SUPERCURRICULAR

 Shelter Christmas Advert 2025

I chose this advert due to its current relevance and how it represents how people are struggling with homelessness. Christmas is an important time to spend with family but it is also a time of giving, so this advert evokes a message to show the audience that people do not have the privilege to even have a home at Christmas and highlights how we can make a difference. The advert highlights how many families are stuck in temporary accomadation making it an alarming issue, with the use of the child evoking a sense of sympathy from audiences as we see the poor conditions hes living in making audiences realise homelessness isnt just a lack of shelter, its about the loss of childhood too. The use of the familiar song links to Barthe's semiotic theory with the use of the cultural code as the song is a familiar 1980s song that is upbeat and fun comparing with the deeper meaning behind it which is that its the song the boy has been hearing every day due to the search for accomadation is his family. This advert's message is to raise awareness and to show how Christmas is not a festive time for all;it is the opposite for some and is a time of unstability in their lives causing emotional stress in families. Levi Strauss's binary opposite's theory aligns with this advert using the initial sense of festive fun with the joyful music however the reality is the childs 'fun' song is the reality of a housing helpline. 

The advert encourages pro-social behaviour by creating empathy, which physcoligcally makes people want to give to others and donate which is what shelter wants them to do. The whole purpose of the advert is to motivate behaviour to benefit those in need, like shown in the advert. Altruism is shown by the suffering of others who cannot help themselves, so the framing of the young boy and mother in a vunerable position, the audience should feel a desire to help by doing a selfless deed and not getting anything in return as a child should not be suffering at christmas and the family should be together in a safe home, which is exactly what shelter want to promote.

Summary of Dixon-Curran and Seaton

The extra reading from Dixon's book has enhanced my knowledge of Curran and Seaton's theory which states how media landscape is under control by media conglomerates. The book they produced describes the media landscape and how its driven by profit. It taught me in more detail the concepts they believe like creativity vs commerciality, and how they argue profit-driven motives take precedence over the creative, appealing elements in the commerical word of media, making audiences have a different perspective on the media today.Along with the other two concepts that these theorist believe, Dixon's book gave me a wider knowledge to this theory allowing me to have a better understanding to the concepts in detail and using set texts to further develop this. Also by breaking each concept down into sections it allowed me to see the evaluation of the concepts and also the challenges of it.,