Zendaya: Language and Representations

 Zendaya: Language and Representations blog tasks

Introduction and background reading 

1) What was the 2015 Oscar controversy involving Zendaya? 

That was when Zendaya, age 19, happened to appear on the red carpet in a white silk gown, with her hair in dreadlocks — and on E’s Fashion Police, Giuliana Rancic commented, “That hair is swallowing her. I feel like she smells like patchouli oil.” An offscreen (and never-identified) voice added, “Or weed.”

Outrage followed thick and fast, with commenters across the internet decrying the Fashion Police segment as racist.

2) How did Zendaya control the narrative of that controversy?

 And in the ensuing controversy, Zendaya could easily have let those commenters position her as the passive victim of Rancic’s ignorance. Instead, she rapidly took control of the narrative herself.

“There is already harsh criticism of African American hair in society without the help of ignorant people who choose to judge others based on the curl of their hair,” she wrote in an Instagram post the next day. “My wearing my hair in locs on an Oscar red carpet was to showcase them in a positive light, to remind people of color that our hair is good enough. To me locs are a symbol of beauty and strength, almost like a lion’s mane.”

3) What examples are provided of Zendaya using her celebrity to raise issues of race and social justice?

What got people excited about Zendaya during the Oscars controversy was how careful and measured her response was: She explained exactly what made Rancic’s remark so offensive and how fraught the history of talking about black women’s hair is, and then ended on a note of uplift.

And since that episode, Zendaya has consistently continued to use her celebrity to talk thoughtfully about race and social justice. “I am inspired right now by people who use their platforms,” she told Glamour in 2017. “If people know your name, they should know it for a reason.”

4) Zendaya insisted on a black family in Disney’s KC Undercover show. How can we link this to the ideas of Paul Gilroy? 

She often talks about how she feels she has a responsibility to help represent the black community onscreen. So when Disney offered Zendaya the starring role in a new show when she was 16 (K.C. Undercover), she says, she insisted that her character have a black family. “I was like, ‘If I’m going to do this, this is how it has to be.’ There needs to be a black family on the Disney Channel,” she said in the Glamour interview. “A lot of people who aren’t people of color can’t quite understand what it’s like to grow up and not see yourself in mainstream media.”Gilroy suggests diaspora challenges national ideologies and creates cultural tension.  Zendaya supports this idea by challenging the conventional white fmily stereotypical sitcoms.

5) Who is Zendaya’s stylist and how did Zendaya use fashion and appearance to develop her celebrity persona? 

In large part, that’s because Zendaya knows how to dress for a moment. She uses her outfits to tell her audience a story about how she wants to be seen on a given day — and she proved with her response to Rancic that she is willing to back those choices up when questioned on them. 

None of this means that she’s making her style choices all by herself. She’s been dressed by stylist Law Roach since she was 14 years old — including on that fateful Oscars night — and his playful, performative aesthetic and commitment to storytelling is definitely at work in Zendaya’s outfits. (When Roach wants her to wear a particularly challenging look, Zendaya told Vogue in 2017, he tells her, “It’ll be a mo-ment.”) 

But not just anyone can pull off the looks that Roach is putting together. It takes someone like Zendaya, who understands the way that clothing creates image and finds the attitude necessary to make them work. “You’ve got to be a strong girl to do that on the red carpet,” Roach told the Guardian in 2018, referring to the time he dressed Zendaya as Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie for the Grammys. “You have to have conviction to say, ‘I like this, and I think I look cool, and fuck you to everybody who doesn’t.’”

6) How has Zendaya influenced the representation of characters she has played? 

“A lot of people don’t realize their power,” she told Vogue in 2017. “I have so many friends who say yes to everything or feel like they can’t stand up for themselves in a situation. No: You havethe power.” 

Zendaya inarguably does have the power. As her star has risen, her projects have leaned increasingly heavily on her image for their promotion. Spider-Man: Far From Home, her most recent film, is roping in a giant segment of its audience by dangling the question of whether Zendaya and Tom Holland are secretly in love. In the lead-up to Euphoria’s release, it was vanishingly rare to see a headline about the show that didn’t name-check Zendaya, and showrunner Sam Levinson says he put Zendaya on his vision board when he created the show.

