Attitude Online is the online version of the print version of Attitude magazine. As we have seen, it has many differences in terms of style, content and even it's target audience. The magazine version of Attitude specifically targets a middle class and aspirational audience, while the straightforward lexis and modes of address of Attitude online is clearly targeting a working class audience.
However, let us return to the conclusions that we made in the very first session on Attitude when we looked at the representation of gay men:
What is the point of Attitude online, and how does it work?
1 - Attitude.co.uk is a simple and straightforward website, and targets a 'simple and straightforward audience'
2 - Attitude.co.uk presents stereotypical and straightforward representations of gay men to construct a stereotypical and straightforward audience
3 - The sole reason that Attitude.co.uk exists is to advertise the magazine to the target audience, and to increase its profit through advertising revenue
This last point is especially important. Attitude is a digitally convergent media product, multimedia integrated media product which utilises hypermodality in order to exploit a range of push/pull factors, in order to maximise its revenue.
Key term - digital convergence - the coming together of previously separate media industries thanks to the benefits of digital technology. For example Netflix is an example of the convergence (coming together) of film, TV and the internet.
Key term - multimedia integration - where an organisation is structured around a variety of different types of convergent media. Attitude online is multimedia, as it encourages interaction between the website, and then buying the physical magazine
Key term - hypermodality - where a media product 'goes beyond' the traditional forms of communication. When you click on a hyperlink on Attitude and move to a different article, section, or even different website, this is hypermodality
Key term - push/pull factors - changes in digital technology have 'pushed' audiences away from traditional media platforms, such as print magazines and live television. However, smart media producers can use techniques such as hashtags, viral marketing and targeting advertising to 'pull' audiences back in. The huge banner advert at the top of the Attitude site to subscribe to the print magazine is an excellent example of a 'pull factor'
Task - read through the context in this section, and make sure you copy and paste these definitions in to your own blog
Attitude's press pack
A press kit or a press pack is "is a pre-packaged set of promotional materials that provide information about a person, company, organization or cause and which is distributed to members of the media for promotional use". They are excellent resources for analysing the ideology and the business strategy of a media, as well as explicit key facts about audience and sales figures
Task - click here to access the press pack for Attitude, and make EXTENSIVE notes on the target audience, sales figures, and any other information you may think is useful.
Note: if the link is down, please move on to the next activity. Sorry!Stream media and Attitude's production context
At the footer of the Attitude website, usually tucked behind an ugly pop-up advert is a link to Attitude's publisher, Stream Media
Stream Media is a publisher of a specific kind of magazine, and they target a niche audience.
Task - read through Stream Media's web page. Click around, read some articles, and get a grasp for what kinds of content they create and publish.
- What kind of magazines do Stream publish?
- What similarities do these magazines have to Attitude?
- Does Stream target a niche or a diverse range of readers?
- What kind of website is this, and who is the target audience? BIG HINT! Think back to the IPC/Time Media website when we studied Woman...
- What does Stream own? Does this make it vertically or horizontally integrated?
- Attitude's website was only launched in 2016. Why did the magazine wait so long to create a website?
Task - Read this article, about the acquisition of Attitude by Stream media. Why did Stream acquire (buy) Attitude? Apply Hesmondhalgh and Curran & Seaton's theories
Exploring theory - Hesmondhalgh - The Cultural Industries (3rd edition) (2013)
Task: read the following two extracts from David Hesmondhalgh's book The Cultural Industries, and then answer the question below
i
Many commentators go much further than I have above in pointing to change. Some claim, for example, that digitalisation has transformed cultural production beyond recognition. The internet and the mobile phone have triumphed. The music industry is dying or already dead, they say. Television is over. Book publishing as we knew it is finished. Yet these industries continue to pour out huge amounts of product, employ tens of thousands of people, produce considerable amounts of revenue, and occupy vast amounts of our time. Some optimistically see a new age where distinctions between producers and audiences disappear, and ‘users’ become the new creators. Commentary of this kind often implies, and sometimes explicitly states, that all the old notions and models need to be thrown out, and the history of cultural production is irrelevant because we are now living in an ‘information age’ rather than an ‘industrial age’ (or some other term that serves to simplify the past). Others see transformation just over the horizon. In many cases, it is unclear whether we are reading analysis of what is happening now, or a prediction of the future.
(ibid:3)
ii
Concentration, integration and co-opting publicity
Cultural industry companies deal with risk and the need to ensure audience maximisation by using strategies that are also apparent in other sectors.
- Horizontal integration - They buy up other companies in the same sector to reduce the competition for audiences and audience time.
- Vertical integration - They buy up other companies involved in different stages of the process of production and circulation. Companies might buy ‘downstream’, such as when a company involved in making films buys a DVD distributor, or ‘upstream’, which is when a company involved in distribution or transmission (such as a cable television company) buys a programme-maker.
- Internationalisation - By buying and partnering other companies abroad, corporations can sell massive amounts of extra copies of a product they have already paid to produce (though they will have to pay new marketing costs, of course).
- Multisector and multimedia integration - They buy into other related areas of cultural industry production to ensure cross-promotion.
Also important is the attempt to ‘co-opt’ (Hirsch, 1990[1972]) critics, DJs and various other people responsible for publicising texts, by socialising with them and sending them gifts, press releases, and so on.
(ibid:30-31)
Note: 'co-opting' is taking somebody else's ideas or strategies.