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teenvogue

  • Ownership – owned by condé nast who is owned by Advance Publications who owns discovery channel as well
  • owned by the conglomerate Advance Publications and uses horizontal integration
  • It has other magazines allowing to reach a wider audience
  • revenue was US$2.4 billion (2016)
  • Advertising, marketing, product placement etc – in terms of revenue and type of products featured in Vogue (INSTITUTION & AUDIENCE)
  • Primary target audience 12-17 year old girls
  • Uses and Gratifications – understanding about self and knowledge about the world
  • Messages sent (encoded/decoded) ie the values, attitudes and opinions of this CSP (or ideology / political & social bias) (= REPRESENTATION)
  • Use of new technology / relationship to old technology (= LANGUAGE)
  • Layout, language, style, design, words, images, symbols, connectivity (=LANGUAGE)

Media Language

How are the codes and conventions of a website used in the product? How are these conventions used to influence meaning? The website could be analysed in terms of:

  • The language of composition and layout: images, positioning, layout, typography, language and mode of address.
  • The genre conventions of websites will be studied and the genre approach should also include reference to the content of lifestyle websites.
  • The application of a semiotic approach will aid the analysis of the way in which the website creates an ideology about the world it is constructing – often to do with age, beauty and social and political issues.
  • Narrative in the context of online material can refer to the way that the images and the selection of stories construct a narrative about the world.

Media Representations

The choice of this online product provides a wide range of representational issues. These include the representation of the target audience of young women in the United States but also globally. The focus on representation will build on work done in the analysis of visual images and can also be used to explore target audiences and ideological readings:

  • Representation of particular groups (age, gender, race), construction of a young female identity.
  • Rise, Resist. Raise your Voice’ is the slogan for the website.
  • Who is constructing the representation and to what purpose? the political opinions based on both the site and its sister publications leads me to believe that the general political opinion of Teen Vogue is more left leaning. Leftist politics focus more on people and society rather than financial loss/gain (capital)
  • The focus on politics, social issues and technology (in addition to fashion and celebrity) suggests a new representation of young women.
  • Analysis of the construction and function of stereotypes
  • Representation and news values – how do the stories selected construct a particular representation of the world and particular groups and places in it?

List of CSP articles

Kim Kardashian West talks about mass incarceration – written by de elizabeth in january 2020

This article features a famous celebrity – Kim Kardashian. This person is well known to young girls, and has a large following on instagram, earning about $750,000 per post. Kim kardashian could be classed as a social media influencer, and is idolised by young girls.

In this article, Kim kardashian talks about mass incarceration, which is featured in her upcoming Oxygen documentary Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project. In the article, it is mentioned that mass incarceration disproportionately effects people of colour as well as women. This is important to mention as the targeted audience of this magazine are young girls, and therefore this issue is specifically affecting them. This means that, with Hall’s theory of preferred reading, the response is likely to be dominant due to the targeted audience being mainly young girls. However, there still may be those who do not agree with the article (other…?) as well as those with a negotiated response (e.g. may think that people of colour are more likely to be incarcerated than women or may not agree with Kim Kardashian). In the article, Kim K states that “people deserve a second chance”, which is quite a general statement for this issue.

However, something contradictory about Kim Kardashian is that while she is spreading awareness of this issue by making a documentary about it, it’s still a documentary, which is still going to get her money and prestige. Furthermore, Kim K’s worth is $350 million, and she earns roughly $750,000 per post, meaning that she has the money to go out and physically make a difference but refuses to do so

Your Rights to unionise

Tomb raider

  • made in 1996
  • features protagonist Lara Croft – who shows both a mix of radical and reactionary beliefs (in a position of power – main character, strong female lead yet is sexualised to appeal to the male gaze)

Marshall Mcluhan: Medium is the message

  • cinema transforms groups and societies
  • we are more ‘isolated’ due to media
  • you don’t fully understand the medium = you don’t fully understand the message
  • in the context of teenvogue = distributed through social media, e.g. twitter. if the target audience enjoys reading teen vogue, they are more likely to check twitter often, shaping their social media habits.

Key Words associated with New Media

shareactivecreativehost
storyre-connectpersonalisestream
experiencestorescaleimmerse
interfaceliveadaptbinge
conversationre-performcirculateendless

share – the story is shared through the teen vogue website or twitter so it’s easy to share through a link or retweet

binge – articles are compiled so its easy to binge read

circulate – content can be easily circulated through retweets, especially from larger social media accounts

NEW MEDIA
OLD MEDIA
Active involvementPassive involvement
Two-way conversationOne-way conversation
Open systemClosed system
TransparentOpaque
One-on-one marketingMass marketing
About MeAbout Them
Brand and User-generated ContentProfessional content
Authentic contentPolished content
FREE platformPaid platform
Metric: EngagementMetric: Reach/ frequency
Actors: Users / InfluencersActors/ Celebrities
Community decision-makingEconomic decision-making
Unstructured communicationControlled communication
Real time creationPre-produced/ scheduled
Bottom-up strategyTop-down strategy
Informal languageFormal language

Gender representation essay

Write up a 750 word formal essay (ie beginning, main body and conclusion) that compares the representation of gender in both Mens Health and Tomb raider 

In this essay I am going to argue that there are both radical and reactionary representations in Tomb Raider and Men’s Health. To do this I am going to analyse the front cover and contents page of Men’s Health and the front cover of the Tomb Raider game. I am going to apply Gauntlett’s concepts of representation and reception theory to these products.

