Videogames: Tomb Raider Anniversary

 Language and Audience

1) How does the cover communicate the genre of the game?

The background and the symbol behind Lara Croft can communicate a adventure genre codes. The hieroglyphics clearly seen with the gold complex design of presumably some treasure can communicate to the audience a quest narrative. Lara Croft pose with one gun pointing up and one down shows shes ready for any type of action, as well as the gun and the pose, it communicates a action genre as well with the adventure codes as well.

2) How does the pose and costume of the character appeal to primarily male audiences?

The costume is very limited, as it shows more skin and expose her body more. The pose allows the audience to see Lara Croft in full range. The lighting helps with this as the light shines behind her to show highlight her sexy key features.

3) How might the cover be read as empowering for female gamers?

Lara Croft is seen holding guns, ready for action. She's put in a light where shes not to be messed around. This can empower female gamer's as the Lara Croft portrays the message of a strong, leading role in the game.

Advertising: Score case study

 1) How did advertising techniques change in the 1960s and how does the Score advert reflect this change?

According to AdAge, advertising agencies in the 1960s relied less on market research and leaned more toward creative instinct in planning their campaigns. The "new advertising" of the 1960s took it's cue from the visual medium of TV and the popular posters of the day, which featured large visuals and minimal copy for a dazzling, dramatic effect. Print ads took on a realistic look, relying more on photography than illustration. The Score advert reflects this change because as we can see, the subjects (the centre of attention) are real people and there is barely any illustrations within the advert apart from the product itself and the text to go alongside it. Furthermore, this reflects the 'realistic' nature that began to take a significant role in 1960s advertisement.

2) What representations of women were found in post-war British advertising campaigns?

In the 1950s it was often a male expert who lectured to women about the virtues of a product. This changed in the 1960s: the male expert replaced by a female in a kitchen regularly extoling the virtues of a new soap powder to another female. 'The Good Wife'- often portrayed as something of a 'bimbo'- was the most common representation of women in 1960s advertising, who serviced the needs of her family and took pride and joy in housework. 

3) Conduct your own semiotic analysis of the Score hair cream advert: What are the connotations of the mise-en-scene in the image?

• The background of the advert connatates a British colonisation past
• The gun represents a phalic symbol and represents male dominance
• The females shown in the advert are reaching out the male character. This represents how women desperately need male power in the 1960's
• Women are dressed up to show more skin. This shows how women were sexualliesed and objectified in the 1960s

4) What does the factsheet suggest in terms of a narrative analysis of the Score hair cream advert?

The Liquid hair tonic is a product of the American Bristol-Meyers Company. Like many large companies of this era, they paid much more attention to building a distinctive character for the brand. The brand message is clear: to present the product as grooming product for a ‘real’ (masculine) man. The choice of the ‘Score’ brand name is deliberate and carries very obvious connotations.

5) How might an audience have responded to the advert in 1967? What about in 2019?

In 1967, this was more accepted and common among other adverts. If this was shown in present times, it would've cause a lot of controversy and challenged. Especially with cancel culture so high among our society. It would've received a bad representation and destroy the Score company. 

6) How does the Score hair cream advert use persuasive techniques (e.g. anchorage text, slogan, product information) to sell the product to an audience?

This text targets heterosexual and hetero-normative men. Slogan and the anchorage text helps to give the connatation to the male audience, reminding them of their sexuality.

7) How might you apply feminist theory to the Score hair cream advert - such as van Zoonen, bell hooks or Judith Butler?

van Zoonen argues that ‘gender’ is constructed through discourse and that its meaning varies according to the cultural and historical context. The Score advert constructs a representation of women that is typical of the late 1960s

8) How could David Gauntlett's theory regarding gender identity be applied to the Score hair cream advert?

David Gauntlett argues that both media producers and audiences play a role in constructing identities. The role of the producer in shaping ideas about masculinity is clear in the Score advert, which is undoubtedly similar to countless other media texts of that era. Surrounded by such representations, 1960s men would inevitably use these to shape their own identities and their sense of what it means to be a man in the mid-twentieth century.

9) What representation of sexuality can be found in the advert and why might this link to the 1967 decriminalisation of homosexuality (historical and cultural context)?

