Recursos, prácticas y metodologías utilizadas por los docentes en los procesos

The publication The Advocate was provided in hardcopy and online for interviewees to view. The front cover image is reproduced in Figure 9.1.

Interviewees were asked if they could relate to the main character on the cover: the man with the sunglasses (Figure 9.1). The question served several purposes; to explore the types of images that appealed to the interviewees, to reveal any insights about the publication cover’s effectiveness at communicating NTEU values, and to investigate the cover’s ‘persuasion powers’ to encourage the reader to open the journal. The first question ‘Do you feel you could relate to him?’ initially elicited negative responses, and led into additional comments about the man’s appearance.

Figure 9.1 Advocate Cover. Volume 21, No. 1, March 2014

The first interviewee, FN; (female, non-member), gave a succinct opinion, and stated:

Not particularly [able to relate to him].

The following response indicated that he looked like a tourist and certainly did not fit the image of a university worker. KH, (male, member) commented:

No, he looks like a tourist.

NL, (male, non-member), also felt that he did not represent university staff and noted:

And with the sunnies and the hat, I will say, they probably could have got someone else, because sunnies and hats are-usually, it doesn't represent a teacher or a professional staff in an educational institute. It looks like a guy who is about to go to the beach.

from MC, (female, member), who stated:

Yeah, he looks more like a student than a staff member.

NI (male, non-member), concurred with the opinion that he was a student. He commented:

Again, and if it is fighting for the rights of university workers, well, we've got a university student on the front, confuses me a bit.

The third interviewee, UD, (male, member) added that the cover person looked happy, with their statement that:

Yeah that looks like a student, a happy student I suppose.

Five interviewees’ responses all indicated a poor choice in the main person’s appearance on the cover, either because his clothing and accessories were inappropriate for a university professional, or because he did not convey the message that he was engaged with the tertiary sector as a staff member.

However, these responses represented a minority view, with a majority of interviewees commenting favourably on the image. The first is from KU (female, member). She said that:

Yeah, yeah, it’s his reflective glasses which I think went out at the end of the 80's. What I think of him? He's, he looks like, I don't know, I'll be stereotyping but he looks like he's a young, male who'll probably, he doesn't care that much about unions but then it might be me just stereotyping. But yeah, I think he's you know, a pleasing enough face to represent the case anyway.

The youthfulness of the main image, and the background images of people holding signs was interpreted by MD, (male, member) as communicating a positive and appropriate image, and he commented that:

I think it’s a good image. But I think a lot of the people they’ve selected to put on here are obviously youthful looking, so there is that sort of youthful, vibrant sort of image that comes across through this, as well.

SQ, (male, non-member), was succinct in his response and stated that: Um, yeah. I could [relate to him].

Oh, yeah, he's a young guy [I can relate to him]. Arr, to a certain extent I think [he represents me]. I think he's after, you know, a young guy, a young person trying to get full time rather than just a contract, more security as previous generation of academics that have enjoyed. So just trying to push back on that.

TT, (female, member), also found the image positive and stated: He looks pretty cool. I mean he's, he's likeable.

TT’s (female, member) reference to ‘cool’ is synonymous with Gen Y’s core criteria of favourable brands; that they are made up of novelty, like the main character wearing a straw panama and reflective sunglasses, when appearing on the cover of a magazine, and yet also authentic and creating a sense of ‘realness’ (Joeri Van den Bergh & Behrer, 2011) which is evident in several of the comments below.

ZM, (male, non-member) not only liked him but went further and explored the elements of charm in his explanation as stated below:

So, I like him, in other words. [Laughs.]. People get cheeky sometimes, they are stealing hearts.

GB, (male, non-member), was positive about the image because of the layout of the page and commented:

Yeah. Uh, especially considering he’s in – he’s in the foreground, and the background’s a whole bunch of other people.

