Feedback from Assignment 3

Received feedback very promptly from A3. Tutor judges as very good across all four criteria. Pleased with that, although I actually though it was better then the previous two, both judged as excellent. 

Summary reads thus:

Once again I was impressed in this assignment by the independent way in which you questioned the texts that you were asked to read. In this case, however, I am not sure if I am right but I felt that I detected an even greater note of frustration in your response to both Freud and Barthes, which I have tried to address in my comments.

The reference to Freud comes about as tutor comments at length on my commentary for the first project for Chapter 4, not strictly part of the Assignment that is being reviewed. Comments are helpful in my understanding of Freud but not specifically addressed in this post.

Reflections

Tutor comments on clear exposition of Barthes' theories and research skills in going "beyond the material to make comparisons to Foucault and others. In your discussion of the ideas of Anandi Ramamurthy, John Tagg and Stuart Hall you gave full rein to your critical evaluation skills."

Tutor makes reference to my comment that the left-wing theories of Barthes and others are outdated. He is not sure about that, but does mention that his ideas may have been overtaken by the digital revolution. I set out similar reservations in Reflections on Chapter 2 and it may well be that we agree more than might appear. A lot of left-wing criticism that I allude to during this course has been aimed at the establishment, whether wittingly or not, hiding its true its aims to retain control of media messages. That may well have been true in 1970s and 1980s; my point (and this is where there is congruence with tutor) is that society has moved on now to a point where people naturally are less inclined to believe what they are told. 

Whether it is a cause, effect or simply a correlation, the digital revolution has coincided with an era of greater informality in society; there is less respect for the professions. The digital revolution has certainly played a major part in this by making information flow quick, cheap and easy. If you have a medical problem, you can self diagnose using on line forums and websites; the doctor no longer "knows best". You can look after your own financial affairs more easily using a plethora of web based resources. It is the era of empowerment of the common man. This is why I believe the left wing criticism is somewhat dated. 

There is a danger of taking this for granted, for not recognising the subtle controlling messages that still exist as I set out in the Assignment, but it seems there is a need to understand the digital age within a theory of visual culture, a difficult challenge given the rapidity of technological advance.

Patek Philippe Advertisement

Tutor points out there are more visual signs in the advertisement that might have commented on, specifically:

•  The similarity  of the phrase to Keats' poem. I was unaware of Keats' poem so this is useful allegory;
• Contrast of the phrase to the ephemerality of the rose and glass of water  next to it;
• The juxtaposition and relative ages of the two women.  The assumption is that the woman on the right is older, possibly the other's mother. My take on this is that the relative ages are ambiguous; we don't know whether there is a blood relationship, if there is what that relationship is and probably do not need to evince the conclusion of "alleged mutability of women" to use tutor's words;
• The fact that the women are leaning forward to greet an invisible newcomer, possibly the male purchaser of the watch. This is a good point that I omitted. My only comment would be that the missing person would be more likely to be the male donor of the watch

Overall, encouraged and pleased with the comments. 

The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex by Sigmund Freud

Purchased a used copy of On Sexuality by Freud on Amazon, although actually found an online pdf version to read while on holiday.

To recap, Oedipus complex ('OC')  is theory that children tend to be attracted to parent of opposite sex. The name of the complex arises from Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex where son kills father and marries mother. 

Freud evidently realised that OC is not (in all bar a small minority of people) a long-lasting complex  (although see note) so seeks to explain how the complex is destroyed (he says it is more than a mere 'repression').

The dissolution post early childhood (Freud provides no age range) is followed by a latency period. There may be a 'special event' when the realisation strikes such that the child turns away from his/her 'hopeless longing'. The girl may have undergone 'harsh punishment' from the father, the boy may realise his mother has 'transferred her love'. 

An alternative view is that OC must inevitably collapse just as milk teeth drop out. Freud does not deny this but seeks to explain exactly what happens during this latency period. A child's interest turns to his genitals, arousing a sense of disapproval by parents (mothers in particular). The boy is threatened by castration, having been prepared for this firstly by the withdrawal of the mother's breast, and secondly by the daily demand for defecation, but the defining moment is the sight of female genital region; this sight convinces him that the "loss of his own penis becomes imaginable, and the threat of castration takes its deferred effect.".