7) How did LL Cool J describe Zendaya? 

Or, as LL Cool J told Vogue about Zendaya following a triumphant guest-starring spot on Lip Sync Battle in 2017, “She’s cool. You can manufacture fame. You can manufacture publicity. You can manufacture songs. You can’t manufacture cool.”

8) Do you agree with his assessment? Is Zendaya authentically cool or just another manufactured celebrity? 

And that insistence on owning her cool and owning her power, on unapologetically taking control of it and then doing smart and interesting and beautiful things with it, is what makes Zendaya such an exciting celebrity to watch. What’s even more exciting is realizing that, at just age 22, she’s really just getting started.

Zendaya textual analysis

1) Visit Zendaya's Twitter feed. Analyse her use of tweets - are they promoting her film/TV work, linked to fashion or sponsorship work or more socially or politically oriented? 

Some posts are a mere attempt to engage wit her audience to show some sort of realism and other posts are more career focused in terms of her being at events that mainly will help promote the shows she is acting in or producing.

2) Look at Zendaya's Instagram account. She has said this is the one account that is always 100% created by her - can you find any evidence of that in the way posts or images are constructed? 

I’m very, very particular about my Instagram so nobody has access to it other than me...I think it’s important, to a degree, to be honest with that stuff. 

So it seems as though other areas of her social media might be managed by a manager or professional marketing person and so there was still an element of contrivance and constructed- ness to the 2017 video. The ‘authenticity’ approach may well have been a clever marketing angle. Zendaya is known for being down to earth and #relatable but how much of that is her true identity and how much is clever marketing strategy?

 She explains, of Instagram, I’m always there. They [the fans] know that I’m there. They know that it’s really me, but it is an important thing for me to have my own time and not be so sucked into a phone.

3) Watch Zendaya's 73 questions Vogue interview. How is this constructed to create a particular representation of Zendaya? 

Her responses are curated to link back to her former and recent roles and also how she has progressed over the years. One of the question was what she hoped the industry would be like in years time and she answered more diverse, which speaks on her more activist route since being a woman of colour herself she wants to advocate the same representations, she also admires a lot of women of colour such as Beyonce, Michelle Obama, Rihanna and Oprah.

4) Research Zendaya across any other social media accounts - e.g. Facebook. Do you notice any differences in how she represents herself on different platforms? 

Zendaya posts glimpses into her personal life and shows her commitment to social justice, but most of her content is focused on promoting her film projects and partnerships with other brands. With tens of millions of followers across various social media platforms, Zendaya has quickly become a fashion icon.

Representations

1) What the concerns around social media discussed at the start of the article?

It’s not a new criticism of social media that it wreaks havoc on our brains, especially those of young people. We all grew up being told to put our phones down for various reasons, one of them being that screen time has the potential to give you square eyes. However, nowadays people seem to be taking these criticisms more seriously and concerns that social media can negatively affect one’s mental health and cause anxiety are more widespread and being taken more seriously. Younger and more impressionable users can’t help but compare themselves to one another whether consciously or unconsciously. 

Using platforms such as Instagram sometimes means that people equate their sense of self- worth with arbitrary values such as the number of likes or comments a post receives. This, combined with the added pressure of teen life, when young adults are working out their identity and ways to express that identity, is a recipe for a mental health crisis. A useful way to examine this issue is through the lens of young celebrities who feel the pressure to balance their celebrity ‘online’ persona and an offline persona. The issues are magnified given their presence in the limelight.

2) What example is provided of Zendaya’s authenticity – or possible lack of authenticity? 

