OSP: Teen Vogue - background and textual analysis

Teen Vogue: background reading

Read this Guardian feature from 2017 on Teen Vogue and answer the following questions.

1) What was the article that announced Teen Vogue as a more serious, political website – with 1.3m hits and counting?

The article was named 'Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America'


2) When was the original Teen Vogue magazine launched and what was its original content?

The Teen Vogue magazine was initially launched in 2004 which was made to focus on fashion and celeb news.


3) How did editor Elaine Welteroth change Teen Vogue’s approach in 2015?

Elaine Welteroth released a new issue in 2005 which featured 3 unknown black models on the front cover page.


4) How many stories are published on Teen Vogue a day? What topics do they cover?

There are around 50 to 70 stories published on Teen Vogue per day which include topics of fashion, entertainment and current news of the world.


5) What influence did digital director Phillip Picardi have over the editorial direction?

Phillip Picardi wanted the magazine to have a more diverse nature which is why he then went on to add in more news about politics and adding articles about genders or reproductive rights. In the space of a year, he had managed to bring up the readership to 10 million.


6) What is Teen Vogue’s audience demographic and what does ‘woke’ refer to?

Despite the name including 'teen', Teen Vogue aims it's magazines at audiences aged 18-24. The audiences are also seen as genderless ad woke (meaning they are socially aware of current issues).


7) What issues are most important to Teen Vogue readers?

Issues vary on a large scale from ways to learn about the world and the society to learning new beauty tips to future work life etc.


8) What does Tavi Gevinson suggest regarding the internet and ‘accountability culture’ with regards to modern audiences? Can you link this to our work on Clay Shirky?

Tavi Gevinson believes that there is a close relationship between the magazine and it's audiences which can be linked  to Clay Shirky as he suggests that all consumers are also producers which means that what Teen Vogue publishes may very well be the audiences opinions.


9) What social and political issues have been covered successfully by Teen Vogue?

• Trump issues
• Black lives matter movement

10) What do Teen Vogue readers think of the magazine and website?

The audience of Teen Vogue trust the information put out to them by Teen Vogue and believe that they aren't scared of telling the world the real truth about todays issues.



Teen Vogue textual analysis and example articles

Work through the following tasks to complete your textual analysis of the Teen Vogue website and read notable Teen Vogue articles to refer to in exam answers.

Homepage analysis

Go to the Teen Vogue homepage and answer the following:

1) What website key conventions can you find on the Teen Vogue homepage?

There is a:

• Menu
• Adverts
• Daily newsletter subscriptions
• Contact information

2) How does the page design encourage audience engagement?

The layout of the website is very minimalistic which gives it a sense of luxury for readers. The articles are clear and very structured which may make the audience take a liking into the aesthetic of the website.


3) Where does advertising appear on the homepage?

On the top ad on the sides.


4) What are the items in the top menu bar and what does this tell you about the content of Teen Vogue?

'style', 'Politics', 'Culture', 'identity' and 'Summit'. This shows that Teen Vogue is more than just a fashion magazine but also aims to teach their readers about something they may not know about already.


5) How far does the homepage scroll down? How many stories appear on the homepage in total?

There is a long list of articles as you scroll down the page which takes a little time to scroll all the way down. There are a total of 28 stories on the homepage.



Lifestyle section

Now analyse the Lifestyle section of Teen Vogue (in the Identity section) and answer the following:

1) What are the items in the top menu bar for the Lifestyle section?

'Health', 'Sex and relationships', 'Wellness', 'Horoscope', 'Lifestyle', 'Voices'


2) How is the Lifestyle section designed to encouragement audience engagement? Think about page design, images, text and more.

The page is very minimalistic which makes it very clear and concise for the audience. The options to click on are easily seen and very easy to work around which makes accessibility for audiences much easier. There is also a link to social media platforms with a Facebook like count on the top right. This allows audiences to see that there a many audiences who follow Teen Vogue making it seem much more reliable.


3) What do you notice about the way headlines are written in Teen Vogue?

