January Mock Exam Rewrite

Question 1


Since the introduction of the voice in 1982, it has faced several challenges as it has had to deal with the changes in technology. The Voice is the first newspaper targeted for African-Caribbean British celebrities and aims to give a voice to the black communities who in Gilroy's view have never really felt part of any community, he refers to this as diasporic identity. The changes that The Voice has faced is that new technology like YouTube and social media has made it harder for the newspaper to compete with as the new wave of audience are growing up to want their content fast, free and up to the minute, this is Marc Prensky's idea of digital natives. For example The Voice themselves have had to make social media pages for the new audience. Social media being a main challenge for many media brands now there are availabilities to follow their social media accounts on Facebook and twitter. The Voice have adapted and now have a YouTube channel and this is because new technology like this has driven it to be more accessible to the younger audience.

Conversely, Teen Vogue was introduced as the daughter website of Vogue in 2003 and their main goal was to attract the young female audience. The main age range being 16-24 year olds. Their famous slogan; 'rise, resist, raise your voice' is targeted at this female audience to get them to raise their voice. It too has faced challenges, in the same way that they have had to go up against big social media brands to retain viewers and their female teenage audience. A key representation of Teen Vogue is feminism which bloggers such as Rookie and Jezebel as they have changed the representation of women in the digital age, or with this new technology. This can be linked to Clay Shirky's 'end of audience' theory. It has established media brands such as Teen Vogue to stay relevant. Similarly, like The Voice, Teen Vogue have also had to make their own social media brands. Teen Vogue have been known to generate their revenue by selling it's readers data.

Theorist Postman has said that there is an exaggeration of stories, and that it is focused on the media. He talks about how there is just too much content in society now. This is evident in the fact that if you look at the front page on Teen Vogue, the majority of stories are about celebrities, they don't really empower women or help them raise their voice.




Question 2

Judith Butler's theory that gender is performative is evident in the fact that No Offence the factor that lead to it's success is that is promotes female dominance and empowerment. For example, Viv in No Offence, the lead inspector is female and the decisions are made after what she says, we see that she is a powerful women. The same way that Dinah is played as a powerful independent women who is not threatened by her male counterparts. Both these characters portray strong women that have to battle their own personal issues.
Similarly, in The Killing the main detective is Sarah Lund and this challenges and subverts stereotypes in the same way that Viv and Dinah do in No Offence. The main representation is that these females do not look at themselves through the eyes of men, which Laura Mulvey defines as the male gaze. In  The Killing, this is not the case as Sarah Lund always wears a sweater and no sexualised or revealing clothing that would attract the male audience. Gerbner references to her sweater in the way that it cultivates a image for the audience and this empowers women as they will think about Sarah Lunds character when they wear sweaters
However, in both media products the main victims are female, in No Offence there is a constant battle of targeting a killer who's victims are females with down syndrome and in The Killing, Naana is the female who gets murdered by a male killer, the main issue is that the shows portray a sense of patriarchy and that females are chasing men in the way that the detectives have to find the male killer
Gender is constructed in these shows as the women have to overcome a male presence, Viv has to go again the other male detective and has to help her team solve crimes

Teen Vogue

Teen Vogue offers a huge amount to discuss and write about for the concepts of audience and representation.

The exam could focus on anything from the changing nature of digital audiences to how certain groups or issues are represented in Teen Vogue online.

Notes from the lesson

Audience

Although the brand name suggests a teenage audience, the typical Teen Vogue reader has evolved in recent years. The move to more political content has broadened the appeal and changed the genre – young women now expect more from their media.

The ‘Campus Life’ section in Lifestyle also suggests an older readership. However, the audience is still interested in celebrity content and beauty – which Teen Vogue addresses by featuring the ‘opinion leaders’ (two-step flow) of social media.

Generations

Generation X: Born between 1965 – 1980
Millennials / Generation Y: Born between 1981 – 1995
Generation Z (or iGen): Born 1996 – 2010

Teen Vogue: political positioning

Teen Vogue generally takes a liberal, left-wing political stance and positions its readers to become active in their support:

·                     Pro-feminist

·                     Pro-gender fluidity and gender identity

·                     Supports LGBT equality

·                     Pro-multiculturalism

·                     Supports Black Lives Matter

·                     Pro-environment (accepting science on climate change)

·                     Pro-choice (abortion)

Teen Vogue: audience interaction

How does Teen Vogue encourage audience interaction?

