OSP: Teen Vogue - Audience and Representation

 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?

Teen Vogue's mission statement is to educate, enlighten and empower their audience. This suggests that the audience pleasure will include diversion- as they will be entertained by celebrity gossip, surveillance as they will be educated on political and social issues. Personal identity if they see themselves represented.

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.

Teen Vogue's target audience is Gen- Z and millenials. The psychographics that would be attracted to Teen Vogue include mainstreamers and aspirers.

3) What audience pleasures or gratifications can be found in Teen Vogue? Do these differ from the gratifications of traditional print-based magazines?

Some audience pleasures would be diversion, surveillance and personal identity. I think this slightly differs from traditional print magazines as they tended to focus on the entertainment and not so much of personal identity in terms of representation for audiences.
 
4) How is the audience positioned to respond to political news stories?

Audiences are positioned to form their own political opinions when they read Teen Vogue's articles but there may be some bias as Teen Vogue is a liberal and progressive brand so audiences may adopt these beliefs.

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.


Audiences may be encouraged to interact with the brand through the video series where Teen Vogue responds to their audiences dilemmas and questions.

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?

Teen Vogue subverts traditional stereotypes and representations of girls and women as they encourage through the summits to take an interest in politics and social activism,and to be creators and innovators.

2) How are issues of gender identity and sexuality represented in Teen Vogue?

Teen Vogue has a progressive attitude towards gender identity and sexuality. 

3) Do representations of appearance or beauty in Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge traditional stereotypes?

Teen Vogue challenges traditional stereotypes of beauty and the beauty ideal being youthful, white, thin women by representation different types of women and putting three black women on their front covers. On the other hand, they may be reinforces stereotypes as they are still very much focused on promoting beauty, fashion and makeup.

4) What is the patriarchy and how does Teen Vogue challenge it? Does it succeed? 

Patriarchy is a system of society where men hold power and women are excluded from it. Teen Vogue challenges this by empowering women to be strong and independent. 

5) Does Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge typical representations of celebrity?

Teen Vogue reinforces typical representations of celebrities as they idolise celebrities.

Teen Vogue: Factsheet Part 2

1) How does the Factsheet apply David Gauntlett's ideas about gender and identity to Teen Vogue? 

Guntlett;s idea of gender fluidity can be applied to Teen Vogue as they have a progressive attitude towards gender fluidity and sexuality.

2) David Gauntlett has also written about the importance of role models. How can this be applied to the Teen Vogue CSP?

This can be applied to Teen Vogue as it acts as a role model to young audiences, offering advice on stigmatised topics.

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.

Teen Vogue empowers women by reinforcing the idea that they can  be interested in both politics and fashion, which is where the term 'thigh-high politics' stems from, They also encourage women to be strong and independent as well aspire to be leaders and make a difference. They empower women by representing demographics that are often underrepresented in the media. On the other hand it can be argued that Teen Vogue cannot be a feminist brand as it is owned by Conde Nast a large media conglomerate which is the epitome of capitalism which is formed under the patriarchy.

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?

female bodies are presented as a spectacle
male gaze
hegemonic ideas of gender
teen vogue challenges all these ideals with non-traditional ideals.

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? 

Blumler and Katz's gratifications theory can be applied as an audience pleasure from this article would be surveillance where audiences are educated on the effects of climate change.

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