Zendaya is a great example of a celebrity who is now, seemingly, in control of their relationship with social media, but that wasn’t always the case. In 2017 a video was posted to her YouTube channel titled ‘Watch Me React To My First YouTube Vids’ in which she and a friend watched back the YouTube videos she first posted onto her channel as a child star. She derides the videos and comments on how fake they were, claiming that when she was younger she felt like she had to create or perform a persona that matched Rocky – her character in the Disney show, Shake It Up. She remarks that at the time she thought ‘the kids are gonna love it, it will be cool’ which perfectly encapsulates the idea of marketing oneself online and the pressure on young people to perform a certain way to get likes.

3) What is the one social media app that Zendaya manages entirely herself?

Instagram

4) What are the issues highlighted by Billie Eilish regarding self-representation and feminism? 

Every girl wants to feel desirable...But then there’s a whole world of men who argue that women say, ‘Oh, I don’t want men to sexualise me’ but then wear shirts that show their boobs and sing songs about having sex.’ I’m like, do you not get the idea that we want to wear what we feel good in but we don’t want you to jump in? It’s very dumb. 

Eilish here is highlighting the lack of nuance in understanding self-representation and feminism which accompanies the mainstream online. These are over-simplified ideas and restrict one from accurately and earnestly portraying oneself online and contribute to the mental health epidemic caused partly by social media platforms.

5) How authentic do YOU feel Zendaya’s media representation is? Is it the real Zendaya or a media construction designed to look authentic? 

I believe that at the end of the day her media representation is simply on the basis to promote herself and her career. Through this shows a true authenticity of how she is driven to do her best in all of the roles she's committed to and produces. The media is construction on the idea that authenticity can be relatable to its audience abut it can cause a certain mistreatment of platforms and through that persona I believe the audience can clearly see what is fake and what is the truth.

Influencers and celebrity culture: blog tasks

 Influencers and celebrity culture

 Media Magazine reading


1) How has YouTube "democratised media creativity"?

 The YouTube platform has democratised media creativity, with ordinary users uploading their own content: they are ‘producers’ (producer-users) and ‘procumers’ (producer-consumers). Content is published first and then filtered or judged later by audiences. So, success is measured by the number of views and the reaction of the ‘fans’ rather than the judgement and financial power of an industry editor/producer.

2) How does YouTube and social media culture act as a form of cultural imperialism or 'Americanisation'? 

In the 1960s Marshall McLuhan described how the world was shrinking, becoming more interconnected due to technological progress. For him, improved communications turned the world into a global village, and this was decades before the internet. Not all famous YouTubers, like Emma Chamberlain, are American but Americans certainly make up the majority. The universality of the English language undoubtedly plays an important part here. We could argue that YouTube influencers encourage the spread of US cultural references, language and attitudes. This form of globalisation implies a dominance of Western cultural attitudes (cultural hegemony) – ‘the West vs the Rest’.

3) How do influencers reinforce capitalist ideologies? 

Most globally popular YouTubers also promote materialism and consumption. Once they become successful, YouTube stars are often sponsored by commercial companies and become endorsers of products. Their posts illustrate the commercialisation or commodification of entertainment which, although in some ways more honest and explicitly done than the subtle product placement of the past, still channels audiences into conformist ways of thinking and behaving, encouraging them to buy products and aspire towards material improvement.

4) How can YouTube and social media celebrity content be read as postmodern, an example of hyperreality? 

The vlog is a highly self-reflexive media form. This postmodern self- consciousness involves breaking the fourth wall by revealing the ‘nuts and bolts’ of video shooting and editing. Jean Baudrillard called these fake representations of reality ’hyperreality’. For him, the artificial reality is more real to modern screen-centred audiences than authentic reality but how far do consumers of massively successful vloggers such as Zoella or PewDiePie – who at this stage in their careers are creating videos as part of their job rather than as an authentic expression of themselves – still understand that what they are seeing is hyperreality, a constructed version of the authentic?

5) What are the arguments for and against regulating online content such as YouTube?