Once the boy accepts the possibility of castration, he no longer can obtain satisfaction from either having intercourse with his mother, or replacing his mother as the subject of affection by his father. These 'libidinal cathexes' are in conflict with his 'narcissistic interest' in his penis, and (for most) this means "the child's ego turns away from the Oedipus complex."

Having set out how the dissolution works for boys, Freud continues with how the "corresponding element takes place in little girls." Freud is, by his own admission, less confident when discussing the female development: "our material - for some incomprehensible reason - becomes far more obscure and full of gaps."

He claims, in  non-modernist fashion, that the feminist demand for equal rights is of no help "for the morphological distinction is bound to find expression in differences of psychical development.  Anatomy is Destiny."  Girls have an inferiority complex when they first discover the opposite sex has an appendage they do not, They assume they once had one, but lost it by castration. Castration, therefore is an established fact for girls, whereas boys fear its possibility.

Shorn of the fear, the girl's OC is simpler: taking the mother's place and adopting a "feminine attitude" to the father.  The OC culminates in a desire to bear her father's child, but declines as the wish is not fulfilled.

Freud is not overly deterministic in the chronology of the OC, the threat of castration, the formation of the superego, followed by the latency period. This is not the only type, he concludes.

There are several issues one can take with this paper:

1. Despite Freud's admission that the course of development can take other routes, he elicits no evidence that the course he sets out actually happens, and if it does the likely ages;
2. As I have said before with Freud, there is a feeling of 'so what?' Does this theory really help us understand anything of any use, particularly several decades later. We shall look at Munch's painting shortly, but other than isolated examples of its impact, I am struggling to think what relevance OC and its dissolution has to visual culture;
3. It is openly sexist. The idea of women harbouring 'penis-envy' or only men having a 'super-ego' would invite opprobrium in contemporary culture, and it is therefore strange that we somehow indulge Freud because he is viewed as a leading figure whose writings have to be listened to.  

Note: Contemporaneously with reading this article, I was reading One Summer: America 1927 by Bill Bryson. Bryson is the antidote to structuralism. His writing is very well researched, and he delights in informing his audience of the background (the contextual analysis)  of those he features in the discourse. Never patronising or overstated, Bryson's brief histories not only entertain but help us understand the individuals, and that even the most famous folk very often have unassuming beginnings. In his chapter on the 1927 New York Yankees (one of the greatest teams ever in any sport) he cites Lou Gehrig, the only baseball player ever to rival Babe Ruth in terms of home runs. "Gehrig was extraordinarily devoted to his mother." Bryson writes, describing how, on road trips, Gehrig would spend 10 minutes in tearful goodbyes to her, and spend hours while away buying gifts for her.

We are asked to further our thoughts on the reading with two projects:

Look at Edvard Munch's Ashes and make notes as to how Freud's ideas help you understand the picture

The Ashes, Edvard Munch 1894

Munch demonstrated his own deep feelings of anxiety within his art so it would be unsurprising if The Ashes - one of his best known works - could be interpreted in several ways.

At a superficial level, the work has a Romeo & Juliet feel about it. Perhaps the couple love one another very much yet know they cannot be together; as in the Shakespearian play, perhaps because of some factor(s) exogenous to their relationship together. The Vellios School of Art article referenced below sets out a similar case: that for some reason the lovers cannot be together

Another alternative, and more aligned to a Freudian analysis, is that the misery of each is a direct result of their feelings for each other. The girl's dress is unbuttoned. The Vellios article assumes that is after the lovers have had sex, but it could be a reflection that the relationship has not been consummated. Perhaps she has been too suggestive, partially undressed, then the man does not, or cannot, overcome a physical (or more likely given Munch's known mental issues), mental hurdle that prevents him from having sex. He is embarrassed, guilty, and buries his head; she is distraught, confused, and frustrated (in more than one sense). If we wished to pursue the Freudian analysis to the extreme, perhaps the male has not emerged from his Oedipus complex, still hankering after his mother. The girl wishes to take his mother's place but he is not ready for that; consequently becoming embarrassed and guilty.

Speyrer (undated) alludes to the fact that Munch underwent a traumatic birth, and that some signs - notably the hands to the head - reflect a need for comfort through that trauma.

Find two or three images [that feature a dominatrix] that might be explained in part at least by Freud and by annotatioon show how.

The annotated images can be viewed on following links:

Dominatrix 1 
Dominatrix 2

References:

Vellios School of Art (undated) Ashes 1894 Available from http://www.edvard-munch.com/gallery/love/ashes.htm Accessed 5 June 2014. 