Compared to a lot of other online magazines, Teen Vogue decided to place their words of the article on the right hand side of the image compared to underneath it.


4) What does the focus on education, university and ‘campus life’ tell you about the Teen Vogue audience demographics and psychographics?

As for the demographics, the main audience would be around the ABC1 tier and for psychographics, it would fit aspirers, explores and succeeders.


5) Choose three stories featured in the Lifestyle section – why do they fit the Teen Vogue brand?

Three cities we have our eyes on:
People who want to travel and create a path forward to an international carrer

This is the only college packing guide you need:
As it suggests, helping students going to college

Snag these back to school amazon prime deals before it's too late:
For students who don't have an income but need extra deals for things like amazon prime



Five Key articles:

Read the following five notable Teen Vogue features then answer the questions below for EACH feature.

Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America (A)

The new face of teen activism (B)

Black Teens Have Been Fighting for Gun Reform for Years (C)

Netflix and strong female leads (D)

How to Break Away From the Gender Binary (E)

For each article:

1) Who is the writer and what is the article about?

A - Lauren Duca writing about Donald Trump manipulating the American population

B - Alexis Manrodt writing about the new way of activism

C - Lincoln Anthont Blades writing about the lack of attention towards protests from teenagers after the event of the shooting at Majority Stoneman Douglas High School

D - De Elizabeth writing about female leads in movies and dramas and representations

E - Samantha Riedel writing about becoming more gender fluid instead of always committing to binary gender roles.

2) How does the article use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible.

A - Propp - Trump is the villain, the Russians play the donor and the American population plays the princess role who needs to be saved by trump.

B - Todorov - Equilibrium is marches, picket signs, sit-ins. Disequilibrium is not being able to do those anymore. New equilibrium is the introduction of online activism and the usage of the internet to get their point across.

C - Roland Barthes - Enigma codes which links to questions being raised about the positives of shootings.

D - Star power and the use of their quotes in order to pull in readers.

E - Propp - Cis are the villains. Transgender people and babies are the princesses

3) Why is this article significant?

A - It is an issue that is ongoing today.

B - The power that the internet holds and the freedom it provides to people to speak their thoughts.

C - Gun law issues are also still going on in todays world with constant news about shootings in America.

D - Societal changes in the world and how it affects films and dramas in creating stronger female leads.

E - LGBTQ has grown rapidly over the years is being promoted in a positive way which is what people are striving to do in todays world.

4) How does this article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?

A - Teen Vogue has made it clear that they dislike Trump.

B - Teen Vogue helps their audiences voice out their opinions that they aren't able to communicate to all parts of the world. They act as a communication tool for their audiences.

C - Teen Vogue allows young people to voice out these complaints about current issues around that world that have cause a lot of disasters.

D - Pointing news out that isn't usually in the media allows audiences of teen vogue audiences to see more that just the mainstream news.

E - The LGBTQ community has been growing and Tee Vogue supports them throughout their publishes.

Clay Shirky - End of Audience Blog Task

Media magazine reading:

1) Looking over the article as a whole, what are some of the positive developments due to the internet highlighted by Bill Thompson?

• Accessibility to reach 'hundreds and thousands of other computer users around the world'

• Innovation use to create software like social media

• It can be seen as 'a tool for active citizenship, free expression and social justice'

2) What are the negatives or dangers linked to the development of the internet?

• The internet does not care about what data is being filed through meaning it is 'impossible to stop spam, abuse or the trading of images of child abuse'

• The internet can be used for 'oppression, surveillance, control and repression'

• In extreme cases, hidden browsers are able to be made to complete illegal doings through the web anonymously. EG. the dark web.

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?
4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?

• There is no real concern about the possibilities the internet could bring to people all around the world

• Regulation issues of the internet

• 'what could the internet do for you and your friends, and what could you make it do?'

