Applying theory: concluding Zoella

1 - Semiotics - Roland Barthes

• The proairetic code created by the pizza thumbnail informs the target audience that the video will focus on pizza, a fast food popular with Zoella's young, female, working class target audience
• Zoella's apartment tour video, the symbolic code of the mise en scene of her branded scented candles constructs a hyperreal representation of a home, and a giant advertisement for her brand

4 - Structuralism - Claude Lévi-Strauss

• A binary opposition between genders is created in the Zoella apartment video, where zoella is represented as small, petite and vulnerable, while alfie is masculine, large and confident. This reinforces notions of patriarchal hegemonic values
• The Mise en scene of the Primark haul: the setting creates a diametric opposition between high end and low end fashion, allowing her to target a range of audiences

5 - Postmodernism - Jean Baudrillard 

• Therepresention of pancakes in the pancake blog constructs a hyperreal representation of Zoella as a hegemonically perfect and flawless woman
• The setting of the 'Zoella apartment ;, a showhome to promote her brand, is a perfect example of hyperreality. By constructing this perfect representation, Zoella reinforces her own representation as both an average girl, and a cut-throat entrepreneur 

6 - Theories of representation - Stuart Hall 

• Zoella presents herself as stereotypically hegemonically attractive woman. Petite and girlish, she reinforces certain expectations of how women should look
• Zoella's carefully constructed mise-en-scene, for example her long flowing hair, and her muscular boyfriend emphasises his status as a hegemonically attractive woman,reinforcing societal expectations of women

7 - Theories of identity - David Gauntlett 

• The 'fuckzoella' account demonstrates an opportunity for the audience to to present their own specific ideological perspective, and to engage with Zoella in an oppositional manner
• Audiences ca utilise Zoella's videos to construct their own identities. Primark is constructed as a desirable fashion choice for her young target audience
• Audiences may take inspiration from Zoella and Alfie's perfect hyperreal existence

10 - Theories of gender performativity - Judith Butler 

• Zoella continually self-represents as a sexless, virginal hypperreal construct. This in turn influences and manipulates her young and impressionable target audience to follow certain hegemonically constructed expectations of women
• Zoella and Alfie's performance on the bed is sexless and almost childish. This constructs a representation of male female relationships for the young target audience, possibly further cultivating dominant hegemonic ideologies. 

11 - Theories around ethnicity and postcolonial theory - Paul Gilroy

• Gilroy's theory of postcolonial identity assumes that there is a definite hierarchy that exists with the representation of ethnicity. Zoella presents a hegemonically perfect construction of beauty that assumes the audience is white. By presenting only white ideals of beauty in her videos, Zoella is effectively symbolically annihilated any representation of black and ethnic minority voices

12 - Power and media industries - Curran and Seaton

• Zoella uses algorithmically appropriate and effective titles in her videos in order to ensure that she attracts a much larger audience and maximizes advertising revenue
• Utilises 'clickbait' titles such as 'hge Primark Haul' and 'YouTube Secrets' in order to manipulate and target her target audience

13 - Regulation - Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt

• Zoella was threatened with court action, after not announcing that she was sponsored by a brand on an Instagram post. However, this example underlines how totally ineffective the regulation of online media is
• Self-regulation: no political leanings, no references to strong themes, and absolutely no sexualition allows her to maximise her audience

14 - Cultural industries - David Hesmondhalgh

• Zoella works indepently in a small group. Ultimately her business endeavors are vertically integrated, with all forms of production and distribution under her control
• Zoella additionally works synergistically with conglomerates, such as Hodder & Stoughton, who published her book 'cordially invited'.

16 - Cultivation theory - George Gerbner

• Zoella's standard and stereotypical makeup reinforces certain hegemonic standards of female beauty, and the ideological exception that in order to be successful, a woman should wear makeup
• The clothes in her blogs cultivate certain brands as being desirable, mainly fast fashion brands like ASOS, Primark and H&M

18 - Fandom - Henry Jenkins 

• Jenkins suggests that audiences can now interact with media products in increasingly complicated ways. Zoella primarily facilitates this through her hypermodal mode of address, allowing audiences to click around her expertly created site, and to be given many opportunities to directly interact with her
• A range of Zoella fan videos exist, allowing audiences the opportunity to express their love for their idol, with the small chance that Zoella herself will communicate

19 - ‘End of audience’ theories - Clay Shirky 

• Response videos, such as 'Zoella Causing Eating Disorders on YouTube!?' posted by 'lighttwins' constructs a response through re-editing previous zoella videos, allowing this audience to effectively take the role of  producer

Magazine group practical task 2020

Please note: the magazine group practical is your next key assessment!