David Gauntlett argues that both media producers and audiences play a role in constructing identities. The role of the producer in shaping ideas about masculinity is clear in the Score advert, which is undoubtedly similar to countless other media texts of that era. Surrounded by such representations, 1960s men would inevitably use these to shape their own identities and their sense of what it means to be a man in the mid-twentieth century.

10) How does the advert reflect Britain's colonial past - another important historical and cultural context?

The reference to colonialist values can also be linked to social and cultural contexts of the ending of the British Empire. Paul Gilroy argues that despite the passing of empire, the white western world still exerts its dominance through cultural products. In Hollywood film, for example, the white male (usually American) plays the role of the hero, who inevitably saves the (dependent) world from disaster.

Videogames: Further Feminist Theory

 1) What definitions are offered by the factsheet for ‘feminism ‘and ‘patriarchy’?

Feminism is a movement which aims for equality for women – to be treated as equal to men socially, economically, and politically. It is a movement that is focused not on ‘hating’ men, or suggesting that women are superior.  patriarchy (male dominance in society). Feminists see the patriarchy as a limitation to women receiving the same treatment and benefits as their male counterparts.

2) Why did bell hooks publish her 1984 book ‘Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center’?

In 1984, hooks published Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. She had identified a lack of diversity within the feminist movement, and argued that these diverse voices had been marginalised, being put outside the main body of feminism. 

3) What aspects of feminism and oppression are the focus for a lot of bell hooks’s work?

hooks argues that feminism’s goal to make all women equal to men is flawed; not all men are equal to men as a result of oppression, sexuality, ethnicity. hooks used her work to offer a more inclusive feminists theory that advocated for women within a sisterhood to acknowledging and accepting their differences.

4) What is intersectionality and what does hooks argue regarding this?

The term intersectionality is used to describe overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination or discrimination. Its meaning is that multiple identities intersect to create a whole that is different from separate component identities. These individual identities can include gender, race, social class, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, age, mental disability, physical disability, mental illness, physical illness. These various aspects of identity are not mutually exclusive, instead they are working together to construct a new identity

bell hooks argues that experiences of class, gender, sexuality etc cannot be completely understood if the influences of racialisation are not considered. hooks argues that understanding intersectionality is vital to gaining political and social equality and improving our democratic system. hook describes intersectionality as something which can create and maintain systems of oppression and class domination. “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression”

5) What did Liesbet van Zoonen conclude regarding the relationship between gender roles and the mass media?

Her work puts her as a key figure in third wave feminism. Van Zoonen concludes that there is a strong relationship between gender (stereotypes, pornography and ideology) and communication, but it is also the mass media that leads to much of the observable gender identity structures in advertising, film and TV.

6) Liesbet van Zoonen sees gender as socially constructed. What does this mean and which other media theorist we have studied does this link to?

Van Zoonen has a postmodernist understanding of science as something which is socially constructed and grounded in the social experiences of its practitioners. Scientific feminist research always includes 3 perspectives: the individual, the social and the cultural influences in order to understand the different meanings of media content. For van Zoonen, culture is seen as “ways of life” or, as she quotes theorist John Corner, “the conditions and the forms in which meaning and value are structured and articulated within a society” (Corner, 1991). Feminist media studies focus on how gender is communicated within the media. For van Zoonen “gender is a, if not the, crucial component of culture”, in particular when investigating the production of mass mediated meanings.

7) How do feminists view women’s lifestyle magazines in different ways? Which view do you agree with?

For many years, feminists have criticised women’s magazines as commercial sites of exaggerated femininity which serve to pull women into a consumer culture on the promise that the products they buy will alleviate their own bodily insecurities and low self-esteem. But it is difficult, when applying a feminist perspective, to reconcile the pleasure women get from consuming women’s magazines, and the political correctness surrounding hegemonic constructions of gender identities. Van Zoonen argues that women’s magazines mediate images that tell women “how to be a perfect mother, lover, wife, homemaker, glamorous accessory, secretary – whatever suits the needs of the system”. Feminists of the 1970s saw the ‘media-created woman’ – the wife, mother, housekeeper, sex object – as a person only trying to be beautiful for men.