·                     Activism

·                     Social media

·                     ‘Clickbait’ and first-person headlines

·                     Events – Teen Vogue summit

https://youtu.be/2US5nRNq-sU

Representation

Changing representations

Feminist bloggers and websites such as Rookie and liberal blogJezebel have been credited with changing the representation of women and feminism in the digital age.


This can be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory with digital influencers changing the media landscape for women – and established mainstream brands like Teen Vogue are following to stay relevant.

Teen Vogue: Audience and Representation blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'Teen Vogue Audience and Representation' and work through the following tasks to complete the audience and representation aspects of your Teen Vogue case study:

Audience

1) Analyse the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What is the Teen Vogue mission statement and what does this tell us about the target audience and audience pleasures?

MS:Teen Vogue is the young person’s guide to saving the world. We aim to educate, enlighten, and empower our audience to create a more inclusive environment (both on- and offline) by amplifying the voices of the unheard, telling stories that normally go untold, and providing resources for teens looking to make a tangible impact in their communities.

This tells us about their target audience and how it is mainly teenagers. One of the audience pleasures is that it empowers its audience by giving them a voice on the website etc.

2) What is the target audience for Teen Vogue? Use the media pack to pick out key aspects of the audience demographics. Also, consider the psychographic groups that would be attracted to Teen Vogue: make specific reference to the website design or certain articles to support your points regarding this.

Teen Vogues Target Audience is:16-24 year olds with an 18.5mn total audience reach. Meaning it mainly targets Generation Z.

3) What audience pleasures or gratifications can be found in Teen Vogue? Do these differ from the gratifications of traditional print-based magazines?

Personal Identity, as the readers will be reading about people the same age, give or take a year or two.

Surveillance as there may be important articles about current affairs, giving the audience awareness about that topic.

4) How is the audience positioned to respond to political news stories?

The audience are positioned in a largely left wing standpoint, meaning they are quite anti-Trump.

5) How does Teen Vogue encourage audiences to interact with the brand – and each other – on social media? The ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ section of the media pack may help with this question.

Teen Vogue will display people in the industry who are relevant to the Teen Vogue brand who are nominated for awards in order to empower their audience

In addition to this, they will hire professionals in order to give the best skincare tips to their audience.

Representations

1) Look again at the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What do the ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ (key events and features throughout the year) suggest about the representation of women and teenage girls on teenvogue.com?

This suggests that there is a strongly positive view of women in Teen Vogue. It is also heavily implied that the women of the current generation have the power to change the world.

2) How are issues of gender identity and sexuality represented in Teen Vogue?

Gender identity is displayed as something that you should have in some way, e.g. with the Maybelline "That Boss Life," they would have presented it in a largely positive light, with the idea that you can chose who you want to be, the same way MannyMUA has.

3) Do representations of appearance or beauty in Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge traditional stereotypes?

Yes and No, yes as Teen Vogue is all about empowerment, meaning that it is only natural that they would try to present beauty in all shapes and sizes.

Although, the Skai Jackson campaign which they are associated with would suggest something different as that image is airbrushed and photoshopped, meaning that TV are suggesting that you have to look a certain way to be beautiful.

4) What is the patriarchy and how does Teen Vogue challenge it? Does it succeed? 

Patriarchy is the belief that modern society is driven and controlled by men. Teen Vogue challenges a patriarchal society in the way that they give more of a voice to females. Teen Vogue generally takes a liberal, left-wing political stance.

5) Does Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge typical representations of celebrity?

Teen Vogue reinforces Celebrity stereotypes due to the fact that they are shown compliments and insults, but it shows them receiving both of which in a happy and entertaining way, when in reality that may not be the actual way they react to such comments.

Feature: how Teen Vogue represents the changing nature of media aimed at women

Read this Quartz feature - The true story of how Teen Vogue got mad, got woke, and began terrifying men like Donald Trump - and answer the following questions:

1) How was the Teen Vogue op-ed on Donald Trump received on social media?

There was a mixed reaction of republicans saying negative things about Teen Vogue, but on the other hand it also had a positive reception.

2) How have newspapers and magazines generally categorised and targeted news by gender?

The lifestyle portion is mainly aimed at women, and the news sections are aimed at men.

3) How is this gender bias still present in the modern media landscape?

64% of J-school graduates were female. 65% of political journalists, 67% of criminal justice reporters, and 62% of reporters covering “business and economics” were male. Even in the lifestyle section, women can only pull even; the gender split there is precisely 50-50.

