Initial Investigation Ideas!

I have decided to look at fashion advertisements, comparing 30 adverts from the 1950's with 30 from 2013. I have chosen the magazine 'Harpers Bazaar' to source these advertisements as I feel this will give more reliability, due to the magazine appealing to a similar target audience, despite the change in time period. I expect to find that advertisements from the 1950's will use more explicit forms of persuasive techniques, including explicit sexism, whereas advertisements from 2013 will use implicatures to relay a similar persuasive message.

To collect my data, I went to an antique market and found a 'Harpers Bazaar' from 1959. This meant that I would not have to source my advertisements from the internet, allowing me to know that the data was more reliable. I also purchased a 'Harpers Bazaar' from 2013 and took the first 30 written advertisements of each. I decided to select 30 advertisements from both, as this would be a big enough data pool to represent this type of fashion magazine, and because both magazines had roughly 30 written advertisements from cover to cover. By picking the first 30, I included all full page, and half page advertisements, as well as the majority of other smaller adverts.

I plan to look at the use of persuasive techniques within the advertisements and whether it is explicit or implied, direct or indirect. I have chosen this as I think that modern advertisements will have to use implication to tempt the reader. This is because in 2013, in the UK, we are exposed to a huge amount of advertising, making us feel as though everyone wants to sell us their product, even if it isn’t as great as it claims to be. To combat this, writers will have to be more subtle with their persuasive element and use a wider range of persuasive technique to be memorable.