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| Lovely! |
- An aesthetically pleasing mode of address is constructed through the MES. The binary opposition between gold and black is pleasing to the audience, and constructs the conventions of a fashion, beauty and lifestyle vlog. This is highly conventional of this genre.
- The user interface (UI) is simple, straightforward, easy to use, modern and elegant
- A range of colourful thumbnail images creates an easily accessible website, and makes it clear to the audience the content of her videos. Each thumbnail combines Zoella's exaggerated facial features, and functions as a proairetic code, suggesting the excitement and information within each video
- Further anchorage is provided by the brightly coloured serif font announcing the content of videos, making everything as obvious as possible to the target audience
- A range of hyperlinks are provided, allowing the audience to skip to and to select their own experience.
- Hypermodality - the process of an interlinked selection of media products, going beyond the mode of original communication. Everything’s connected!
- “Zoella’s YouTube portal provides a hypermodal mode of address to the target audience, allowing them to select their own video”
- A childish, even patronising mode of address that clearly targets a younger audience. This is encoded through the MES of the thumbnails, eg the conventions of pouting and directly addressing the camera
- Zoella is a lifestyle and beauty vlogger/blogger, and the MES of her web portal is highly conventional of this genre
- Title is in a large serif font, which has stereotypical conventions of femininity and girlishness
- The MES of paint brush strokes is artistic, and has connotations of a friendly and family friendly mode of address
- The lexis is simple, straightforward and not challenging, which is perfect for a younger target audience
- The lexis is not problematic, and lacks any reference to controversy, or political agendas
- Thumbnails depict Sugg with a variety of extremely exaggerated facial expressions, to cater to a younger audience, and to present a particularly eye-catching mode of address
- Thumbnails often include explicit reference to brands which are recognisable high street products. Generally affordable and often appealing to a younger target audience, they construct a glamorous, desirable and aspirational mode of address for her younger target audience
- A highly manipulative mode of address, promoting products to a young and naïve target audience. In doing so, Zoella promotes consumerist ideological perspectives
Key terms
Web portal - a front page that contains a variety of hyperlinks
Hyperlink - a link within a webpage to another webpage
Layout - how the page is presented to the audience
UI - user interface. The ways in which the audience can use or interact with the media product
Thumbnail - a striking promotional image that invites audiences to click on the content. Often thumbnails use exaggerated facial expressions and colour schemes
Hypermodality - a mode of communication that is based on linking to other texts. “Zoella utilises hypermodality to appeal to her target audience and to exploit their short attention span…”
PPC - ‘pay per click’ revenue
Monetisation - when a producer utilises adverts on their content to accrue revenue