This Girl Can - Context
Media Studies: Eduqas GCSE, topic 2.5.1
This Girl Can
This Girl Can is a non-commercially funded advert produced in 2016 by Sports England and funded by National Lottery.
Purpose
- The purpose of the This Girl Can campaign was to break down stereotypes attached to women and their fear of being judged while taking part in sport.
- The campaign was launched after research was gathered by Sports England to help reveal why fewer women aged 14-40 take participate in sport than men.
Sport England report
- It was found that 2 million fewer women take part in sport than men.
- 13 million women said they would like to take part in more sport.
- 6 million women said they were not active at all.
- The number one reason for not taking part was fear of being judged.
Impact
- The impact after the campaign had been launched is that 1.6 million women have started to exercise and other brands, such as Nike, have started to advertise in a more body positive manner with motivational messages like ‘Better For It’, rather than focusing on looking good doing it.
Constructing meaning
- Meaning is constructed in this advert through the use of technical, verbal and symbolic codes.
- The main image is a centred, medium shot of a woman in action.
- The woman is in her mid-thirties and is not a celebrity.
- Because of this she can act as an audience surrogate.
Mis en scene
- The woman is constructed to appear familiar through the use of mis en scene.
- Her hair is messy and scraped back, her gym clothes are not designer and do not match.
- The focus is on her being in the moment and enjoying it.
Focus
- The woman is the focus through the shallow focus, resulting in the people around her being out of focus.
- This further emphasises that it is how she feels which is the focus and important thing to her.
Test yourself on This Girl Can - Context
How many women have taken up sport as a result of the This Girl Can campaign?