This text is an advertisement for Pedigree dog food. The target audience is animal lovers who own a dog. This suggests this targets an older audience as they are likely to be making an income in order to afford the dog. I think the audience is probably 20+.
The encoders wanted the audience to feel sympathy for the dogs who are in the shelter so they will then buy Pedigree to support them. The ideologies are that it is right to want to donate and feel sympathy for animals, they do this by comparing them to types of people that the audience may know. The text is celebrating the fact that these dog’s lives can be improved by the purchases of the audience. The overall message of this that people should treat dogs better since they can easily have characteristics like humans. For example, courage, being wise.
Audiences members may take oppositional reading because they may understand the dog’s situation and why they have used it, but they disagree with this advert because it could seem that they are just trying to sell a product rather than caring for shelter dogs. Their cultural experiences may have led to this as they may have people around them who have altered their ideologies. They also may have experienced other media products whose intentions seemed good, but it turned out it was a ploy to gain sales.
An audience member may take a negotiated reading because they agree with the advert, but their ideologies say to them that they shouldn’t buy from pedigree as they could just donate more directly. Perhaps the situated culture of the audience could affect this as if they are surrounded by people who are big advocates of charity, it may seem more logical to donate directly.
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