8) In looking at the history of the colours pink and blue, van Zoonen suggests ideas gender ideas can evolve over time. Which other media theorist we have studied argues this and do you agree that gender roles are in a process of constant change? Can you suggest examples to support your view?

Van Zoonen argues that this counterproductive progress is as a result of flaws in liberal, radical and socialist feminist media analysis; the flaws concern the conceptualisation of gender as “a dichotomous category with a homogenous and universal meaning, and the promise of mass media being instrumental to the control needs of respectively, society, patriarchy and capitalism”. Or in other words, other feminist media analyses have viewed gender as binary, with one single meaning. Van Zoonen’s critique is similar to Butler’s.

9) What are the five aspects van Zoonen suggests are significant in determining the influence of the media?

• Whether the institution is commercial or public
• The platform upon which they operate (print versus digital media)
• Genre (drama versus news
• Target audiences
• The place the media text holds within the audiences’ daily lives

10) What other media theorist can be linked to van Zoonen’s readings of the media?

Van Zoonen builds on Stuart Hall’s negotiated readings, arguing that the negotiated readings and subsequent focus on the way meanings are encoded and decoded “implies acknowledgement of gender construction as a social process in which women and men actively engage.” 

11) Van Zoonen discusses ‘transmission models of communication’. She suggests women are oppressed by the dominant culture and therefore take in representations that do not reflect their view of the world. What other theory and idea (that we have studied recently) can this be linked to?

Transmission models of communication position women as oppressed by the dominant culture expressed in media messages. Women, then, are apparently being flooded with images that do not reflect their own selves. As such, the interaction between men and women becomes a oneway process. However, van Zoonen also notes that media is used to assert one’s identity, and as such women should establish and express an appropriate feminine identity for each social situation. Women can use media to “try out different feminine subject positions”. This can be linked to Paul Gilroy "Double Consciousness".

12) Finally, van Zoonen has built on the work of bell hooks by exploring power and feminism. She suggests that power is not a binary male/female issue but reflects the “multiplicity of relations of subordination”. How does this link to bell hooks views on feminism and intersectionality?

She notes, however, that society is not created by order and binary divisions of the oppressed, and those who would oppress. Van Zoonen cites the experience of black feminists, such as bell hooks, where the individual can be both the subordinate in relation (woman vs. man) and dominant in another (white woman vs. black woman). So, van Zoonen argues that the focus should be not who is ‘in power’ and who is not, but to “theorise the multiplicity of relations of subordination” (Mouffe, 1992) and to consider how these relations of subordination for individual and collections, such as gender and ethnicity, are being established. Van Zoonen understands that gender is a particular discourse, “a set of overlapping and often contradictory cultural descriptions and prescriptions referring to sexual difference which arises from and regulates particular economic, social, political, technological and other non-discursive contexts”.

Videogames: Introduction - Women in videogames

 Part 1: Medium article - Is Female Representation in Video Games Finally Changing?

1) How have women traditionally been represented in videogames?

It’s no secret that women are typically either objectified or “damsels in distress” in many major video games, like the iconic Lara Craft to Princess Peach in the Mario franchise. According to a post by the Gamecult Blog, Princess Peach appears in “14 games of the core Super Mario Brothers platformer games and she’s kidnapped in 13 of them”.

2) What percentage of the video game audience is female?

On the survey “Distribution of Computer and Video Gamers in the United States from 2006 to 2017 by Gender”, 42% of the video game demographic is female.

3) What recent games have signalled a change in the industry and what qualities do the female protagonists offer?

In the past few years there has been a trend I feel will continue. A quick search on articles about women in video games turns up headlines like, “Why 2013 is the Best Year for Women in Video Games”. Recent popular games like Tomb Raider, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, The Last of Us, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and The Walking Dead series have female protagonists, co-protagonists or otherwise important characters. These games were all released within the past 5 years. These games each have characters who are role models for real women, because they are strong, independent, intelligent, willful and compassionate.

4) Do you agree with the idea that audiences reject media products if they feel they are misrepresented within them?

I feel like in today's industry, audience today are more understanding with different roles as the game developers spends a lot of time and work on the character design so they don't offend anyone. But over the years we can see the over sexuality of video game characters shown to reject the female audience as they are misrepresented.