5) Where do you stand on the use and regulation of the internet? Should there be more control or more openness? Why?
2) What is the question facing the newspaper industry now the internet has created a “new ecosystem”?
3) Why did Trent Lott’s speech in 2002 become news?
4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?
5) Shirky suggests that: “The same idea, published in dozens or hundreds of places, can have an amplifying effect that outweighs the verdict from the smaller number of professional outlets.” How can this be linked to the current media landscape and particularly ‘fake news’?
6) What does Shirky suggest about the social effects of technological change? Does this mean we are currently in the midst of the internet “revolution” or “chaos” Shirky mentions?
7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?
8) What does Shirky suggest regarding the hundred years following the printing press revolution? Is there any evidence of this “intellectual and political chaos” in recent global events following the internet revolution?
9) Why is photography a good example of ‘mass amateurisation’?
10) What do you think of Shirky’s ideas on the ‘End of audience’? Is this era of ‘mass amateurisation’ a positive thing? Or are we in a period of “intellectual and political chaos” where things are more broken than fixed? 





The idea that everything on the internet should be 'open' to everyone without any special care to certain individuals. I believe that certain features should be open to everyone such as YouTube premium since it enables users to download music or videos straight from YouTube. Since people don't want to pay for it, they set up sites that enable people to download them for free which is in fact against the law. On the other hand, there are certain websites I believe should not be open for things like editing. These are information sites that allow the users to be able to learn about something. Eg, newspaper websites, magazine websites, Wikipedia etc.




I think that the internet should definitely be regulated in some sort of way in order to stop very sensitive or even illegal content from going up all over the internet. I think that there should be more control over the actual source of the website but keep the idea of freedom on speech through the internet which can allow everyone to voice their opinions. They should keep data of any action over the internet but at the same time keep it confidential to themselves as a company.



Clay Shirky - Here comes everybody:

1) How does Shirky define a ‘profession’ and why does it apply to the traditional newspaper industry?

Something that requires some sort of specialisation in order to achieve the issue. In the newspaper industry, workers must be familiar with how the industry works in order to excel in it.



Questions regarding the future of print publishing. Also question about what newspapers can do in order to differentiate themselves from any other person who can now write anything they want online due to the internet being the 'new ecosystem'.



Trent Lott spoke about his supportive nature to a man named Thurmond who expressed his republican views which caused many controversy.



The growing population of content being written and put online by anyone that has access to the internet.



When a certain piece of information is put online over and over again, it becomes increasingly harder for audiences to see the difference between real news and fake news since audiences see one idea so many times but another also so many times and continuedly.



Clay Shirky said that 'Social effects lag behind technological ones by decades'. He also suggests that we must go though a number of chaotic periods before being able to reach a revolution.



Clay Shirky believes that we as audiences are no longer passive readers and choose to start our own content rather than just take in and accept everything that is being thrown at us.



Scribes in the 1400's being aware of the fact that new printing methods were developing from individuals such as Gutenberg. With this knowledge, they grew scared of losing heir jobs which is exactly what happened as ew methods were put to use and scribes lost their jobs. An example from recent times would be the idea of 'fake news' and how passive modern day audiences are by just accepting whatever they see in the media without question.



In todays world, anyone can just take out their phone and take a picture of whatever it may be. Back then, pictures were taken by professionals and taken to the dark room to print out etc. Now people just take selfies and can store them in the same device it was taken in. It has ruined the idea of how niche taking photos were.



I believe that the idea of 'mass amateurisation' is a positive thing for todays audiences. When people start to try new thigs, it allows them to tell themselves what they enjoy and find out what they're good at. This can boost ones confidence and help them gain experience for the future. Compared to the past where certain thigs were only done by professionals, now day it gives us the freedom to go after things we truly enjoy doing.

Magazines: Final idex

Men's Health - Audience

Men's Health - Language and Representation

Men's Health - Industries and the impact of digital media

Oh Comely - Audience

Magazine Front Cover Production - Learner Response

Oh Comely - Language and Representation

End of Year 1 exam - Learner Response

Oh Comely - Industry case study

Oh Comely: Industry

Iceberg Press:

1.
The Iceberg press was set up in order to aid the rise of a ew era for magazine and media brands.

2.