Your key assessment for the magazine unit will be a whole class project working to create a  new magazine.

The magazine will be published on the blog, and possibly in the  student magazine (but probably not)

Brief – To create a counter-cultural women's fashion 

There are two broad roles: journalist or designer.

Journalist 

• researching a subject and story
• writing and editing news stories and features in the publication's house style
• conducting interviews, either in person or remotely
• sourcing images to accompany written pieces
• meeting with colleagues to plan the content of the issue and the character of the publication
• keeping up to date with trends and developments relating to the magazine's subject matter.

Designer

• Design and create visual concepts, using Photoshop or other software to communicate ideas that inspire, inform, and captivate consumers.
• Develop the overall layout and production design
• Create advertisements that parody and subvert consumerism (culture-jamming)
• Compose graphics/imagery to accompany articles and features within the article

The magazine must….

• Represent women's high end fashion
• Be counter-cultural and subversive in its ideology
• Target women as primary audience and men as a secondary audience
• Use real photos and images taken in class (as well as others..)
• Have an identifiable house style 

For today’s lesson

• Compose stories/research topics and issues to cover
• Plan photoshoots (costumes, locations etc.) 
• Sketch out designs for style/front covers (using A4/Photoshop)
• Plan a theme/ style for the magazine
• Design culture-jamming adverts 
• Research counter-cultural magazines for inspiration..

For Inspiration… 

Thin Book

Handsome Woman

Mess

Budget

WMN

Mushpit

Tank

Buffalo zine 

OE

King Kong

032c

Zoella, gender performance and gender performativity

Sugg's relationship with Deyes is a carefully constructed, hyperreal and,
tellingly sexless representation of an idealised relationship. 

• Zoella's house is stereotypically 'female'. She is surrounded with gendered aspects of MES such as flowers. Reinforces a stereotypical representation of gender
• Heavy makeup, including 'smokey' eye-shadow, symbolic of sexuality? Yet Zoella appears 'sexless'. She seems normal, approachable, a girl on the street
• Outfit: 'normcore' plane jumper, grey and non-form fitting. Crew-neck grey jumper, symbolic of a standard and straightforward and non-sexualised fashion.
• Setting: kitchen. Symbolic of old fashioned representations of femininity, and reinforces hegemonic norms and social values regarding women
• "they're too big to get in the back", clear distinction between genders. Alfie announces loudly he has been down the gym, and is wearing a vest, emphasising his body
• A clear binary opposition is constructed between Zoella, who is particularly small, and Alfie, who is significantly larger. This binary once more constructs a binary opposition between gender
• Zoella's lifestyle: "I've been really busy baking" - a clear and gender role is constructed through the two characters and their choice of leisure activity
• Yet Alfie subverts representations of masculinity through sharing his life and his emotions. He demonstrates extreme happiness at having completed a gym workout
• Zoella's gender performance is arguably conservative. She does not wear any revealing clothing, nor does she use bad language. Constructs a stereotypical 'soft and caring' representation of women
• Shot of Zoella in the bath covered ion toys and laughing with Poppy is a stereotypical girlish construction of gender. Again defies any hint of sexualisation. 
• Zoella is pushed in to bed by Alfie, in a gesture that briefly hints at eroticism. Yet instead, the simulate having 'a nap' while lying down and not kissing. Their gender performativity constructs an idealised, non-sexual, childish and loving relationship. Aflie is non-threatening, and there is no hint of sex and sexualistion through their performance. 
• Instead, Zoella turns the conversation immediately to candles. Here commodity fetishism replaces any reference to sexual intercourse!
• A reference to the Madonna/whore complex? Zoella is completely sexless, and sells this ideology to her target. In performing in such a way, Zoella reinforces that sex and sexuality are undesirable aspects in young women. 