Gender representation is the presentation of gender roles in the media, which can be displayed in many different ways. Usually gender representation in media follows common stereotypes (the common representation of specific groups in media). The most common type of stereotype that is represented in media, especially traditional and older media is the “cool” man, which will be discussed during the analysis of Men’s Health. This gender representation will be compared to Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft and compared to the dominant ideology of gender.

Men’s Health displays both radical and reactionary views about masculinity. For example, the cover of Men’s Health contains strong, bold fonts which reinforces that all men are strong and powerful. Furthermore, the cover of Men’s Health also contains a semantic field of violence, strength and power: “demolish”, “blast”, “slay”. This is reactionary, as it reinforces the dominant ideology of the “cool” man – that men are strong, cool and brave. This is emphasised by the image of Vin Diesel on the front cover, who appears to be muscular with a tough and serious expression. This presents a dominant idea of masculinity, which one could argue is a toxic representation of masculinity – as it creates unrealistic body standards for men. In this photo, Vin Diesel has been photoshopped to appear more muscular than he actually is. This creates the impression that the impossible is achievable, creating a sense of false hope for men trying to become something that isn’t real. Furthermore, this creates a ‘standard’ for how men are supposed to look, creating a negative impact on the body images of men and their desire to ‘fit in’ – linking in to identity. This image of the “cool” and “muscular” man is, however, juxtaposed by the plug “detox for foodies” at the top of the magazine. This reflects on Gauntlett’s concept of gender fluidity – the fact that gender isn’t fixed, and can be changed. This is shown by the trait of specifically enjoying and critiquing food – a particularly feminine trait, being shown on the front cover of a men’s magazine. This also shows that the magazine is radical. Looking at the contents page, the influence of masculinity within the textual features is still strong – but less so. There is no semantic field of power or violence, and the gender role of “powerful man” is reduced to seemingly almost a façade. The contents page contains the strong text and blue colour – signifying masculinity, but including other features such as pink backgrounds for icons and softer fonts. This breaks the dominant ideology – in which men have to be unfalteringly masculine all the time.

This is similar to the front cover of Tomb Raider, as Lara Croft is both radical and reactionary, similar to how Men’s Health is presented. Firstly, the dominant signifier of the game, Lara Croft, is presented with highly feminine-conforming features: a flawless face, long hair, makeup as well as sexualised clothing. This is reactionary as it holds to the dominant ideology that all women are beautiful and desirable. Furthermore, Lara Croft’s clothing designs present her as very sexual, as her clothes leave a lot of skin exposed as well as the rule of thirds being used to emphasise her butt and breasts. This connects to the idea of the ‘male gaze’ – that straight cis white men control the media, which as a result shows us their visions of how they view different groups. In this case, Lara is sexualised to appeal to male gamers. This is also reactionary for how society views women. Lara Croft’s character is also, however, also radical. Lara Croft was created in order to have a strong female leading character, which was rare at the time. Furthermore, her story made her independent as she did not need a man in order to be strong. This, amongst women in society, is reactionary. But, for the dominant ideology, it is radical. Furthermore, Lara Croft is in the position of a man, doing things that would have been deemed ‘too daring’ for a woman to do in the game, such as ‘fighting fearsome creatures’ as denoted on the back and scaling walls. In conclusion, Tomb raider and men’s health both vary – Tomb raider is mostly radical, but is also slightly reactionary while Men’s Health is mostly reactionary, but is also radical in some parts.

These two texts both represent reactionary beliefs and radical beliefs. Tomb raider shows a woman in a man’s position wielding a gun and doing amazing feats, while appearing sexualised, and Men’s Health shows strong motifs of masculinity – strong text and a semantic field of power, while presenting that men can have more feminine traits such as being passionate about food. These ideas are presented to the audience in different ways, and the entire audience is not going to immediately accept this. If we use reception theory, it shows that there will be a divide in the audience. The intended representation of these texts will not enforce or change the entire audience’s beliefs. For example, the message that “men have to be strong” in Men’s Health will be received by the audience and there will be a divide based on opinion, such as: the dominant response – the intended response, which will enforce the audience’s opinion that “men have to be strong”. Then, there’s the negotiated response, where the audience may partially agree and disagree with “men have to be strong”. Finally, there’s the oppositional response, which would be a complete disagreement with the message. This, in turn has an effect on the dominant ideology of gender in society. This could have a negative effect, such as stereotyping. This could make outside parties assume that, for example, all women are flawless like Lara Croft, which can have a negative impact on women, as they are pressured to look flawless. Or, it could have a positive impact. For example, for Men’s Health, men could be less ashamed to talk about their interests or hobbies if the dominant ideology of “men have to uphold masculine interests” is challenged. This, therefore can end up enforcing more healthy beliefs with gender.