4) What impact did the alternative women’s website Jezebel have on the women’s magazine market?

It made it more believable that women want a feminist magazine with politics, as before, it was believed that politics was never an interest.

5) Do you agree with the writer that female audiences can enjoy celebrity news and beauty tips alongside hard-hitting political coverage? Does this explain the recent success of Teen Vogue?

 I agree with this statement as there is no reason that people can't enjoy two different genres of entertainment, if you consider politics a form of entertainment.

6) How does the writer suggest feminists used to be represented in the media?

 Feminists were represented as  "sexless, grim bra-burners, uninterested in pleasure or aesthetics."

7) What is the more modern representation of feminism? Do you agree that this makes feminism ‘stereotyped as fluffy’?

No, i believe that you just like what you like. Having a preference of a specific type of music does not make you "fluffy" in any sense of the word.

8) What contrasting audience pleasures for Teen Vogue are suggested by the writer in the article as a whole?

There is a sense of empowerment as you are reading of the limited titles for women that talk about typically male oriented topics, e.g. politics. Also, there is the idea of retaining your femininity as it also talks about the stereotypically feminine things like beauty, fashion etc.

9) The writer suggests that this change in representation and audience pleasures for media products aimed at women has emerged from the feminist-blog movement. How can this be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory?

This can be linked to Shirky's end of audience theory as feminists have decided that something wasn't right and acted upon it, meaning that they are being more than an audience, who would simply receive a media text and not react to it in some capacity.

10) Is Teen Vogue simply a product of the Trump presidency or will websites and magazines aimed at women continue to become more hard-hitting and serious in their offering to audiences?

I think that over time there will be more and more women oriented websites that talk about the serious and hard hitting topics. However it can be argued that Teen Vogue was a product of Trump's presidency as without him, it can be said that Teen Vogue wouldn't be in the position it is in today.

The Voice

The Voice - background and notes

The Voice, founded in 1982, is the only British national black weekly newspaper operating in the United Kingdom. It is owned by GV Media Group Limited, and is aimed at the British African-Caribbean community. The paper is based in London and is published every Thursday. 


The first issue of The Voice was printed to coincide with the Notting Hill Carnival in August 1982. Its cover price was 54 pence, and was only sold in London.

You can read more of this background from the original source - the Voice website About Us page.

The Voice: social and historical context

In 1981, the Brixton race riots shone a spotlight on race relations in Britain. 

The Voice emerged in 1982 partly as a result of these riots – both due to the need to offer a voice and representation to black Britons and also due to a business loan from Barclays Bank. The bank was keen at the time to improve their reputation with the black community due to investments in Apartheid South Africa.

Social context - The Battle for Brixton documentary

https://youtu.be/XwGscMQk_zY

The Voice analysis: production values

The Voice offers a strong contrast to Teen Vogue with significantly lower production values across its digital operations – website design, video content and social media. However, the growth of digital technology means that the Voice can effectively compete on the same playing field as Teen Vogue, albeit targeting a niche audience.

Watch this video on influential black women in business and compare it to Teen Vogue’s video content – similar in ideology but very different in production values (note the view count too):

https://youtu.be/PoYUHHIkItU

The Voice: representation

The Voice was launched to cater for the interests of British-born black people. Applying Gilroy’s work on “double consciousness”, it could be argued that the Voice was launched to give black audiences an opportunity to see the world through their own eyes rather than through the prism of white, often-racist mainstream British media.

The Voice: industries

The Voice is owned by a Jamaican media organisation the Gleaner company and published in Britain by GV Media Group. It is a significant contrast to Teen Vogue and the international giant Conde Nast.


The Voice: case study blog tasks

Language and textual analysis

Homepage

Go to the Voice homepage and answer the following:

1) What news website key conventions can you find on the Voice homepage?

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram links

Photographs

Main story

Subscription option

2) How does the page design differ from Teen Vogue?

Teen vogue is mostly just photographs of celebrities with minimal text and no main story or any trending news. There is no external social media links e.g facebook or twitter. The voice page design is a lot more conventional compared to that of Teen Vogue, which takes quite a visual approach to their home page, with plenty of images and article titles .

