Red Time is Me-Time: Advertising, Ambivalence, and Women's Magazines

This study explores the concept of self for women in consumer culture, as it is played out in an experiential advertising campaign for a U.K. women's magazine called Red. The study qualitatively explores the tensions and ambivalences experienced by female participants in response to a campaign using the notion of self-indulgence and "me time" as they experience it in the context of their everyday lives. It shows how women attempt to reconcile the mixed emotions that the Red campaign evokes in them.

Defining the nation, defining public television: discourses of publics on public service television in post-communist Latvia

Institutional and political economy approaches have long dominated the study of post-Communist public broadcasting, as well as the entire body of post-Communist media transformations research, and the enquiry into publics of public broadcasting has traditionally been neglected. Though media scholars like to talk about a deep crisis in the relationship between public broadcasters and their publics in former Communist bloc countries across Central and Eastern Europe, little has been done to understand the relationship between public broadcasters and their publics in these societies drawing on qualitative audience research tradition. Building on Hirschman’s influential theory of ‘exit, voice and loyalty’, which made it possible to see viewing choices audiences make as an act of agency, in combination with theoretical tools developed within the framework of social constructionist approaches to national imagination and broadcasting, my study focuses on the investigation of responses publics of the Latvian public television LTV have developed vis-à-vis its role as contributing to the nation-building project in this ex-Soviet Baltic country. With the help of focus groups methodology and family ethnography, the thesis aims to explore the relationship between the way members of the ethno-linguistic majority of Latvian-speakers and the sizeable ethno-linguistic minority of Russian-speakers conceptualize the public broadcaster LTV, as well as understand the concept of public broadcasting more generally, and the way they define the national ‘we’. The study concludes that what I call publics of LTV employ Hirschman’s described exit mechanism as a voice-type response. Through their rejection of public television which, for a number of complex reasons they consider to be a state broadcaster serving the interests of those in power they voice their protest against the country’s political establishment and in the case of its Russian-speaking publics also against the government’s ethno-nationalistic conception of the national ‘we’. I also find that though having exited from the public broadcaster LTV, its publics have not abandoned the idea of public broadcasting as such. At least at a normative level the public broadcasting ideals are recognized, accepted and valued, though they are not necessarily associated with the country’s de jure institutional embodiment of public broadcasting LTV. Rejection of the public television has also not made its non-loyal publics ‘less citizens’. The commercial rivals of LTV, be they national or, in the case of Russian-speaking audiences, localized transnational Russian television, have allowed their viewers to exercise citizenship and be loyal nationals day in day out in a way that is more liberal and flexible than the hegemonic form of citizenship and national imagination of the public television LTV can offer.

Children's television: the soft underbelly of public service broadcasting

The provision of children's content should be a key constituent of the public service brand, but has often been viewed as a programme category at risk. Certainly in many countries children's television has moved from the 'scarcity' associated with terrestrial provision, to the 'plenty' of digital (see Ellis 2000). However in spite of a range of dedicated public service children's channels in Europe (CBeebies, Kika, Z@ppelin), domestically produced children's television in Europe is notoriously under-resourced if not marginalised. There is a pronounced reliance on imports (particularly on commercial television) notwithstanding the launch by US-owned multinationals (Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network) of localised versions of their children's television channels in many European countries. Within the broader context of global developments in children's media, this paper starts by outlining the recent and rapid crisis in British children's television and the factors that caused it. This was a crisis, which caught broadcasters and producers by surprise in the middle of 2006, but reflects many of the challenges faced by the children's television sector in other countries. It clearly demonstrated how a combination of the lack of regulatory protection, a change in commercial priorities among broadcasters, advertising restrictions, budgetary pressures and the competitive environment at home and abroad all combined to reinforce the trend towards a contraction of domestic production. The crisis also served to underline the dominance of the BBC - both as a representative of public service principles, and as the dominant producer and commissioner in the market. With the reasons underpinning the crisis explained, the paper will then analyse how the children's television community responded to the crisis and with what effect. Based on interviews, contemporary accounts and documentary evidence the paper will chart the converging and diverging views of broadcasters, producers, regulatory authority Ofcom, and a range of advocacy groups which represent children's interests and the industry. What arguments were elaborated in favour of protecting children's television as an integral part of the public service media brand? Can lessons be learned about how best to ensure the origination of children's media within a public service environment? Can developments in the UK be used to provide insight into how children's media might develop further?

Understanding the Effect of Television Advertising on Women's Attitudes and Purchase Intentions Towards Beer: A Study of Three Major Brands.

Abstract Purpose of Paper: The market for beer in the UK is now mature and sales have been stable at around £16bn for about ten years (Mintel 2014). More recently, there have been changes in the market as consumers have switched from bigger mainstream brands to a growing number of smaller craft beers. However, in order to grow further significantly, the industry needs to explore new market segments and find new consumers for beer. So far, it is estimated that only 1.3m women in the UK drink beer (O'Reilly, 2014; Mail Online, 2015). Women are therefore an underexplored segment and present the main growth opportunity for beer drinking in the UK. However, most beer television advertising has traditionally been aimed at the male audience and there have been suggestions that some of this advertising has been seen as unpopular with or even insulting to women (Jackson, 2013; Zwarun et al., 2006). The Chief Executive of major brewer SAB Miller, which owns the Foster's brand, has recently written that, 'We have to acknowledge that core lager advertising, for many years, was either dismissive of, or insulting to, women.' (Shubber, 2015). If women are to be the new consumers and the future target for beer advertising, there is therefore a significant gap in the knowledge and literature concerned with how women differ from men in responding to the television advertising produced by beer brands and it is important that this gap in knowledge is addressed. The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore the effect of the television advertising of the three top selling UK beer brands on women's attitudes and purchase intentions towards those brands. More specifically, the objectives are: 1) To gain an understanding of how female consumers respond to existing beer television advertising, specifically in terms of the ‘likeability’ of the content of TV commercials produced by the three leading UK beer brands among female consumers. 2) To examine the effect of the rational and emotional content, including the use of humour, in television commercials produced by the three leading UK beer brands on the attitudes of female consumers towards those brands. 3) To explore in-depth female consumer attitudes towards the content (message cues and symbolism) of the television commercials produced by the three leading beer brands in the UK and their effect on subsequent purchase intentions for each brand.