• "It's all about the audience"
• "Chase the work, not the money"
• "Compromise isn't our friend"
• "We will always make time for ideas"
• "We are stronger when we work with others"
• "We want good people to work in a good place"
• "Every year we will help a cause that matters"
• "We believe in a thing called print"

3.

Oh Comely and The Simple Things.

4.

Both magazines take on a very minimalistic design to their magazines with out flashy covers or the use of star power. Both magazines also stick to a very natural colour scheme with whites and greens to appeal to a female and educated audiences.

5.

Hearst has a very different aim compared to Oh Comely. Firstly, magazines like men's health bases its financial income from commercials and adverts. This means that the magazine will include a lot of adverts in order to generate revenue. Oh Comely on the other hand does not run on advert made revenue but from their actual readers which is why their magazine is £5 to purchase.

Writer's edit journal article:

1.

A magazine that has been published without the help from a large corporation or institution.

2.

That creators of independent magazines have more creative influence and are able to use the internet in order to reach a wider audience.

3.

Kinfolk magazine aims to support audiences put the most important factors first such as friends and family which similarly, Oh Comely has an aim to make audiences socially aware.

4.

Global magazine publishers have not seem to grasp onto the current digital age therefore unable to use the internet to their advantage. Independent magazines like Oh Comely have been able to use the internet to their advantage where they create an online presence in order to promote their magazine to a much larger and diverse audience.

5.

Most independent magazines gather funds through crowd funding. This is when they go online to raise money by pitching their idea to the public for venture capitalist to invest. This includes things like kickstarter or GoFundMe.

6.

Independent publishers are able to connect with their audiences by targeting them through the interest and especially through social media. Interactive posts allow audiences to feel involved with the magazine. 

7.

Independent magazines tend to have strong personal beliefs added into the magazine. This can only be included if the same group of people who create the magazine continue making them. Other groups of people wouldn't be able to represent the same values.

8.

Originality. It allows the magazine to always be different since it provides instructions to the audience on how to do a certain something. It also gives the audience space to interpret meanings. In other words, the DIY approach gives the audience a sense of power.

9.

It could fulfil some personal satisfaction of having a physical copy to flick through rather than a digital copy. Most buyers of magazines ted to be older generations who find it much more convenient to pick up a copy at the store or supermarket when doing their shopping or having a walk.

10.

Independent magazines receive no financial support from any sort of large corporation which means their budget is significantly less compared to ones like men's health. Independent magazines are funded on their own and distributed on their own.

Irish Times Feature:

1.

Because they are specifically aimed at a certain target audience which would meet the wants and needs of the audiences. Their interest and views are most likely reflected here.

2.

Global conglomerates have enough money to print a lot more copies than independent publishers and with the money they are also able to advertise more to a larger audience on a bigger scale.

3.

Independent magazines tend to find loyal customers despite the size of their audience.

4.

The cost of producing and distributing the magazine will be quite costly. For an independent distributor, it would be significantly harder since they don't have the financial support some other magazines have.

5.

• Social Media
• Selling Merchandise
• Setting up events

TCO interview with Ruth Jamieson:

1.

Ruth Jamieson suggests that there is a renaissance in the magazine industry because there has been an increase of online presence on the internet. This means that there is a new market for independent magazines.

2.

Original content that has not been seen elsewhere in other competing magazines.

3.

The speaking out page can be an example of this original content since not all magazines decide to include a section dedicated to people speaking about social issues. It's original, and educational on issues going around in today's world.

4.

He sees a decline in popularity/ readership for magazines. That current mainstream magazines will slowly lose the amount of audience members. Independent magazines will take over instead.

5.