3) What are some of the items in the top menu bar and what does this tell you about the content, values and ideologies of the Voice?

home

sport

opinion

entertainment

lifestyle

faith

career

4) Look at the news stories in the Voice. To what extent does the selection of news stories fit Galtung and Ruge’s News Values theory? (See image below)

UK news remembering Malcom Fredrick - Elite People

Twin sister of 18-year old murdered on new year's day speaks of heartbreak -  Negativity

Family of woman who died on Christmas eve speak of their shock - Unexpectedness

• UK NEWS Tributes flood in to ‘inspirational’ Barbara Campbell
• 
  
• MUSIC Jidenna credits DJ Abrantee for spearheading afrobeats’ global takeover

(News–values and  news–criteria, determine how much prominence a news story is given by a media outlet and explain the attention it is given by the audience.)

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.galtung-institut.de%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F04%2FGaltung-and-Ruge.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.galtung-institut.de%2Fen%2F2015%2Fgaltung-and-ruge-news-values-an-update-by-prof-galtung-october-2014%2F&docid=hQ6lfDSD_k_rvM&tbnid=SScpJ65qlNVbvM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjBuLGngLTgAhUhrXEKHWrDBUcQMwg_KAEwAQ..i&w=720&h=1090&safe=strict&bih=216&biw=341&q=news%20values%20theory%20Galtung%20and%20Ruge%E2%80%99s&ved=0ahUKEwjBuLGngLTgAhUhrXEKHWrDBUcQMwg_KAEwAQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

5) How is narrative used to encourage audience engagement with the Voice? Apply narrative theories (e.g. Todorov equilibrium or Barthes’ enigma codes) and make specific reference to stories on the homepage.

Lifestyle section

Now analyse the Lifestyle section of the Voice and answer the following:

1) What are the items in the sub-menu bar for the Lifestyle section and what does this suggest about the Voice audience?

Apprenticeship
Multimedia
Dating
Jobs

These suggests many things about the audience of the voice, some of which being that a portion of the readers are single, unemployed and use different types of media for news, e.g. internet/videos.

2) What are the main stories in the Lifestyle section currently?

Honourees aplenty at 2019 Black Magic Awards
Impossible Foods launches plant-based ‘pork’ product
New year resolutions: just how do they tell the stories of our lives?
Jidenna credits DJ Abrantee for spearheading afrobeats’ global takeover

3) How does the Lifestyle section of the Voice differ from Teen Vogue?

Ariel Winter Wore Head-to-Toe Neon to the Golden Globes 2020 After Party
‘Euphoria’ Cast Had a Fashionable Reunion at the Golden Globes 2020 After Party
Emily Ratajkowski Reflects on Sexuality and Growing Up
Comparing Black Women to Animals Is a Residue of Chattel Slavery

4) Do the sections and stories in the Voice Lifestyle section challenge or reinforce black stereotypes in British media?

The different sections in the voice arguably challenge the black stereotypes due to the fact that the stories that black people are represented in are that of which are very positive, and celebrate the success of black people. Some of which includes: Nottingham Based Restaurant Launches Cooking Book.

Feature focus

1) Read this Voice Lifestyle feature on the first black photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue magazine. Why would this appeal to the Voice’s audience?

Readers of The Voice would find some level of appeal in this article due to the fact that it not only is focused on a pioneering black women in a cut throat industy, it focuses largley on her success.

2) Read/watch this Lifestyle interview with The Hate U Give star Amandla Stenberg. How does the interview reflect the values and ideologies of the Voice? What do you notice about the production values of the interview?

The values and ideologies of the voice are a lot more sophisticated compared to that of other websites, which may have asked more light-hearted questions, whereas with the voice it is perhaps more looking into Stenberg's personal life and talking about her acting and what kinds of groups she's apart of etc.

3) Read this feature on ‘buying black’ for Black Friday. What does this feature tell you about the values and ideologies behind the Voice? Does this viewpoint reflect Gilroy’s theory of the ‘Black Atlantic’ identity?


This tells us that The Voice wants the black community to thrive and an example of this is the promotion of black owned businesses, essentially.

Audience

1) Who do you think is the target audience for the Voice website? Consider demographics and psychographics.

Age:30-45

Psycographics:Struggler/Reformer

2) What audience pleasures are provided by the Voice website? Apply media theory here such as Blumler and Katz (Uses & Gratifications).

Sureveillance as it proves news for the readers, as well as personal identity The Voicce has a lot of black readers. Diversion is also a gratification as some people may enjoy reading the soft news on the website.

