Audience
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?
Their mission statement is to empower, enlighten and empower and this means that the audience pleasures include surveillance as it provides a political agenda and information that audiences would want to know. There could also be audience pleasure of personal relationships as it provides an inclusive environment and amplifying voices so audiences feel engaged.
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.
The target audience is still interested in celebrity content and beauty – which Teen Vogue addresses by featuring the ‘opinion leaders’ (two-step flow) of social media. They tend to target young girl audiences like the generation z as it raises issues to do with 'pop feminism'. The psychographics would include middle class who are aspirers as they have goals they want to achieve.
3) What audience pleasures or gratifications can be found in Teen Vogue? Do these differ from the gratifications of traditional print-based magazines?
There could also be audience pleasure of personal relationships as it provides an inclusive environment and amplifying voices so audiences feel engaged. This also provides surveillance about gender fluidity as it is a progressive magazine. This is also a 'woke' magazine as it raises awareness building this sense of personal identity so now you can identify yourself on the spectrum of today's society,
4) How is the audience positioned to respond to political news stories?
The audience is positioned to respond by giving their own voice and political agenda because it talks about issues that are very discreet in society.
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.
Teen Vogue encourages the audience to interact with the brand on social media by providing adverts and banners as it also had a June event that focused on activism. Another one focused on career called '@work' which means that there is online connectivity for audiences to engage with.
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?
The keys events were:
This magazine is aimed at young teenage girls and by providing them with these events gives them a sense of encouragement and individuality. These things are constantly being 'amplified' to make young females career orientated and confident with themselves.
2) How are issues of gender identity and sexuality represented in Teen Vogue?
This issues in the magazine are given a progressive approach as there is awareness of gender fluidity and multiculturalism.
3) Do representations of appearance or beauty in Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge traditional stereotypes?
The appearance of beauty in teen vogue challenge traditional stereotypes as we see the example of Skai Jackson she is a young black female, represented with an afro and is declining western norms and values as she is proud of it.
4) What is the patriarchy and how does Teen Vogue challenge it? Does it succeed?
I believe that it challenges patriarchy as this magazine is providing a voice for young girls and is set out like a 'movement'. 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.
5) Does Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge typical representations of celebrity?
This argument goes back to Skai Jackson as she is presented with her Afro declining this western culture and really flaunting her black characteristics and this challenges typical representations of celeberities being young white females.
Feature: how Teen Vogue represents the changing nature of media aimed at women
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?
Newspapers and magazines target news by gender as certain sections target different audiences like having fashion, beauty, parenting and celebrity being separate from men and woman. For example, the arts literature sections that are politically hard agenda would be mostly targeted at males along with cooking being targeted at females.
3) How is this gender bias still present in the modern media landscape?
There are more females graduating in journalism than men. However, the bias is present as men make up 65% of the political journalists and 62% of reporters covering “business and economics”.
4) What impact did the alternative women’s website Jezebel have on the women’s magazine market?
It changed the way magazines operated. It helped to create a unity between women journalism and serious journalism as it helped to destroy the feminine stereotypes of women just reading about makeup cooking and fashion. This challenged stereotypes through blogs and claimed that mainstream publication for women should stop as there should be around what they actually have to say.
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?
I agree with this because now in modern society there are plenty of women that have jobs in the political agenda. There may still be some lacking as we know in the house of lords women only make up 25% of the lords. However, this does mean there is still a shift from ever before and women are showing interest in politics and not only things to do with the feminine agenda.
6) How does the writer suggest feminists used to be represented in the media?
The writer suggests that feminists used to be presented as being uninterested aesthetics and pleasure and now that women do talk about all the things linked with femininity they are labelled as fluffy.
7) What is the more modern representation of feminism? Do you agree that this makes feminism ‘stereotyped as fluffy’?
I do not agree that this makes women fluffy because at the same time men could also be interested in these things as there are males who are makeup artists. Females should not stop all of this to make them a real feminist because there is nothing that stops men doing from they do to make them feminists.
8) What contrasting audience pleasures for Teen Vogue are suggested by the writer in the article as a whole?
As a whole, this magazine provides surveillance and personal relationships to be formed with this magazine as it includes things as a variety. This means that it does not only hinder upon issues just for females but challenges stereotypes.
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?
This can be linked to his theory as he suggests that now in society audience have more power than ever before to change things. This is through social media being used as a vessel and allowing the opinion to impact the audience.
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?
I believed that websites and magazines aimed at women will continue to be hard-hitting and serious
as now women do hold a position in the political spectrum than before.
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