adverts. Refer to Source C to support your answer.

The advertising industry is a powerful and important industry that can shape and create ideas that are then pushed onto audiences and consumers who see these adverts. In the UK in 2024, the advertising industry saw a total spend of £42.6billion, because this industry is worth so much, brands want to make sure that the messages and ideas they are pushing out are meaningful and effective.  Within the industry, certain brands can create different ideas and values by forming a narrative which they will then include in their adverts. 

Dove are a beauty and personal care brand who focus on uplifting women and promoting self confidence, since 2004, Dove have had central idea that is key to their success. 'Real Beauty' is the tagline used, this brand focuses not on supermodels and celebrities in their adverts, but real people and real lives. This campaign focuses on reality, diversity and body confidence, ideas that are not well represented within the media and within the beauty industry. Within the campaign, Dove showed that, 81% of moms question if what they're doing is good enough and 99% of moms feel pressure to be perfect, Dove challenge this and show that not every life is perfect.

Within Source C, Dove have used a real family, no celebrity endorsement, no supermodels, but a real mom in a real scenario, showing that not everyone lives a perfect life. Dove have also not used a stereotypical white family, ethnicity is represented positively and promotes diversity and challenges how Asian family is often underrepresented in media and advertising. In the top left corner is the Dove tagline, 'Real life. Real beauty', the repetition of 'real' in their tagline emphasizes that this is not fake, this is reality and highlights that not every family has perfectly behaving children and a super clean house. The use of the sans-serif fonts helps to create an impactful, bold message that should be taken seriously by the audience as this is a real issue that needs to be looked at. The camera shot used in this advert is a wide shot, which places the audience into this scenario, we are more likely to feel empathy with the mother who is having to deal with all of the chaos that is happening, but it also helps to show a wider location, the kitchen, as this shot doesn't focus on just one or two people, but all four of them, and the background. The background which shows a nice kitchen with a full fridge which suggests that these children, despite all of the chaos, are well looked after. 

This advert will appeal to mothers who also live a life like this, it helps to push this message across to the audience and reassure moms around the world that what they are doing is great and that they shouldn't strive to be this perfect image that is often showed in the beauty industry. This advert represents women as the main caregiver, the parent who does most of the work, whilst the father might be doing something else, this links with the theory of Liesbet Van Zoonen, which suggests that we live in a patriarchal society dominated by men, and women are seen as objects or for motherhood and care for children. A negotiated reading may see this advert and argue why the father isn't shown, but accept that the women is often seen as the main caregiver within a family.

Overall, the advert and the media language techniques used positions the audience to subvert what is 'the norm' in the beauty industry and understand that real life should be shown rather than constructing a false narrative that everything is perfect, as in real life that is rarely the case. This advert shows that big brands such as Dove can help to change ideas and help construct new, positive viewpoints and encourage reality within advertising.

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Use terms like subverts, conventions, ideology