November 2016

Paper 1 (HL)

Text C is a 1947 car advertisement for the Chevrolet Motor Division. Text D, similarly, advertises a new Chevrolet car; published in 2007, the text advertises the Chevy Volt. Both of the texts function, primarily, to attract new customers. The texts position readers as consumers, and aim to entice them, through a combination of visual and written modes, to purchase new Chevrolet cars. Text C accentuates those elements of the car associated with its aesthetics and reputation for branding. Text D, by contrast, focuses more on the car with a particular understanding for its role in the context of environmental concern. Both texts play on ideas of consumption and consumerism, asking readers to identify and desire objects.

Understanding the texts requires an awareness of their particular contexts of production. There exists, between Text C and Text D, a time gap of 50 years, and this difference has relevance for understanding how the consumer/reader is situated and understood. Text C was originally published in America in 1947 in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Text D is possibly best described as a contemporary text, published less than a decade ago. Text C could be regarded as androcentric, unsurprising in the patriarchal social structure that dominated 1940s America. Text D demonstrates a thematic concern with corporate environmental responsibility. It isn’t surprising that in the contemporary period, with increased environmental awareness, advertisements such as Text D should exploit this concern, even where, in this instance, conflating the manufacture of cars with a desire for environmental sustainability seems paradoxical.

The central image of Text C together with supporting illustrations work to venerate the car. The juxtaposition of the car and the mountains in the countryside allows for and encourages a comparison between nature and machine. The advertisement seems to suggest the superiority of the mechanized world over the natural world by the central situation of the car on the page as it dominates the space in its vibrant colour. This dominance of the vehicle over nature (a notion challenged in Text D) is reinforced by the size of the vehicle. It seems monstrous in proportion, appearing to be almost the same size as the backgrounded mountains.

The supporting images in Text C are miniaturized. Each image features a man, providing insight into the preferred reader for the text. The supporting line, ‘people are saying’ is deliberately vague, allowing an interpretative space for the reader, but the presence of men dressed in different kinds of work attire reaffirms the idea that the text really targets an adult male reader. It seems obvious that the text should favour men since they are generally associated with an interest in cars and would, in 1940s America, be the ‘breadwinner’ in most families. The only females in the text are in the car, but this does not afford them dominance as they are being viewed directly by two male onlookers and indirectly by the male reader of the advertisement. Women, in this perspective, are given parallel status to the car, where both may be regarded as objects to be desired.

Text D, on the other hand, is an advertisement published in landscape. Different from Text C, the advertisement has a dominant image, but much less written text. Unlike Text C, Text D has machine and the natural world situated side-by-side. This is a significant shift from Text C. Whilst Text C celebrates the conquest of nature, Text D suggests that cars and the natural world can (and possibly must) co-exist. The visual text highlights how business has an impact on its employees, the environment and the community. The faded image of the Earth – portrayed as vulnerable and fragile – placed carefully in human hands develops connotations of care and responsibility. On the right the reader sees the foregrounded image of the car about to be struck by lightening. The lightening connects with the brand image of the car, linking it to the elements of nature. This detail again suggests that the car is developed to exist harmoniously with nature, an idea reinforced by the car and lightening appearing in identical colours.

In contrast to Text C, Text D excludes the presence of other humans, and this may be considered a broadening of appeal to an increasingly diverse American audience (including financially independent women). Appealing to a wider readership in a more ethnically diverse society makes sense where the function of the text is to increase car sales, but it may also reflect a changed ideology and a turn to political correctness, where patriarchal dominance no longer goes unchallenged. Since there are no humans in the text, any reader can potentially read him or herself into the role of desired reader.

The centred slogan in Text D, ‘Change the battery. Change the world’, addresses the reader directly in its imperative syntax. This form of language, assuming authority to command the reader, is typical of the text type and builds on relatively recent findings of the relationship between car emissions and greenhouse gases. The slogan suggests that the reader must work towards environmental sustainability by drawing attention to the illustration of planet Earth. The position of the slogan highlights the seemingly backgrounded image. The language of the slogan makes for a memorable, catchy saying. The alliteration and reiterating sentence structure reinforces the relationship of machine and nature. In these ways, the consumer identity of the car company and car are consolidated, and readers are encouraged to situate themselves as consumers, but consumers with an environmental consciousness who are aware of how their consumption choices impact of the world.

The slogan in Text C however appeals to an entirely different system of values. There are two slogans that seem to suggest the idea of more for less: ‘big-car quality at lowest cost’ and ‘bigger looking, better looking’. The first of these slogans uses the superlative form ‘lowest’, and the second uses the comparative forms ‘bigger’ and ‘better’. The repetition, alliteration, and rhythmic quality of the second slogan is particularly interesting as the aesthetic qualities of the language are so memorable that the reader may be inclined to forget ask, ‘bigger and better looking than what?’ The focus on cost is, in any case, interesting. Following the Second World War, the US economy was being driven by consumption, but consumers did not necessarily have lots of money to spend.

A further main difference between the texts is in the overall tone. There is a cosier and chatty tone suggested in Text C. Text D, however, with its imperative language seems more aggressive and assertive. Text C seems to encourage the reader to want the car and the freedoms it offers, whilst Text D highlights the need for environmental responsibility.