I believe that Oh Comely may have to turn to online magazine but as of the coming few years, I believe they will be successful at surviving.

year 12 media PPE: Learner response

1.
WWW - Some perceptive points and good expression in places.
EBI - Missed opportunities to score extra marks due to lack of knowledge (eg Q7)

2.
Question 1 - Relation to King Kong stories/ Intertextuality

Question 2 - Passive blonde female wearing a revealing top reflects male dominance/ Male Gaze (Mulvey)/ male gaze not shown in Maybelline advert

Question 3 - Media products like the Score hair cream advert help create a corrosive, toxic hypermasculinity that damages both men and women/ Bell Hooks 'normalised traumatisation'/ The score hair cream shows male dominance which can be shaped to cause toxic hypermasculinity.

3.
Into - Explain postmodernism. Vague examples of postmodernism in Billie jean and letter to the free.

Para 1 - Focus on Billie Jean. Talk about the intertextuality in the music video. The background -> Hollywood stage set. Pastiche aspects. Film noir and link to 50's musical like singing in the rain.

Para 2 - Focus on letter to the free. Talk about historical deafness (from Jameson). Elaborate on how audiences use the music video and the lyrics in order to gain knowledge of the past of the black community. This includes things such as slavery, mass incarceration and the amendment 13.

Para 3 - Link both the music videos together. Explain they are both postmodern. Detail on hyperreality which is shown in both. In letter to the free the black square that shows up every now and then is ambiguous which can link to Baudrillard. The question of whether it is real or symbolic of something). In Billie Jean, there are polaroid pictures and moving billboards which go to the ideas of 'copies of copying' or 'screen within screen'.

Conclusion - Although both show postmodern aspects within the video, Billie Jean would be considered more postmodern due to the …… Explain why Billie Jean is more postmodern, recap the paragraphs and bring in a final point to summarise it all.

4.
Benefit -

• Greater control
• Lower costs resulting in higher profits

Diversification - A media conglomerate branching off into newer and other markets or platforms.

5.

Compared to Capital, Deutschland 83 does a better job at reflecting the global nature of the television industry. Firstly, D83 is cofounded by both German money and American money. This allows there to be a connection formed between the two countries which then can be linked to the idea of globalisation within the film industry. Another aspect to note is that Deutschland 83 uses a mixture of English and German again showing diversity and introducing people to foreign television material. Subtitles are also used in D83 to allow views from other countries to be able to understand some of the German dialogue that takes place within the drama. This again links to the idea of globalisation of the industry and how dramas have adapted to appeal to a range of audiences all around the world.

Oh Comely - Language and Representation

Language: Close textual analysis:

Front Cover:

1.
The masthead is written in a sans serif font which seems to be handwritten which suggests that Oh Comely has already started to create personal relationships with the audience.

2.
The audience of Oh Comely have very creative and unique lifestyle and thinking.

3.
The cover lines on the front cover are short and vague which creates questions to the audience and make them wat to read on to find out about them.

4.
The central image is of a woman who is shown in an androgynous way meaning she is not seen with more masculine or feminine fashion traits. In other words a blur between male traits and female traits.
Unlike other magazines aimed at females, she is not overly sexualised (male gaze).

5.
Conventional gender stereotypes are not reinforced in this cover page. The central image features a female presented in an androgynous way which means it doesn't reinforce any gender stereotypes.


Feature: Speaking out:

1.
The headline which is written in bold gives a clear indication that the articles to follow with talk about empowerment of women. This shows that the magazine is suitable for readers with feminist thoughts.

2.
The interviewees suggest that Oh Comely values the power of women and minority groups. They also attempt to support and help readers cope with their own problems.

3.
The page design is not very conventional since it is very minimalistic which is not what you tend to see in other magazines which are seen to have much longer articles.

4.
'My beauty ripples' subverts the stereotypical representations of Eurocentric female beauty. She chooses to love the way she is instead of try to change herself to fit in with the society built expectations of beauty.

5.
The photos aren't photoshopped in order to present certain meanings of beauty but is natural and shows the real side of people. This may mean that the magazine wants to create a fresh and personal feeling to their magazine.