5) What does the writer suggest has changed regarding recent versions of Lara Croft and who does she credit for this development?

Brianna Wu’s 2015 article in Polygon details how Crystal Dynamics saved Lara Croft by making some big changes in the reboot Tomb Raider (2013) and its sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015). First they hired Rhianna Pratchett as the lead writer, a woman who “had a long history of working on games with complex female protagonists, such as Heavenly Sword and Mirror’s Edge” and Pratchett decided to create a protagonist who players could identify with. Wu writes that “the essence of the new Lara Croft became the struggle she felt within herself”. When Lara Croft debuted in 1996, times were different, especially the ways in which women were seen. The rebooted game had to represent women in a more modern way.

Part 2: Tropes vs Women in Video Games – further analysis

Title of video: 

The Lady Sidekick - Tropes vs. Women in Video Games

100 word summary: 

This episode examines how female sidekicks and companions in games are often designed to function as glorified gatekeepers, helpless burdens, and ego boosters, a pattern that works to  reinforce oppressive notions about women as the ones in need of protection and men as the ones in control, who take action and do the protecting. It also feature some games with relationships that subvert traditional power fantasy mechanics, putting players on something  closer to equal footing with their AI companions as they offer examples of what real communication, compromise, and mutual support in games might look like.

Part 3: Anita Sarkeesian Gamespot interview

1) What reaction did Anita Sarkeesian receive when she published her videos on women in videogames? You can find more information on this on Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter fundraising page.

2) How does Sarkeesian summarise feminism?

3) Why do stories matter?

4) How does Sarkeesian view Samus Aran and Lara Croft (the two protagonists from our upcoming CSPs)?

5) How has the videogame landscape changed with regards to the representation of women?

6) Why are Mirror’s Edge and Portal held up as examples of more progressive representations of women?

7) What are the qualities that Sarkeesian lists for developers to work on creating more positive female characters?

8) What is the impact of the videogames industry being male-dominated?

9) What did Sarkeesian hope to achieve through her ‘Tropes vs Women in Video Games’ series?

10) What media debates did Sarkeesian hope to spark with her video series?

Advertising: Maybeline CSP Case Study

Maybelline 'That Boss Life': wider reading

1) Why was this campaign such a landmark for beauty product advertising?

Maybelline being a big company, working with beauty influencer Manny Gutierrez. Manny Gutierrez became the first international cosmetic model for Mybelline. Makeup advertisement has been limited to using women to represent their brand. Using men like Manny Gutierrez helps to promote the brand and expand viewership to other men.

2) What do the articles suggest regarding the changing representation of sexuality and masculinity?

The articles talk about how masculinity in modelling has changed over the years. Modelling becoming more of an inclusive space. Since makeup is mostly associated with women. Maybelline helps to give the message that guys can enjoy the same beauty as women, and shows how masculinity and sexuality become more accepted in society.

Now read this WWD article: Maybelline Taps Digital Makeup Influencers for New Mascara Campaign. 

3) Why might 'digital influencers' be so attractive to companies?

Digital Influencers has a big range of audiences. The social media following helps companies reach to modern society through technology. It reaches to targeted audience and boost sales.

4) Why do you think Maybelline chose to use MannyMUA and MakeUpShayla in particular?

The un-tapped audience of the LGBT community and ethnic groups can help boost and help make Maybelline look better. Maybelline used Manny and Shayla to reach to these targeted audience and represent their brand as more welcoming and supportive.

5) What does the WWD article suggest is the crucial factor for brands regardless of whether they use influencers or more traditional celebrities?

The real power today is if you have somebody recognizable who is also socially effective, a celebrity that has credibility. Celebrities who live in this new world can become hugely powerful.

Media Magazine: The Changing Face of Masculinity

1) What message does the article suggest the Score hair cream advert is trying to communicate to the 1967 audience?

A print ad by Bristol Myers Co. dating back to 1967 for its ‘Score Liquid Hair Groom’ product is a great place to start when discussing the representation of masculinity in advertising. In the 1960s, print advertisements tended to rely more on photography than illustration to achieve a more realistic look. The advert is using female sexuality to show men they can have power: you can conquer, you will be desired.

2) How does the article suggest the Score hair cream advert uses narrative to sell the product?