3) Give examples of content from the website that tells you this is aimed at a specialised or niche audience.

The motoring section of the websites top header bar suggests a more male oriented audience, or even an audience that are in that field of work, either way this example clearly shows a more specialised audience.

On top of this, there is the lifestyle section, whereby it displays quite happy, religion related stories, again displaying the kind of audience they're looking for.

4) Studying the themes of politics, history and racism that feature in some of the Voice’s content, why might this resonate with the Voice’s British target audience?


This may be becuase thhey are older, they may have experienced some sort of racism or even seen some of the history before them when they were younger, creating a sense to learn more about it in articles, on websitres like The Voice.

5) Can you find any examples of content on the Voice website created or driven by the audience or citizen journalism? How does this reflect Clay Shirky’s work on the ‘end of audience’ and the era of ‘mass amateurisation’?

Representations

1) How is the audience positioned to respond to representations in the Voice website?

The audience are positioned to feel like the industries are progressing to be more fair, allowing an equal chance for everyone, an example being the hair stylist being inducted into the hair hall of fame.

2) Are representations in the Voice an example of Gilroy’s concept of “double consciousness” NOT applying?

3) What kind of black British identity is promoted on the Voice website? Can you find any examples of Gilroy’s “liquidity of culture” or “unruly multiculturalism” here?

4) Applying Stuart Hall’s constructivist approach to representations, how might different audiences interpret the representations of black Britons in the Voice?

Different audiences would see Black Britons as facing challenges and barriers which are needed to overcome, which paint them in some ways, in a positive light.

5) Do you notice any other interesting representations in the Voice website? For example, representations or people, places or groups (e.g. gender, age, Britishness, other countries etc.) 

The only example I could find was of Rice scoring against Arsenal the past weekend, presents a representation of another ethnicity, but other than that The Voice is largley based around one audience.

Industries

1) Read this Guardian report on the death of the original founder of the Voice. What does this tell you about the original values and ideologies behind the Voice brand? 

This article tells us that he was a pioneer of sorts, who was willing to take risks in order to advance the world, made clear through how he set up the voice in the 70s'

2) Read this history of the Voice’s rivals and the struggles the Voice faced back in 2001. What issues raised in the article are still relevant today? 

That of sales of newspapers declining, causing them to go out of business, as well as buyouts

3) The Voice is now published by GV Media Group, a subsidiary of the Jamaican Gleaner company. What other media brands do the Gleaner company own and why might they be interested in owning the Voice? You'll need to research this using Google/Wikipedia.

Hospitality Jamaica and The Weekend Star due to the work they do for the black community and in Jamaica, which is suited to The Voice as it is a mainly African/Carribean aimed website.

4) How does the Voice website make money?

Newspaper sales, Youtube ad Revenue and ads on their website.

5) What adverts or promotions can you find on the Voice website? Are the adverts based on the user’s ‘cookies’ or fixed adverts? What do these adverts tell you about the level of technology and sophistication of the Voice’s website?

The Voice Jobs, The Voice Dating and Windrush 70. These ads were all still , boring and non animated, suggesting a low amount of technological investment in the website.

6) Is there an element of public service to the Voice’s role in British media or is it simply a vehicle to make profit?

There is definitely some aspect of being a public service as it can be said that black britons are under or misrepresented in the media, therefore having a newspaper that accurately does so can be seen as a public service.

7) What examples of technological convergence can you find on the Voice website – e.g. video or audio content?

The entire multimediasection which displays stories in the form of videos for people who prefer to watch than read . There is also a slideshow which advertises the stories with their own respected story.

8) How has the growth of digital distribution through the internet changed the potential for niche products like the Voice?

The internet has allowed for niche products to be reached by a wider market, meaning that now anyone around the world can view the stories on The Voice website, rather than just the newspaper.

9) Analyse the Voice’s Twitter feed. How does this contrast with other Twitter feeds you have studied (such as MailOnline or Teen Vogue)? Are there examples of ‘clickbait’ or does the Voice have a different feel?

There aren't really any examples of clickbait on the Voice's twitter, as really it is only being used to advertise the stories on the website.

10) Study a selection of videos from the Voice’s YouTube channel. How does this content differ from Teen Vogue? What are the production values of their video content?

The Teen Vogue youtube videos have more of a production value and are clearly backed up by investments of some sorts. Whereas the voice's videos are likley to be substaintially lower budget, compared to Teen Vogue.