Underline
Explore the extent to which emergent digitally convergent technology has allowed producers to communicate complex meanings. Make reference to Zoella and Attitude.
Knee jerk
to a great extent! However, the primary purpose of these products is to maximise profit...
Plan
Digital technology: any technology involving computers
Hypermodality
Algorithmic marketing
Clickbait
Advertorial
Mid shot Close up Long shot...
Zoella
Identity!
Capitalist ideology
Social media, especially Instagram!
Interaction (including oppositional readings)
Symbolic codes
Proairetic codes
Binary oppositions
Zoella
- Gesture of pulling opening pyjamas has SLIGHT connotations of sex and sexuality. Hermeneutic code, creating sense of unresolved conflict for the audience. This is emphasised through oth the symbolic code of the love hearts and the costume. However, a complete lack of explicit reference to sex and sexuality
- Layout of blog: adopts the conventions of a lifestyle blog, allows blog to appeal specifically to 13 year old girls
- Cultivation of a representation of innocence and purity, emphasised through the symbolic code of the high key lighting
- Binary opposition between Zoella's age (at this stage 27) and the age that she appears. Reinforced through the themes and colour choices of the website.
- Teenage girls far more likely to relate to the mode of address of a lifestyle vlogger, identifying with it's codes and conventions
- MES of fairy lights further reinforces child like aspects of Zoella, constructing her as a relatable figure for her audience
- Essentially an advert for ASOS. High production values contradict with the intended atmosphere of reality and relatability. Manipulating an easily influenced and naive target audience for the purpose of power and profit
- "My wardrobe consists of quite a substantial collection of Pyjamas". - cultivation of a desirable lifestyle
- Utilisation of hypermodality. Each and every blog post has links to products, apps, and other blogs, allowing young female target audience the gratification of interactivity
- Comments: users can pretend to be her dog and threatened to "shit in [her] bed", again allowing the audience the gratification of interaction
- Zoella is a hyperreal construction designed to make money off teenage girls
Attitude
- Top of each article includes social media icons, for example Instagram and Twitter, allowing audiences to use hypermodal technology to explore and relate to the brand identity. Helps to differentiate it from other gay lifestyle websites like pink news
- Hyperlinks at bottom of each articles link to a variety of exciting and exploitative clickbait, using algorithmic marketing techniques to manipulate and to entice their target audiences with promises of illicit and illegal content
- Arrangement of thumbnail images are stylised and easily accessible for the target gay male audience, cultivating a stereotypical ideology. Allows producer to create targeted and specific content by constructing a stereotypical and rigid target audience.
- Allows extremely specific targeted advertising, for example for gay friendly package holiday, exploiting the idea of the 'pink pound'