The strapline: ‘Get what you’ve

always wanted’ is, like the image, a bold aspirational statement. The narrative is clear: the consumer can have everything they want in the world if they buy the hair product. The tone of the copywriting continues to hammer home Score Hair Groom’s masculine qualities describing its ‘masculine scent’ and reassuring the target audience that it’s ‘made by men’.

3) What 1967 stereotypes does the article suggest the Score hair cream advert reinforces?

no women were involved in the creation of this product, it is solely for men, it smells manly and using it will not feminise you in any way. The brand’s personality and voice is all about masculine supremacy and self-belief, and is heavily reinforcing stereotypes of a patriarchal society.

4) Applying Stuart Hall's reception theory, what does the article suggest the preferred and oppositional readings could be for the Score hair cream advert?

The theorist Stuart Hall argued that audiences were not passive believers of the messages being fired at them, and that interpretation of mass media texts differed between different social groups. As part of his theory of Encoding /Decoding, he believed that the audience does not simply passively accept the messages they see; they derive their own meanings from media texts.

5) Moving on to the Maybelline advert, why is the background of Manny Gutierrez and Shayla Mitchell significant?

The first male brand ambassador, Manny Gutierrez, a Mexican-Spanish-American beauty vlogger and Instagram sensation. The video ad touches on issues of gender representation, ethnicity and lifestyle.

6) What is the narrative of the Maybelline advert?

The advertisement tells the story of two YouTubers, Manny Gutierrez and Shayla Mitchell checking into a New York hotel room with stunning views of the city. They open up a gold, glittery suitcase and out tumbles the product that everyone wants, the ‘Big Shot’ mascara. By simply applying the mascara, the wearer – female or male – is instantly transported to a more sophisticated cosmopolitan life surrounded by the finer things: a Manhattan hotel room, glamorous clothes and the promise of admission to the hottest clubs in the world’s greatest city.

7) What does the article suggest the Maybelline advert's message is?

uses an aspirational image showing two friends who do not conform to masculine and feminine ideals but are nonetheless powerful: happy in their own skin, confident in their bodies and their sexuality.

8) The final section of the article focuses on masculinity. What do the Score advert and the Maybelline advert suggest regarding the changes in society and media between 1967 and 2017?

I can be confident with bare skin and with a full face.’ However, the Twitter trolls have been airing their views. Blogger Matt Walsh openly criticised Gutierrez, saying: ‘Dads, this is why you need to be there to raise your sons’ implying that strong masculine role models, perhaps like the guy in the ‘Score’ commercial, can steer their sons away from a damaging and emasculating interest in beauty and make-up. Manny retorted: ‘Being a man isn’t just about how tough or

OSP: The Voice - blog case study

 Overview: Media Factsheet #229 - Applying Post-Colonial Theory to The Voice Online

1) What does the factsheet suggest regarding how The Voice is constructed from a media language perspective?

The Voice is conventional in the formal register of writing in the use of standard grammar, punctuation and sentence structure. It avoids overly long descriptive sentences and favours short, forceful sentences including the necessary facts and information.

The Voice avoids the red-Top tabloid approach when it comes to sensationalising stories and favours a tone more comparable tobroadsheet newspapers or mainstream websites, their headlinesstill use enigma codes but do not instigate outrage amongst theiraudience with the aim of generating clicks.

2) Complete Activity 3 on Page 2 of the Factsheet - analyse The Voice's website and suggest a possible demographic and psychographic breakdown for The Voice's audience.

    Demographic:

Age of The Voice audience - 30+ If this was online news I would've brought this a lot lower but due to this being a newspaper, the reading age is pretty high. I believe that 30+ is the most popular age for The Voice as it wants to educate about today's black politics and news.

    Psychographic:

Interests of the audience - Having political interests about today society. Reading about inspiring stories to take inspiration and educate them selves.

Opinions of the audience - Radical and Open minded opinions. I believe that The Voice does write articles of critical news today but they want to target the audience with a open mind so they can educate them further without being bias.

3) How can we apply Stuart Hall's audience theories to The Voice?