Speyrer (undated) Peri-Natal Themes of Death and Dying in the Art of Edvard Munch http://primal-page.com/munch.htm. Accessed 5 June 2014

Reflections on Chapter 3

When reviewing the course notes, I thought this chapter would be one that I would find particularly interesting. I had read a summary of Barthes' theories in Visual Culture, and was looking forward to reading in more detail.

I have also read more widely during this part of the course, with special reference to chapters on photography. These have particular relevance to the Assignment as photography features highly in advertising. 

The first project was a sort of practice Assignment: annotating a couple of advertisements. This got me reading more widely into some graphic design theory: Fibonacci sequences, looking left to right, that I used briefly in the Assignment. These articles presented a different take on advertising: written by practitioners for practitioners and in a way 'taking for granted' (indeed deliberately enhancing) the manipulative messages that Barthes and others highlight in their treatises. It is important to remember that many people's livelihoods depend on advertising; it is their job to make us view our world in controlled ways. That is an integral part of modern consumerism. Barthes and others help us acknowledge and understand the visual influences that are aimed at our subconscious; where I feel they stray too far at times is an implication that those influences are by definition malevolent - a sort of insidious establishment based impact of a capitalist based society. Not all advertising is bad.

The project on structuralist analysis of two paintings helped to formulate an approach that I used for the first part of the Assignment, using the concepts of form, medium, allusion and purpose.

As well as a habit of using different terminology for the same thing, Barthes often uses phrases that challenge the reader to understand his meaning. Such is the passage that "meaning is always there to present the form; the form is always there to outdistance the meaning". I found an interesting montage by John Heartfield to annotate for the project.

The Death of the Author and Deconstruction are challenging topics, both to understand and to apply to Visual Culture. Foucault's essay takes a fairly extreme view of depersonalisation; too far in my view as it almost defies anyone to suggest new theories or concepts as the author would have neither acknowledgement nor copyright over those ideas. I used work from Banksy and Cindy Sherman on the associated project. I used the deconstruction concepts by comparing two covers of The Economist.

I enjoyed writing the Assignment. Unlike previous Assignments, I had a good idea of what I wanted to use well beforehand, and researched source documents in advance. Off course reading on the internet and Photography: A Critical Introduction provided material and analysis; many of the references are not actually academic research but reflect the us to advertising in practice as discussed above. Late on, I changed my mind as to which image to use as wanted to discuss gender issues (the first choice was a financial services advertisement).

1,500 words (even excluding direct quotations) is quite short for an essay on this topic. I could easily have written 5,000 words as had to skim over some important concepts such as paradigmatic analysis and Hall's theories of encoding/decoding. These are both very useful topics to take forward into further study in future photography modules.

One recurring themes of this course to date is the number of French writers. It is perhaps no coincidence as France has a very strong philosophical background; there is a history of holistic analysis as opposed to Anglo-Saxon tendencies to analyse everything. Visual Culture suits wider thinking, which doubtless explains why so many French writers are featured in the course. Their works are not always easy reading. That is not down to the translation but to commonalities in being verbose; using duplicate terminology for the same concept; and repeating themselves. I dislike of writing that is not clear, as there is a suspicion that it is not clear for a reason; that the author wishes to present his ideas as being rather more enlightening that perhaps is justified.

Assignment 3: Decoding advertisments

The purpose of this assignment is to analyze a current advertisement or campaign using the work of Barthes and others, and show how it derives and conveys its meanings to its intended audience. Semiotic, structuralist and post structuralist principles are to be utilised.

I selected this advertisement from Patek Philippe ('PP'):

An online version together with images that form part of the campaign may be seen on the PP advertising campaign website.

Only one image was selected partly due to space constraints but also because it typifies the general theme of the campaign. The wider campaign is alluded to where appropriate.

