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