If we apply Stuart Hall’s theory of audience reception to The Voice, where media is encoded with an intended meaning by the producers, which is then decoded by an audience who may or may not accept the intended meaning. A preferred reading of The Voice is likely to rely on the audience having the direct experience of being a British black person in order to fully decode the meaning of the content.

4) What is an anti-essentialist perspective and how does this link to Paul Gilroy? 

Gilroy’s work is anti-essentialist (essentialism is the reduction of a group of people to an ‘essential’ idea of what it means to be part of that group). He argues that the fixed Black British identity which dominates the media, is an ideological construct that sees Black British groups as ‘other’ to White British people. This ‘otherness’ has the result of Black Britons being portrayed as a threat – at the time he was researching this, the term ‘the black problem’ was in use in the media – or as ‘victims’, dependent on the help of ‘white saviours’.

5) Choose three of the key terms from Gilroy's post-colonial theory on page 3 of the factsheet and apply them to The Voice as a media product.

Double Consciousness: 

Black people in these societies are forced to view themselves first through the eyes of a society that perceived them to be inferior before they can view themselves as a citizen of that society.

Othering:

The practice of othering means that groups may be excluded from the dominant social group to the margins of society. The effect is dehumanising on the people being othered.

Diaspora:

Diasporic communities often feel that their cultural identity is disconnected; they feel they do not belong in the country they live in nor in their country of historical origin.

6) How does The Voice link to Gilroy's Black Atlantic theory?

Gilroy outlines numerous commonalities in the lives of black people in Europe and North America because of the transatlantic slave routes. The history of racism, social deprivation and institutional prejudice are similar on both continents and these communities can relate to each other because of this, as well as their heritage and broader cultural heritage. People from diasporas may feel disconnected from both where they live now/were born and their heritage. Part of the reason The Voice was established in 1982 was the lack of media that catered to a generation of black people born in the UK and the aim was for the newspaper to connect with and report on issues faced by this community.

7) Look at page 5 of the factsheet. What news stories are highlighted as examples of the way the media reports differently depending on the race or ethnicity of the victims?

Recent news stories, such as the murder of Sarah Everard, have highlighted the potential difference in the way cases are treated with the implication being that white people are treated more seriously than those of people of colour. Wilhelmina Smallman, mother of two daughters who were killed in similar circumstances to Sarah Everard, says her daughters didn’t get “the same support, the same outcry, as Ms Everard because ‘other people have more kudos in this world than people of colour”.

8) How does the factsheet summarise and apply wider media theories The Voice on the final page?

The purpose of The Voice Online is to be a news site for black British people that focuses on their community and lives. Because of this community focused approach, it automatically means that there is a degree of identification for the target audience that is not attainable for people outside that Black British community. As a racial minority in Britain, British African-Caribbean people have experienced particular disadvantages and injustices because of systematic bias against them. This experience informs the meaning of The Voice Online’s content, and is encoded within the media language choices creating an intended meaning in the text.

Language and textual analysis

Homepage

1) Does The Voice homepage tend to use news or magazine website conventions? Give examples.

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

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?

4) Look at the news stories on the Voice homepage. Pick two stories and explain why they might appeal to the Voice's target audience. 

5) How is narrative used to encourage audience engagement with the Voice? Apply narrative theories (e.g. Levi-Strauss and binary opposition, Todorov's equilibrium or Barthes’ enigma codes) and make specific reference to stories on the homepage and how they encourage audiences to click through to them.

Lifestyle section

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

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

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

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

5) Choose two stories featured in the Lifestyle section – how do they reflect the values and ideologies of the Voice?

Feature focus

1) Read this Voice opinion piece on black representation in the tech industry. How does this piece reflect the values and ideologies of The Voice?

2) Read this feature on Michaela Coel supporting Oxfam's Second Hand campaign. Why might this feature appeal to readers of The Voice?

3) Read this Voice news story on Grenfell tower and Doreen Lawrence. How might this story reflect the Voice’s values and ideologies? What do the comments below suggest about how readers responded to the article? Can you link this to Gilroy’s work on the ‘Black Atlantic’ identity?

Audience

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

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

3) 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?

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

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?

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.)

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? 

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? 

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 or look at this Guardian article when Gleaner first acquired The Voice.

4) How does the Voice website make money?

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

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

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

8) 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?