Exploring how Zoella utilises thumbnails to maximise UX

• A range of bold, pastel colours instantly communicates a bright and happy narrative, and also constructs a particular target audience. A stereotypical mode of address??
• A range of tittles, utilising a bold and straightforward lexis, indicating a young, working class target audience
• Often feature a brand name, further anchored through the MES of the product and its packaging
• Collaborations with other you-tubers, drawing in pre-existing audiences
• MES of face. Stereotypically British, 'English rose', 
• Hyper expressive facial expressions, a direct mode of address, demonstrating her personality. Dramatisation. A proairetic code indicating the exciting contents. A Disney princess smile? Helps to target young target audience
• Tilting her head to only capture her 'good side', a hyperreal construction is formed
• Each thumbnail encodes a proairetic code, suggesting the contents of the video 
• Zoella often uses a theatrical and exaggerated mode of address with her expression. A superlative or hyperbolic mode of address
• Head is often tilted to the side, to give the illusion of approachability, attractiveness...  
• Uniform use of colour: bright, vibrant colour, further anchored through high key lighting and post production editing
• Uniform utilisation of generic codes and conventions, creates a clearly recognisable brand identity for her target audience
• Use of makeup, reinforces brand identity and hegemonic social values 
• Titles! Big bright bold colours and text. Once more a generic paradigm of the vlog, but also clearly indicates a young target audience
• Zoella is often holding and presenting commodities, encoding the the dominant ideological perspective of consumerism
• Clear and easily identifiable use of the Z-line, anchoring and positioning her target audience
• Zoella continually uses these genre conventions in order to maximise her clicks and her revenue

Thanks R block and T block for this excellent analysis!

Adbusters and contextual factors

How do contextual factors shape their production, distribution, circulation and consumption of magazines? 

1 - What is the dominant ideological perspective of Adbusters?

Read this article and answer the questions below:  (OR: just google ‘Adbusters Mags with No Ads Huck magazine’) Advisory warning – some swearing...

• What is the ideology/ethos of Adbusters?
• How does Adbusters subvert traditional magazine conventions, especially in relation to
advertising?
• How does the magazine interact with its audience?

2 - Constructing audiences and constructing brand identity using digitally convergent media 

Curran and Seaton didn't just explore power and profit in the media industries: they also explored how these systems of power can be utilised by producers to better target audience. So, for Curran and Seaton, the audience doesn’t just already exist: it is made by the producer of the media product. 

Use the Adbusters website (adbusters.org) to explore the following SHORT questions, with short snappy answers (two sentences maximum for each bullet point!). Make sure you wack in loads of screenshots from the website too.

• In what ways does Adbusters construct it’s audiences?
• How does the website reinforce the brand identity of the magazine?
• Is there a clear ‘house style’ that is evident across the magazine and the website?
• What does the website offer that is different from the content of the magazine?
• How does the website extend the brand (e.g. through videos, merchandise etc.)?
• How does your magazine use social media (e.g. to market the latest edition or offer additional content)?
• How can readers interact with the magazine through the website and social media?

3 - Ideology in practice and how adbusters interacts with its audience

Check out these two pages:

Buy Nothing Day

Consumption 

Summarise key points about the following:

• The campaigns (e.g. Occupy Wall Street and Buy Nothing Day) that the Adbusters Foundation runs.

• The controversies and criticisms of Adbusters.

• Other products that extend the Adbusters brand

This article from Adbusters proved to be particularly controversial. Why did this article see this issue withdrawn from sale in many outlets? (warning: contains graphic images)

4 - Discussion: media ownership and the effectiveness of Adbusters as an instigator of revolution

• To what extent does Adbusters challenge the ways in which power is distributed in the media industries?
• Who owns Adbusters? What is it’s purpose for being produced?
• Curran and Seaton argue that media products do not simply brainwash the audience, and are actually ineffective in changing the mind of the audience. Instead, media works by reinforcing ideologies already held by the audience. To what extent can this notion be applied to Adbusters?

5 - Exam practice

Compare and contrast the ways in which viewpoints and ideologies are encoded in Woman and Adbusters. Make reference to the following:

•  How ideologies are used to position audiences
• How polysemy is created
• How the ideologies reflect the cultural and economic context of the time the magazine was released 

In groups of no more than three, create a plan (digitally, on A4 paper...) exploring how to respond to this question. What concepts, examples and theories would you include? What is your central argument? How can you give your answer a clear voice?