Out of the choices offered in the Assignment, I chose the essay version, in three parts: 

• Contextual analysis;
• Semiotic analysis - Barthes;
• Further analysis - post structuralism 

CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS

Allusion

PP is a leading luxury watchmaker, producing about 50,000 watches a year. Like other high quality watch brands, it sees its watches as having high intrinsic and investment value. Smaller than better known rivals (Wikipedia claims Rolex produces 750,000 watches per year, Omega 250,000), PP attempts to distinguish itself by being family owned and engendering a feeling among its customers of being part of an exclusive club (including a free magazine produced twice yearly. There is no hint of irony or acknowledgement of cheesiness in its self-proclaimed values or in its latest advertising campaign. To quote from the latter, which includes the advert above:

"The ladies campaign uses the strap-line: "Something truly precious holds its beauty forever". The campaign draws a parallel between the timeless beauty and value of a Patek Philippe watch with the enduring value and profound beauty of something truly precious. The current executions concentrate on the eternal beauty of relationships. (emphasis added)

This vacuousness is not intended to sell a simple timepiece; it is the selling of a brand, of an exclusive experience in one way of looking; of unadulterated snobbishness in another. In Marxian terms, PP is marketing something beyond mere commodity fetishism; it is not just (or even) the watch that has become commoditised, but the badge exclusivity, the knowledge that few others could afford such an item. This is the theory of conspicuous consumption  - using the purchasing of luxury goods so as to display wealth - as forwarded by Thorstein Veblen (1899). Veblen goods typically defy the simplistic inverse price demand relationship of classical economics, such that demand increases as price rises; subtly assisted by the tendency of luxury goods manufacturers to avoid mass production and introduce 'limited editions'. 

It is interesting to compare PP's market to that of the much larger and more well-known Rolex. Some simplistic contrasts discussed by CNN are that PP wearers are more discreet about the product they wear; that the watch is more for the 'boardroom' or 'cocktails' (as indicated on the ad) than for 'sport'.  In visual culture terms, whereas PP uses subtlety in appealing to the desire to demonstrate wealth discreetly, Rolex advertisements reflect a bolder product based campaign, as in the example below:

The feel-good factor used by PP in its advertising is summarised (satirised, perhaps) by Christy Stewart-Smith thus:

A brand that is well-known, that is apparently dynamic and that seems to be ‘up to stuff’ is always a comforting choice. That’s why even bad ads work quite well. Consider the completely nauseating Patek Philippe campaign running at the moment. Even whilst making you want to spew, it has worked its magic on you. You don’t see the ad and think, “ooh, that’s an excellent reason to buy an obscenely expensive watch. Watches of Switzerland, here I come”. But you have clocked (sorry!) that PP makes gorgeous, crafted timepieces (they do, in fact!) that appear to be desired by super rich over-achievers, world-wide. And your brain has probably subconsciously salted away the “I’m not buying it for me” excuse that said over-achiever can use for treating him or herself. Most importantly, because you’ve probably seen the ads quite a bit – as I have, you have had the idea of PP as a desirable status symbol ‘normalised’ because you recognise that others will have seen the same thing and reacted in more or less the same way. If Patek weren’t successful at selling beautiful watches to rich people they wouldn’t be able to afford their premium position advertising, after all. Only a fool would invest in advertising that didn’t work, right? (Stewart- Smith, 2014)

Medium

Our structural analysis incorporates consideration of the medium. Barthes argues that the mere fact of being an advert eludes the signification of a visual image "insofar as the advertising nature of the image is essentially functional". (Barthes, 1964). The fact that the image is an advert on the  back page of The Economist April 19th-25th 2014 tells us nothing; it is declaring rather than speaking. 

This seems too narrow, and a function of Barthes' tendency to identify signification from only what is in the text or the image. He eschews context but thereby omits important connotative elements: the relations and practices within which discourses are formed and operated (Slater, 1983).  As one discussion of PP's advertising succinctly puts it:

"These ads can be seen in whatever rich people use to relax on Sunday afternoons, e.g. The Economist." (Machiavelli, 2011)

The mere reading of the magazine sends the message that the reader is well educated, financially savvy and probably high income/wealth - there is no need to buy the product, just read the magazine.

But there is more to consider here. This is not just an advert of a product but, as explained above, a brand, a message of exclusivity. Moreover, it features two women in an advertisement in a magazine whose readership is 87% male (Hess, 2011) and which makes little attempt to appeal to women. Hess (ibid) quotes directly from The Economist:

"The magazine is for "accomplished, influential people. If an overwhelming majority of those people happen to be men, perhaps it is because they have simply accomplished more."

