Print Media - The Big Issue

The Big Issue

Representation

Task analyse this advert

Colour - The background is yellow, which represents happiness, The colour is also saturated

Type of shot - Mid shot, of the upper body

Angle - Looking up kinda making her seem more impressive and important

Focus - The focus is split between the text and the woman on the image, showing that the clearly relate to each other.

The depth of Field - Everything

Mise-en-scene - The expression of the woman is a cliche, and is not realistic

    Body Language - The body language is supposed to be attractive and desirable, at least in the eyes      of the media

    Props - The costume is revealing and yellow

    Location - the location is just a photo studio

    Lighting - The lighting is bright yet muted because the woman is in black and white

Realism - This shot is not very realistic at all because the expression and the body language is not something that someone would do in real life

Narrative - The advert is for women, who want to lose weight and tone up, by using a protein supplement

Use of Text - "Are you beach body ready" Not small eye-catching, attempting to persuade people to buy the product

The Big Issue

Statement

The Big Issue offers people facing poverty and exclusion the opportunity to earn their own money; a livelihood. The Big Issue Foundation is an independent charity working alongside the magazine distribution network. We aim to maximize the success of each vendor’s selling career and engage them with opportunities to address the issues that have bought them to us in the first instance or issues that have arisen as a result of their experiences of poverty, social and financial exclusion.

We offer vendors opportunities of a life and seek to empower them through their finances and beyond; be it securing a safe place to live, reconnecting with loved ones, tackling health issues or embarking on training and development opportunities. It can be as little as 12 months from a significant life event to losing everything and arriving on the street. Last year we recorded the achievements of over 2000 vendors, focusing on programmes of work that seek to establish financial stability and inclusion. The financial journey of each vendor are the building blocks of success in terms of further socially orientated objectives, the catalyst for personal change and an escape from the poverty of each person’s situation.

Our mission

To connect every Big Issue vendor to the support and personal solutions that enable them to rebuild their lives and determine their own pathways to a better future.

Our vision

To create opportunities that will end poverty and exclusion for Big Issue vendors.

Right Wing Papers

Daily Mail

The Telegraph

Left Wing Paper

Daily Mirror

Guardian

How is this migrant group represented by the right-wing press

They are represented as the antagonists, not as victims. They were sent home, but one of them was compensated as he had a job. However, this is not seen as a good thing but as a miscarriage of justice.

Task 4

The homeless are represented as victims who need to be helped. This is achieved by them having said the things that they did say and that.

In Bob we Trust

Discuss whether in your view the representation of the homeless is stereotypical or counter stereotypical.

The question is task seven on the powerpoint on Friday

Bob is meant to represent hope and is meant to give the audience someone to believe in. The colours in the picture are a mixture of saturated and muted. The red is muted, but the yellow is saturated. The blue in the background is also muted and is meant to highlight and draw attention to Bob. Bob himself is a vivid, yet muted orange and white, but still look extremely cute :3. The main message behind this picture is that Bob is here to help people and that we can "trust" him

However, the image on the front cover of the Big Issue (above) is also very important for this depiction. The colours of the image, for example, are important. The yellow of the words "In Bob We Trust" is important because yellow represents the emotion of happiness and joy. The red of Bob's scarf, the blue background. They are all saturated colours and help to depict James and Bob as a hero and someone who can be looked up to. The unfocused light around Bob's feet as well as the white floor and the fact that the direction of the light on Bob, they all make him look like a saviour and make him look divine. This links back to the words "In Bob We Trust", which is a play on the words "In God We Trust".

Most media studies on poverty point in the direction of a recurring observation that usually the poor are presented in one of two contrasting frames: the ‘deserving poor’ and the ‘undeserving poor’.
While the frame of deserving poor employs a sympathetic treatment of the poor, the frame of the undeserving poor is built upon the rhetoric of deficiency in individuals who are portrayed as a burden on the taxpayer due to their dependency on welfare policies
(see also, scroungerphobia, Golding & Middleton, 1982) This, however, is not how Bob is supposed to be portrayed and is not how he is pot rayed.