The exam could focus on anything from the changing nature of digital audiences to how certain groups or issues are represented in Teen Vogue online.
Notes from the lesson
Audience
Although the brand name suggests a teenage audience, the typical Teen Vogue reader has evolved in recent years. The move to more political content has broadened the appeal and changed the genre – young women now expect more from their media.
The ‘Campus Life’ section in Lifestyle also suggests an older readership. However, the audience is still interested in celebrity content and beauty – which Teen Vogue addresses by featuring the ‘opinion leaders’ (two-step flow) of social media.
Generations
Generation X: Born between 1965 – 1980
Millennials / Generation Y: Born between 1981 – 1995
Generation Z (or iGen): Born 1996 – 2010
Teen Vogue: political positioning
Teen Vogue generally takes a liberal, left-wing political stance and positions its readers to become active in their support:
- Pro-feminist
- Pro-gender fluidity and gender identity
- Supports LGBT equality
- Pro-multiculturalism
- Supports Black Lives Matter
- Pro-environment (accepting science on climate change)
- Pro-choice (abortion)
Teen Vogue: audience interaction
How does Teen Vogue encourage audience interaction?
- Activism
- Social media
- ‘Clickbait’ and first-person headlines
- Events – Teen Vogue summit
Representation
Changing representations
Feminist bloggers and websites such as Rookie and liberal blog Jezebel have been credited with changing the representation of women and feminism in the digital age.
This can be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory with digital influencers changing the media landscape for women – and established mainstream brands like Teen Vogue are following to stay relevant.
Teen Vogue: Audience and Representation blog tasks
Create a new blogpost called 'Teen Vogue Audience and Representation' and work through the following tasks to complete the audience and representation aspects of your Teen Vogue case study:
Audience focus
1) Analyse the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What is the Teen Vogue mission statement and what does this tell us about the target audience and audience pleasures?
2) What is the target audience for Teen Vogue? Use the media pack to pick out key aspects of the audience demographics. Also, consider the psychographic groups that would be attracted to Teen Vogue: make specific reference to the website design or certain articles to support your points regarding this.
3) What audience pleasures or gratifications can be found in Teen Vogue? Do these differ from the gratifications of traditional print-based magazines?
4) How is the audience positioned to respond to political news stories?
5) How does Teen Vogue encourage audiences to interact with the brand – and each other – on social media? The ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ section of the media pack may help with this question.
Representations
1) Look again at the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What do the ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ (key events and features throughout the year) suggest about the representation of women and teenage girls on teenvogue.com?
2) How are issues of gender identity and sexuality represented in Teen Vogue?
3) Do representations of appearance or beauty in Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge traditional stereotypes?
4) What is the patriarchy and how does Teen Vogue challenge it? Does it succeed?
5) Does Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge typical representations of celebrity?
Teen Vogue: Factsheet Part 2
Read Media Factsheet #205 Teen Vogue Part 2 - Application of theory. You can find the Factsheet in our Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive in school or download it here using your Greenford Google login. Answer the following questions:
1) How does the Factsheet apply David Gauntlett's ideas about gender and identity to Teen Vogue?
2) David Gauntlett has also written about the importance of role models. How can this be applied to the Teen Vogue CSP?
3) bell hooks suggests that profit-seeking media industries reinforce patriarchal values and power structures. How can these ideas be applied to Teen Vogue? Try and argue both sides - that Teen Vogue both empowers women but also arguably reinforces some hegemonic gender stereotypes.
4) List the key points on van Zoonen's gender theories in the Factsheet. How can we apply some of these ideas to Teen Vogue?
5) Read the Greta Thunberg case study on pages 3-4. How does the Factsheet use media theories in the analysis of the special 2019 print edition of Teen Vogue?
A/A* Extension feature: how Teen Vogue represents the changing nature of media aimed at women
Read this Quartz feature - The true story of how Teen Vogue got mad, got woke, and began terrifying men like Donald Trump - and answer the following questions:
1) How was the Teen Vogue op-ed on Donald Trump received on social media?
2) How have newspapers and magazines generally categorised and targeted news by gender?
3) How is this gender bias still present in the modern media landscape?
4) What impact did the alternative women’s website Jezebel have on the women’s magazine market?
5) Do you agree with the writer that female audiences can enjoy celebrity news and beauty tips alongside hard-hitting political coverage? Does this explain the recent success of Teen Vogue?
6) How does the writer suggest feminists used to be represented in the media?
7) What is the more modern representation of feminism? Do you agree that this makes feminism ‘stereotyped as fluffy’?
8) What contrasting audience pleasures for Teen Vogue are suggested by the writer in the article as a whole?
9) The writer suggests that this change in representation and audience pleasures for media products aimed at women has emerged from the feminist-blog movement. How can this be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory?
10) Is Teen Vogue simply a product of the Trump presidency or will websites and magazines aimed at women continue to become more hard-hitting and serious in their offering to audiences?
There is plenty to work on here as this needs to cover two of the key concepts for this in-depth CSP. Complete for homework - due date set by exam teacher.
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