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?
The Teen Vogue Mission Statement is: Teen Vogue is the young person’s guide to saving the world. We aim to educate, enlighten, and empower our audience to create a more inclusive environment (both on- and offline) by amplifying the voices of the unheard, telling stories that normally go untold, and providing resources for teens looking to make a tangible impact in their communities." Teen Vogue is clearly aimed towards teens who aim to have an impact on the world and Teen Vogue will provide them with the resources to do so- Blumler and Katz Uses and Gratification theory can be applied here because there is clear evidence of surveillance in the way that Teen Vogue educates the youth and provides material for them to learn from
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 for Teen Vogue is predominantly teenagers to young adults who have interest in fashion but also keep up to date with politics. 63% of their 18.5M reach are Generation Z/Milllenials and in total their audience has spent $11B on fashion and beauty. Reformers and Succeeders are likely to be the psychographic group for Teen Vogue due to the emphasis they have on value their own opinions with them being activists that aim to improve the world
3) What audience pleasures or gratifications can be found in Teen Vogue? Do these differ from the gratifications of traditional print-based magazines?
Due to the strong focus on politics and current affairs, there is clear evidence of surveillance in Teen Vogue. There is an entire section that educates people on current affairs and politics which is why I believe that surveillance is the most prominent audience pleasure in Teen Vogue. Their mission statement also states that they aim to "educate" which shows that they place a heavy emphasis on wanting to teach young people about the world around them
4) How is the audience positioned to respond to political news stories?
The audience is positioned to respond to political news stories by forming their own opinions and sharing them on social media in order to spread their opinion and potentially influence the opinions of others
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 audiences to interact with the brand and each other on social media via events like the Summit aiming to connect the new generation of activists along with the Young Hollywood Portfolio which aims to allow audiences to reach out and support one another along with encouraging them to end up in this portfolio
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 'tentpoles and editorial pillars' suggest that the representation of women and teenage girls on teenvogue.com presents them as being strong, capable and intelligent as many of these pillars focus on women winning awards or being praised for their encouraging work as activists or how they've tried to challenge the industry
2) How are issues of gender identity and sexuality represented in Teen Vogue?
Issues of gender identity and sexuality in Teen Vogue are represented in a liberal and open way. One of the most obvious ways of Teen Vogue being accepting about sexuality was the employment of Phillip Picardi as an editor who is openly gay and was a major part in the transformation of Teen Vogue into the successful website it is today
3) Do representations of appearance or beauty in Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge traditional stereotypes?
The representations of appearance/beauty both challenge and reinforce traditional stereotypes- although they still reinforce Western beauty standards that van Zoonen put forward, there are still aspects of challenging traditional stereotypes when it comes to race and ethnicity due to their features of artists and activists from all backgrounds
4) What is the patriarchy and how does Teen Vogue challenge it? Does it succeed?
The patriarchy refers to the domination of men in society which has been repeatedly challenged by Teen Vogue due to the emphasis of successes in women. Teen Vogue has successfully done this through the encouragement they have given women to subvert previous expectations of women in a patriarchal society
5) Does Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge typical representations of celebrity?
Teen Vogue reinforces typical representations of celebrities due to the gossip-type stories that would not gain attention if they were not celebrities
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?
The Teen Vogue op-ed on Donald Trump was very well received on social media although it was also met with some baffled reactions as well evoking responses such as: "big words for a magazine about hairstyles and celebrity gossip", "Who would have guessed @TeenVogue might be the future of political news. Unreal coverage of the election" and "Go back to acne treatments"
2) How have newspapers and magazines generally categorised and targeted news by gender?
Newspapers and magazines have generally categorised and targeted news by gender where the sections on Business and Politics were meant for men and the Lifestyle section covering all topics 'feminine' such as cooking, fashion, beauty, parenting and celebrity news was targeted at women
3) How is this gender bias still present in the modern media landscape?
This gender bias is still present in the modern media landscape in how journalists are assigned stories. Women have been attending and graduating from journalism school more often than men since the 1970s, by 2010, 64% of J-school graduates were female. Yet as of 2015, 65% of political journalists, 67% of criminal justice reporters, and 62% of reporters covering “business and economics” were male
4) What impact did the alternative women’s website Jezebel have on the women’s magazine market?
The alternative women's website Jezebel had a huge impact on the women's magazine market as it was the first mainstream publication to successfully adopt the feminist-blog approach as well as challenging the traditional gender bias in terms of news. In 2008, Anna Holmes’ Jezebel made the then-risky move of combining politics coverage and traditionally feminist op-eds with fashion and celebrity gossip, betting that the same woman could plausibly enjoy reading both Megan Carpentier on Hillary Clinton and Sadie Stein on bandage dresses. Jezebel’s traffic soon outstripped its more dudely counterpart Gawker, and created a model for women’s media that is still the norm today
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 that female audiences can enjoy celebrity news and beauty tips alongside hard-hitting political coverage. Just as people are able to separate their work from their lives outside of work everyone is able to find a balance and they shouldn't be forced to pick one over the other. The fact that Teen Vogue was able to recognise and act on this explains their recent success
6) How does the writer suggest feminists used to be represented in the media?
The writer suggests feminists used to be represented in the media as "sexless, grim bra-burners, uninterested in pleasure or aesthetics"
7) What is the more modern representation of feminism? Do you agree that this makes feminism ‘stereotyped as fluffy’?
The more modern representation of feminism the writer alludes to are people that are finally willing to talk about makeup and Beyonce but in doing so get stereotyped as fluffy. I think that over the years the movement that feminism is has become very blurred particularly as it has become more mainstream
8) What contrasting audience pleasures for Teen Vogue are suggested by the writer in the article as a whole?
The contrasting audience pleasures are surveillance and entertainment (applying Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory). Surveillance is offered by the politics as well as offering entertainment through the celebrity gossip and the promotion of fashion and beauty
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?
The writer suggests that this change in representation and audience pleasures for media products aimed at women has emerged from the feminist-blog movement. This links to Clay Shirky's 'end of audience' theory as this reinforces the blur between the roles of producers and consumers. Blogging has allowed consumers to become amateur producers which led to the feminist-blog movement
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