The next interviewee, TN, (male, member), also considered the layout to be effective but cautioned against the background colour with his statement:

Oh, it’s quite good. It works in the background. Um, but there's an awful lot of purple there.

TN, (male, member), speculated whether the cover was sufficiently interesting to entice him to read the publication, and commented:

So what we've got is an image of the banners and Advocate, the union logo and then you have these pictures, which are really dynamic and quite good, um, but does that drive me into reading the article?

people to convey one message, saying that:

I do relate to those people, I think you can see sometimes people with some sort of message like the most recent one was that I think Asylum seekers where people posted pictures like that online in support a campaign so you’ve got that sort of general campaign that ‘we've got a cause going here’ and then maybe that modern setting of a network society, so yeah.

UG, (male, non-member), believed the people on the cover looked ‘real’. Once more the construct of ‘realness’ is expressed in the interview and, given that he repeated it several times, it could be assumed that the interviewee held it as important. He commented that:

Um, oh – look, potentially, yes. They’re, um – they look like fairly normal people. They’re obviously supporting their working rights, which is all fine. I’m personally not a very public person, so I probably wouldn’t take a photo of myself and – for the front of a magazine – To have it out there, that wouldn’t be me, personally, but –Yeah, they look like normal people. Just normal, real people.

The other major element on the cover of the publication was the hand held sign: ‘I support CAE’. Applying the Rossiter-Percy-Bellman Grid (Rossiter et al., 2005) on brand preference tactics to the communication intention in the message, it shows the message to be inadequate. The cover was not understood at the most basic level of what the acronym ‘CAE’ meant. Interviewees, in the main, did not know that CAE stood for College of Adult Education. Interviewees, who did not know, were not confined to either members or non-members or to males or females, because there was no practical reason for them knowing the meaning of CAE.

FN (female, non-member) indicated she would not enter the publication based on her reaction to the cover and that she did not know the acronym’s meaning.

Um, probably not [enter the publication]. I’m not sure what CAE stands for.

The unknown status of CAE was raised by GB (male, non-member) who asked: And what’s a CAE?

When KT, (female, non-member) was asked if she knew what CAE meant, she also responded negatively saying:

Another brief response was provided by TC, (male, non-member) in his reply: I don't know what the CAE is.

Further elaboration was provided by NL, (male, non-member), who also asked what CAE meant and then added that clarification in the text would have been helpful. He started with an initial negative response:

I support CAE? What is 'CAE'?

Interviewer: It's Centre for Adult Education

I, I don't know. If they had said it: "I support Centre of Adult Education for fairer working conditions"? If they'd said that, I would have understood it. But CAE, even though I've been in the tertiary sector for a few years I didn't get it.

SQ, (male, non-member) also indicated he did not know the meaning of CAE in his response. He said that:

Wouldn’t have a clue. I don’t know if the CA – it’s funny when you start when you start introducing acronyms and initialisms. It’s hard to know what they stand for.

TP, (female, non-member) was also unaware of the meaning of CAE and provided a more complete description of her reaction to the sign in her answer. She commented that:

No [Don’t know what CAE means]. They should explain that. All that jumps out to me is the fight for fair working conditions. That’s what jumps out. Support CAE? I have no idea what that is. And do you know what? With this, I would have something more of catching our attention. Like, how they can help or, more simple kind of stuff that we understand. Because, look, I don’t know what CAE is. So straight away I overlook that and go, well, I have no idea what that is.

There were no interviewees, who responded that they understood the ‘CAE’ acronym; a serious oversight for clear communication. The oversight is particularly serious because it forces the reader to rely heavily on other cues to understand the message. When the remainder of the image contains a repetition of the unknown message, as in this example, it is understandable that the reader would be baffled. The application of message pre-testing would prevent reader misunderstandings. The application of Rossiter and Percy’s (1985) Brand Attitude Strategies Matrix with regard

to using high involvement and informational tactics would help create a more effective magazine cover enhancing viewers’ attitude to the NTEU brand.