Adbusters textual analysis 'Red soles are always in season' double page spread

 Adbusters (2016) textual analysis 'Red soles are always in season' double page spread

In what ways does Adbusters construct its target audience?

How does Adbusters use subversive representations to position its audiences?

Counter-cultural, niche magazine.  - Atypical and unconventional to hegemonic magazines, the opposite to Woman (August 1964)

Why is Woman magazine so basic? 

It's purpose is to make money. It constructs simplistic, representations of its target audience. Obedient middle-class white housewives, they cook, clean, etc.

Adbusters on the other hand is a polysemic, complex magazine, with complex messages. It isn't basic like Woman. That said, it /still/ constructs a target audience, of activists. A demographic of people who have a social conscience, involved in politics/change in the world, etc. This is far broader than the single preferred target audience of Woman.

Adbusters breaks the rules of representations of gender, ethnicity, etc. Arguably done so to position the audience in an uncomfortable, compromising mode of address. 

Magazines, conventionally are sold on a set release period (every week (Woman), month, yearly, etc.) 

Meanwhile, Adbusters deliberately challenges for-profit, capitalist ideologies, avoids any form of anchorage that would make the audience feel more comfortable. 

Assumes the target audience are educated, informed upon the context of socio-political events, and popular brands.

TLDR:

Capitalist ideological perspectives are subverted throughout Adbusters.

- Lack of anchorage

- Explicit Anti-capitalist ideology

-  Lack thereof brand identity, e.g. a consistent masthead.

- Deliberately upsetting, and confrontational mode of address.

- Deliberately low production values

- cover price is unclear and arbitrary changes.

- Not for profit: No adverts to maximise its revenue. (Juxtaposes Creme Puff ad in Woman)

- Lack of clear, stereotypical representations of gender identity. (Ala, Woman.)

Cultural capital - Your knowledge of culture, luxury goods, etc.

You need an awareness of what Lou Boutin shoes are for the 'advertisement' to make sense. The lack thereof anchorage.

We are told nothing. We just assume, from the MES of the person's skin colour, dirt, sand and rocks that this is Africa.

 ''Red Soles are always in season''  combined with the image, gives it all a different meaning. Its anchorage has changed. Detournement.

Detournement - meaning "rerouting, hijacking" in French, an artistic practice conceived by the Situationists for transforming artworks by creatively disfiguring them. 

Diametrically opposed ideological perspectives. 

Binary oppositions of poverty, versus richness.

Black and white versus colour

Fear versus calmness

shabbiness versus high fashion

violence versus peace

Again. We are not told who the people framed in the top image are. However, the anchorage and the repertoire of elements may suggest that they are refugees, fleeing from a war-torn environment.

This is an example of viewers being affected by intertextuality. We have seen images like this before in places like the news, in photo stories within newspapers.  The same can be said for what we presume is likely a female runway model strutting down a catwalk. Again, we are informed based upon intertextuality. 

We've seen runway models on fashion shows, social media, etc. We are aware of what they look like.

Adbusters consistently uses diametrically opposed binary oppositions like the two mentioned, to deliberately try and confuse the audience, and position them in an uncomfortable mode of address. 

What are we as the viewer supposed to do with the information we've absorbed looking at this piece?

Recontextualised Lou Boutin shoes from their usual anchorage in media as luxurious, by anchoring its logo to the low-production image of a damaged person's feet, with water bottles as shoes. 

Close-up shot of weathered, worn-in feet. Absolute luxury binary opposed to absolute poverty -> extremely uncomfortable mode of address for the viewer. Forces the target audience to confront immense poverty.

Who's fault is it someone is living in this horrible poor state? We're informed through anchorage to an extent.

Perhaps Adbusters is arguing in our capitalist society where the rich get richer, the poor must get poorer. Other people are suffering, so someone else can have fancy shoes to wear a few times before they break.  --> Anchorage/ Dark humour.

The preferred reading of the piece is anger, frustration with the hegemonic status quo. All as a result of the harsh, difficult to swallow mode of address.

It's up to the viewer to decide if Adbusters is really effectively having a positive impact on the messages it is raising to it's target audience. Or if it isn't in fact, hypocritical for critiquing Capitalist,  consumerism. But then inherently being a product of such itself. -- Isn't the lack thereof a brand identity, an identity in of itself?

Subversive representations -> Audience positioned in uncomfortable mode of address.