So why an advert ostensibly aimed at women on the back page of a magazine that arrogantly dismisses them? Three reasons may be alluded:

• It is a mistake, or what Hall (1993) would term a 'negotiated' reading, one that conforms only partially to the intended or 'dominant' reading. Perhaps the advertising agency is unaware of the gender imbalance in the readership and includes this advert as part of the series, the other adverts of which are male based;
• It is a deliberate attempt to appeal to the 'accomplished, influential' female readership, however limited that might be. Hess was writing four years ago; trends change rapidly and perhaps this is something of a statement by the agency to appeal to economically successful and independent women, though this motive would be contrarian to the general message we have elicited from PP;
• It is actually aimed at the magazine's known male dominated audience. It fits a stereotype: men are 'accomplished and influential', women are to be 'gazed at', having some fun. The ad epitomises the scoptophilic instinct as described by Fenichel (1954), the devouring gaze induced by sexual desire. The advert's message to the male audience may be read thus: it is OK to buy PP products as there is a clear implied differentiation between those products designed for women and those for men, but you might be interested in buying a present...(note 1)

Form

The women are photographed looking left to right. Chae & Hoegg (2013) are among those who claim that consumers from cultures that read left to right possess a spatial representation of time whereby the past is visualized on the left and the future is visualized on the right. We can assume The Economist's 'accomplished, influential' audience will be forward-looking.

The images of the watch and the  ring are placed in the bottom right, in line with theory that consumers have more favourable views of images on right side of a page (e.g. Williams, 2013).

SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

This section applies the theory of Roland Barthes as set out in his essays Rhetoric of the Image and Myth Today. His ideas and terminology are discussed in those links. 

Commentators (e.g Ramamurthy, 2004 p210) frequently discuss Barthes' theory in terms of the dialectic between the denoted (literal) and connoted (symbolic) message. These messages refer, however, only to the pictorial elements of an image. Barthes adds a third: the linguistic message that he argues is a single message because it has only language as the sign.

In our PP advert, we have four texts:

• the Patek Phillipe name (top right) and the descriptive reference to the watch model and web address (bottom left) may be viewed as factual;
• the slogans: Begin your own tradition, and Something truly precious holds its beauty forever

The first two are examples of what Barthes terms anchorage. Images exhibit polysemy - the reader may choose only some of 'a floating chain of signifieds' - the role of anchorage is to fix the chains and 'counter the terror of uncertain signs'. The text directs the reader towards he advertisers message. In our example, the agency ensures the advert is clearly for PP's products, a description of the products,  and where to find more information.  

The slogans add meaning to the advert. The double entendre of the second was explained by PP themselves in the tautological statement above. The beauty and the preciousness allude of course to both the watch and the women (albeit PP draw the line at this degree of explicitness). This intended meaning is an example of what Barthes terms relay, the text and image working together.

There is little in this advert that is truly denotational; perhaps only the watch and the ear-rings are, in Barthesian terms, 'literal messages without a code', there is no transformation. The visual message may be viewed as the mirror image of the textual anchorage: ensuring the viewer is clear that we are actually advertising jewellery.

The remainder of the image is connotational. We can adduce several signs that together create the rhetoric of the image:

• the women as signifiers of preciousness and beauty;
• the inclusion of two items of jewellery signifies complementarity ('Begin your own tradition')
• the women's laughing carefree looks signify contentment;
• the carefully constructed table - white cloth, flower, wine glass - signifies an upmarket location

In his theory of myths, Barthes takes the analysis a further step: the signs from the first level semiotic analysis become the signifiers (or forms) in a second. The forms signify a concept, together a signification. In our advertisement, the four signs themselves relate to several concepts that PP wish to promote: the signification that their jewellery is, like the women, 'precious and beautiful'; that it is a mark of success and contentment; and is exclusive and expensive. The myth is equating everything that is deemed positive in the image of two women with the jewellery they wear.

This myth is subversive and iniquitous. Human relations, by being equated with a product, are commoditised. Barthes uses the term 'alibi' to reflect that the advertising agency covers up the symbolism. The fact that viewers take the signification for granted is exactly what the agency intends; it has consciously constructed (or fabricated) the myth. The readers are unaware of the construction, to them the myth is natural, the way of the world; the women are beautiful and glamorous, so must their jewellery be. The advert is on the back of a magazine for 'accomplished, influential' people, the watch therefore must reflect that. 

FURTHER ANALYSIS - POST STRUCTURALISM

  

Three further factors that have adduced commentary from academics post Barthes are discussed briefly here.

