“To what extent is Teen Vogue constructed to respond to the demands of various interested groups? In your response you should consider groups which have influence online, for example consumers, advertisers and competitors.”

• teen vogue is a digital (not print) title – target audience (young women) predominantly consume news via the internet rather than reading print news
• microtargeting used in the digital industry to target specific audiences – teen vogue is no exception
• disrupt J20 article – studies + data harvesting show young americans are interested in radical politics, ‘no class’ column (written by an anarchist organiser) appeals to this demographic of class-conscious young people
• coverage of politics – teen vogue is attempting to move away from just being a fashion/society magazine and towards a comprehensive title for young women (versus static competitors)

positive:

• audiences can choose to consume whatever they like
• vast amounts of information easily available
• consumers are targeted by ads for things they’re more likely to buy, rather than pointless ones for things they probably won’t

negative:

• microtargeting and massive data harvesting mean that companies can accrue vast amounts of information about individual customers
• sensitive information (sexual orientation, political beliefs etc.) can easily be collected and sold
• potential for blackmail by intelligence services or private companies – government surveillance issues?
• consumers are more easily manipulated when data harvesting can work out their personality type, personal history etc.

quote: “nix claimed to have data resolved ‘to an individual level where we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every adult in the united states'”

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/j20-protest-trump-anniversary

• teen vogue is culturally significant in its marrying of the political with fashion – my case study is from teen vogue’s ‘no class’ op-ed series, written by an anarchist organiser from new york, and covers the radical j20 protest against the inauguration of the current president of the united states in january 2017
• representation of the target audience of young women in the united states but also globally – the article covers us politics and looks back to a significant event in very recent history, the 2017 inauguration.

production:

• cameras
• lighting
• sound systems
• editing software
• printers
• word processors

distribution:

• projectors
• celluloid film
• DVDs
• social media
• the internet in general
• television

• slavery finally abolished in the southern united states after the end of the american civil war in 1865
• segregation laws used in southern states post-reconstruction to segregate blacks from whites
• little interest in genuinely freeing black people from the northern political class
• civil rights movement in the 1960s wins legal rights for black americans, but more radical groups (BPP, NoI/OAAU, new afrikan/black belt nationalist movement) suppressed
• mass incarceration (via the war on drugs – crack cocaine epidemic started by the CIA) used to imprison vast numbers of black people in private prisons
• prisoners used for slave labour in private prisons
• protests over police brutality (ferguson uprising etc.)

Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Men’s Health magazine, two extremely popular and influential media products, represent the concept of gender in interesting and contrasting ways. In this essay, I will explore the representation of gender throughout the two products, as well as the meaning of the term ‘gender’ itself, and come to a conclusion as to the radical or reactionary nature of the two texts.

To understand gender, we must first define it – and that itself is something you could write a whole essay on. Merriam-Webster defines gender as “the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex” – i.e., the things we do, say, wear and think that make us identifiable as a man, woman, or any other gender role prevalent in a given culture. Both of the texts, trapped as they are in a cultural framework dominated by liberalism, largely represent gender according to liberal norms – men and women are commodified, sexualised and encouraged to see themselves as physically and socially lacking. This trend is dominant across both CSPs, with few exceptions.

The representation of gender in Men’s Health and Tomb Raider: Anniversary is different insofar that the two products essentially deal with different subject matter – Men’s Health obviously deals with males, whereas TR’s female protagonist leads to a larger focus on the representation of women. Both, however, are ultimately aimed at men – and this is apparent in the way that Tomb Raider represents the female form and deals with stereotypes about women. Lara, Tomb Raider’s main character, is nothing if not a sex symbol – the size of her breasts has been a cornerstone of the debate about women in video games for over two decades, and Anniversary doesn’t pull any punches in this regard. Anniversary’s front cover shows Lara posing side-on, with her large breasts, short shorts and smug facial expression clearly visible – she holds two pistols, symbolising her power as an independent heroine. The presentation of Lara as independent and able to protect herself is easily interpreted as a radical representation, but this isn’t the right way of looking at it – Lara’s guns, the images on the back cover of her shooting at dinosaurs and running along walls, the very representation of Lara as violent and powerful, serves to crown her sexualisation and further titillate the text’s assumed male audience. In peak liberal form, Lara’s own power simply serves to further her representation as a sex object – she’s the hot mercenary lady with giant breasts who kills people without a second thought, the perfect counterpoint to the sort of sterile basement nerd who played videogames in 1996, with the obvious implication being that she is sexually dominant and probably gets a lot of action. This is hardly a radical representation of the female form – it’s less revolutionary feminism and more reactionary liberalism, bound up in the same philosophy of ‘empowerment’ that sees supposed radicals defending institutions like prostitution; and it’s just as vile and embarrassing.

Men’s Health chooses to deal with gender in a slightly more nuanced way, though it isn’t really any better. Page 101’s discussion of an older man’s struggle against his own degenerate lifestyle is actually rather inspiring – it’s a thoroughly interesting representation that deals with ageing in an extremely mature way, and serves to demonstrate that old age is not an excuse when it comes to keeping fit. The representation of Philip Howells, a not-particularly-attractive 69-year-old man, as a kind of fitness hero is really rather radical in its orientation towards the old. The magazine’s front cover is decidedly less impressive, plastered as it is with slogans such as “BLAST BODY FAT!” and “DOUBLE YOUR METABOLISM!”, as well as a rather large image of a muscled Vin Diesel showing off his gains for all to see. Liberalism’s sexualisation of everyone and everything strikes again – Diesel’s large arms, his big muscles, his aggressive straight-on pose and his no-nonsense facial expression are a clear demonstration of the fact that he is being represented as an idealised ‘sexy man’ for you to emulate. The aforementioned slogans capitalise on your own sense of inadequacy, your own feeling of lacking manhood, and present you with quick fixes that will supposedly help you achieve the ‘sexy man’ body – this is obviously not achievable for any normal person, and that very fact is what keeps you feeling inadequate, keeps you buying copies of Men’s Health, and, ultimately, keeps paying for William Randolph Hearst III’s ever-expanding collection of atrocious ties (which is, of course, what this is actually about). This is, somehow, an even less thoughtful representation of ideas around gender than in Tomb Raider.

Neither of these texts could be described as radical in any meaningful way, save for a small section of Men’s Health magazine. The producers of both products are seemingly all in thrall to liberalism’s degenerate cult of sex worship, and are thoroughly reactionary in their political and cultural orientation.

fluidity of identity: the idea that identity in the digital age is highly fluid and can be picked up or discarded relatively easily.

constructed identity: the identities that humans construct based on social interaction, often defined in opposition to another identity.

negotiated identity: the unsaid negotiated agreements about ‘who is who’ in a relationship regarding their identities.

collective identity: the identity of a group.

positive and negative stereotypes: preconceived notions of a person or thing, not necessarily based on fact – these can be either positive (e.g. English people are polite) or negative (e.g. Germans have no sense of humour).

counter-types: a representation of a person or thing that challenges dominant stereotypes about that person or thing.

misrepresentation: a false or misleading representation of someone or something.

selective representation: when a producer chooses to represent one or several aspect(s) of something over and above all others.

dominant ideology: the social, cultural and political framework shared by most people in a given society, informing their values, attitudes and beliefs.

constructed reality: the ‘reality’ constructed by humans through the process of social interaction – e.g. a school is a school because society as a whole agrees that it is a school

hegemony: the ideological domination of society by the ruling class within that society, serving to justify the political and social status quo.

audience positioning: the techniques used by the creator of a text to try to get the audience to understand the ideology of the text and accept the intended reading of said text.