JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Volume 17, Number 3, 1997 Page: 392

                                
392 JAC

Muscle, HotRod, etc. Magazines like Newsweek, Time, Us, and People are indeed
directed at certain kinds of readers, but because they target broad audiences they
tend to draw from a number of divergent "codes," which can confuse students
in their critiques of the cultural values in media. Once students have chosen a
magazine for the assignment, I ask them to read it cover-to-cover, paying careful
attention to everything: the cover design, table of contents, editorials, letters to
the editor, regular columns, feature articles and their accompanying photo-
graphs, personals, and, of course, advertisements. As they read, students look
specifically for recurring key words, hot topics, and prominent visual images
that associate the magazine with certain preferred readings and cultural values.
The goal here is to give students a "total experience" with the magazine, not just
a selective experience with a few articles and ads. Once students have oriented
themselves to the "code(s)" within which the magazine operates, their task is to
select one advertisement from the magazine; this ad will become the focus of
their critical and practical essays. Selecting the ad is critical since not all are
equally right for the advertising analysis assignment. The best advertisements
have a fairly balanced mixture of visual images and written text that promote
cultural values. Ads that are imbalanced toward either visual or textual
representations do not highlight the interaction of these elements in the construc-
tion of cultural values.
While students are reading their magazines and selecting an ad for their
critical essays, I spend two class periods (on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule)
helping students apply the heuristic in appendix B to a specific magazine and a
few of its advertisements. Since these magazine and ads are the objects of class
discussion, they are then off limits for the students' advertising analysis essays.
During the first class period, I bring in several (as needed) identical copies of a
single magazine with a well defined audience. I have students examine the
magazine issues in groups, working through the "contextual distribution"
questions in the appendix B heuristic. I give student groups about thirty minutes
to examine every aspect of the magazine, after which we discuss the associations
and values promoted in the medium. During our class discussion of the
magazine, I have students generate lists (which I write on the board) of the
recurring key words, hot topics, and prominent visual images. We usually fill
the chalk board with words, topics, and images, some of which may contradict
others in the lists, serving to demonstrate the polysemous codes within which
magazines operate. Having filled the chalk board with lists, students then
generate the subjective meanings and desires that the recurring key words, hot
topics, and prominent visual images in the magazine imply. If there is enough room
on the chalk board, I tryto write the meanings and desires below our lists of words,
topics, and images so that students can clearly see their interrelationships.
Students then generate cultural values implied in the magazine, and I take
this classroom opportunity to discuss what makes a good statement of cultural
value. Effective statements of cultural value have two components: ideal
identities and ideal social practices. First students ask from the perspective of