Feature: More than gender:

1.
This feature allows audiences to see a different side to gender and supports the idea of gender fluidity.

2.
The sister of the two siblings was the writer of Oh comely where the brother was the photographer for Oh Comely. This is significant as it creates personal connection between creators ad audiences.

3.
Another way of creating a personal touch with the audience is through the photography. IN Oh Comely, the type of photography was candid photography.

4.
Issues regarding being a transgender in this society is highlighted and the feature includes ways to cope with them.

5.
The biographical information adds a sense of realism and allows the magazine to promote the writers other outlets.


Representation and identity:

1.
The images to the content all subvert traditional stereotypes. An androgynous central cover image and articles from people of who are trans or gay or from backgrounds where they are often looked in a different light.

2.
A FGM campaigner is featured in one of the speaking out sections. She is a young Muslim woman who talks about FGM and the issues around it. This is an example of representation of culture and diversification in the magazine.

3.
There is a lot of women empowerment in Oh Comely and showing a lot of feminist views. The magazine teaches audiences to love themselves the way they are.

4.
Oh Comely has its target audience as women. They expect women to read this magazine rather than men therefore under-representing men.

5.
I believe that Oh Comely fits into the fourth wave of feminism since it clearly shows feminist ideologies and attempts to empower women.

6.
The more than gender article blurs the society made representations of the two genders.

7.
Compared to the cover page of Men's Health, we can see a clear different in gender representations between the two. In Oh Comely, the cover star is shown in an androgynous way in order to not reinforce any gender stereotypes. Men's Health on the other hand shows a very built Vin Diesel as the cover page which already shouts out traditional men's stereotypes.

8.
Unlike other magazines aimed at female audiences, Oh comely doesn't take on the male gaze and is much more gender neutral. In magazines like cosmopolitan, the cover image tends to be an over sexualised and over edited female male to attract the eyes of a male person but aimed at a woman.

9.
Oh comely does support Gauntlett and shows this through their choices of images and choices of content to include within the magazine.

10.
I believe that Oh Comely is an open text since it's minimalistic design means that there is a limitation of words and explanations which would allow more discussion with the audience about the meanings behind the articles or the photos etc. Oh Comely does not force ideologies into their audiences minds.

Oh Comely Audience

1.
Oh Comely presents itself as a 'stylish' magazine which is thoroughly enjoyed by audience members in the target audience. The target audience is said to be aimed at niche demographic and aimed at women.

2.
Has a social media reach of 100,000 and readers per issue is around 25,000. whereas men's health has a circulation of 146,000 and a readership that is around 1 million.

3.
Oh Comely can be found in independent establishments like WHSmith.

4.
Young female around her 20s which is educated and has a decent amount of feminist views.

5.
The most likely psychographic classes to read Oh Comely would be aspirer and explorer groups.

6.
I would say that most of the audience would be around the AB audience since Oh Comely is quite expensive as a magazine and since the wording in the magazine is sophisticated to a certain extent in order to target at a more educated audience therefore fitting into the AB class.

7.
Since some of the words used are quite high level therefore perhaps someone who had passed university and have a certain level of education.

8.
Oh comely can fulfil personal identity and surveillance since the magazine uses star power to gain viewers who known the celebrity and therefore create a relationship with that person. As for surveillance, News regarding the world today is included in this magazine which informs readers of events that are going around the world.

9.
Oh comely has a very minimalistic design throughout the magazine which could suggest the phrasing 'quality over quantity'. There is also a lack of advertisement within the magazine which may suggest that they are not profit orientated but aim to educate and inform their audiences.

10.
Since Oh Comely has a very different and unique aesthetic to it, I believe that the USP of it is what allowed audiences to build up loyalty for it. It isn't something that followed most of the key conventions of magazines. Another aspect to note would be the times a new copy of the magazine is introduced. One volume comes out every 6 months, this makes the magazine almost seem rare since you'd have to wait a whole 6 months to see a different cover for Oh Comely, this makes it seem again unique compared to other magazines.