The context of production

As well as concealing social relations, several commentators (e.g. Williamson, 1979; Stein 1992) note that advertisements conceal labour relations. It is an extension of Marx's commodity fetishism into the medium that promotes goods. From this advert, we know nothing of how this jewellery is made, the conditions for the workers in the manufacturing location, whether they could afford to buy the goods they produce. The advert is carefully orchestrated to make it appear natural to desire the jewellery without even considering how it gets there. We consider only the desirability of the output, unconsciously ignoring the input.

Genderised representation

Discussion has focussed in several places above on how this advert promotes gender stereotypicality in a scoptophilic way. The women are passive objects of sexual desire to be viewed voyeuristically. But beyond this 'high level' sexism there is more subtle genderisation afoot. Winship (1987) notes how advertisers commonly portray women's hands as caressing and decorative, and men's as active and controlling. In our advert, note how the woman on the left gently holds the left hand of the other woman, as an example of Winship's thesis. 

The subjects

As well as genderisation in general in this advertisement, we can consider the two women who are photographed. How do they feel about it? Are they part of the voyeuristic, commoditised advertising plot, or bit players who are manipulated as much as the audience? This plays on our mixed prejudices. On the one hand, we have shown how the advertisement enforces a certain preconceived viewpoint in the interests of exploiting the perceived desires of a wealthy audience, on the other hand we may think "Well, why not, bet they were paid well to look glamorous." Therein lies the rub: to what extent do we simply accept the naturalness, the inevitability, the timelessness of the message. At the very least, the above analysis helps question our motives and understanding of the advertising messages that surround us.

note 1: An advertisement for women's jewellery in a magazine principally read by men is an example of what is analyzed by paradigmatic analysis - analyzing the significance of  signifiers that are used (women) with those that could be, termed absent signifiers (as stated above this is one of a series of adverts principally featuring men). Space does not allow detailed discussion on this topic.

References: 

Barthes (1964) Rhetoric of the Image taken from Visual Culture:the reader Evans and Hall, (eds) (1999) SAGE Publications. London 

Barthes (1973) Myth Today taken from Visual Culture:the reader Evans and Hall, (eds) (1999) SAGE Publications. London 

Chae and Hoegg (2013) The Future Looks “Right”: Effects of the Horizontal Location of Advertising Images on Product Attitude Journal of Consumer Research Available from www.sauder.ubc.ca/Faculty/People/Faculty_Members/~/media/Files/Faculty%20Research/Marketing%20Division/Marketing%20Publications/Hoegg/Chae%20and%20Hoegg%202013.ashx Accessed on 15 May 2014


Fenichel (1954)  The scoptophilic instinct and identification taken from Visual Culture:the reader Evans and Hall, (eds) (1999) SAGE Publications. London 

Hall (1993) Encoding/Decoding in S. Durring (ed.) The Cultural Studies Reader quoted in Ramamurthy (2004) in Photography: A Critical Introduction Third edition Wells (ed.) Routledge. Oxford.

Hess (2011) Why Should Women Read The Economist? Available from http://magazine.good.is/articles/why-should-women-read-the-economist Accessed on 14 May 2014

Machiavelli (2011)  Luxury Branding the Future Leaders of the World Available from http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/11/luxury_branding_the_future_lea.html Accessed on 14 May 2014

Ramamurthy (2004) Spectacles and Illusions: Photography and Commodity Culture in Photography: A Critical Introduction Third edition Wells (ed.) Routledge. Oxford.


Slater (1983) Marketing Mass Photography reproduced in Visual Culture:the reader Evans and Hall, (eds) (1999) SAGE Publications. London 

Stein (1981) The Composite Photographic Image and the Composition of Consumer Ideology Art Journal, Spring quoted in Ramamurthy (2004, ibid) 

Stewart Smith (2014) The Mad Men Are Gone. But Advertising is Still the Daddy Available from http://xristyblah.com/category/advertising/. Accessed on 14 May 2014

Veblen (1899) The Theory of the Leisure Class  quoted in www.conspicuousconsumption.org/. Accessed on 14 May 2014

Williams (2013) Should the image be on the left or right? Available from http://www.smartcompany.com.au/people/education/32984-should-the-image-be-on-the-left-or-right.html# Accessed on 15 May 2014

Williamson (1979) Great History that Photographs Mislaid in Photography Workshop (ed.) Photography/Politics One. London, quoted in Ramamurthy (2004, ibid) 

Winship (1987)  Handling Sex  in Betterton (ed.) Looking On:Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and Media London