Internet-based media is notoriously hard to regulate and control. Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt point out that there is a dilemma about whether to permit freedom of speech in the online space or regulate it, to protect the public. The content of viral video clips is often subversive, the mode of address is informal. This raises the question of age suitability and availability to younger audiences. It is difficult to restrict access to such sites to younger children who may be more impressionable and less able to distance themselves critically and emotionally from what they are viewing. Bandura’s work in the 1960s claimed that there was a link between media content and the imitative ‘copycat’ behaviour of younger viewers which is a concern for some.

6) How can Hesmondhalgh and Curran & Seaton's ideas be linked to online media debates? 

A strong argument is that a primary role of the media is to deliver audiences to advertisers. YouTube, and its owner Google, rely on advertising for their substantial earnings and arguably, celebrity vloggers act as a promotional vehicle for advertisers and commercial sponsors. In a phrase: it’s all about clicks. So, this supports the ideas of both David Hesmondhalgh and Curran and Seaton that the cultural industries are driven by corporate power and the pursuit of profit. When enormous conglomerates, like Google and Facebook buy up platforms and apps that were previously their competitors, they become leaders in the market and leave little room for independence, individualism and democracy.

7) How can Gauntlett's ideas around identity and audience be applied to YouTube and influencer content?

David Gauntlett asserts that online media encourages ordinary users to experiment with other personas, projecting identity as multiple and fluid. There are many and varied YouTubers to choose from, allowing audiences to see different ways of being and different points of view. The attraction of many YouTubers to younger audiences is that they see themselves reflected in their YouTube heroes. Emma Chamberlain’s screen presence seems natural, relaxed and authentic. This is refreshing for audiences who are used to actors playing a role or presenters adopting a particularly performative set of speech patterns and mannerisms.

8) What is YOUR opinion on celebrity influencers? Are they a positive, democratic addition to the contemporary media landscape or a highly constructed product promoting hegemonic capitalist ideologies?   

 They help encourage people mentally, for example Emma Chamberlains podcast has become influential in its relatable to its audience and how she views certain issues similarly to her audience, creating a personal relationship ideology which allows Chamberlains podcast to progress in terms of its listener intake.

How to build a social media brand: case study

1) What are the different ways celebrities manage their social media accounts? Give examples. 

Although some celebrity social media accounts might seem like random musings and updates, others are centered around specific promotions, shout-outs and announcements. For example, it’s probably safe to say that this tweet from Harry Styles was actually written by Styles himself. 'i pledge miniature tacos for all.'

2) Why is 'voice' important in celebrity social media content and what examples are provided?

Much like a distinct brand voice helps companies stand out from the crowd, the same can be said for the tone and personality of a celebrity on social media. Chrissy Teigen might be the best example of someone with a distinct, consistent social brand. Teigen’s off-the-cuff and often humorous tweets often don’t feel like they were written by a celebrity at all. Her human approach to social has made her all the more endearing and relatable to her millions of followers. Meanwhile, someone like Mark Ruffalo adopts a more subtle tone while posting the sort of behind-the-scenes content we’d see from a celebrity account.

 

3) What different goals may celebrities have for their social media accounts? 

Here’s more from insight from Chan on how marketers achieve a celebrity’s voice:

“To get the best results for managing several social accounts, our team plans a meeting with management and artists face to face to discuss the tone and how they prefer the accounts to be taken care of.

Some artists are very hands-on with day-to-day posts and content, whereas some prefer the social team to dive in and assist with copy and branding.

To make sure we get the best results and stay consistent with the artist’s voice, we send out copy for any social posts in advance to be approved by management.”

4) What types of content can be found from celebrity social media posts? 

News, updates and hype posts

Simply put, if someone followers a celebrity then they want to know what’s going on in their lives. This includes day-to-day updates and likewise big announcements.

Behind-the-scenes content

Another incentive for following a celebrity is the ability to go behind-the-scenes and get sneak peeks of their latest projects.

“Slice of life” content

Perhaps one of the biggest appeals of following a celebrity on social media is to see what they’re “really” like.

“Celebrity” snapshots

Of course, some fans do live for the glitz and glamour of the so-called “good life.”

Heartwarming and inspirational content

The common thread between much of a celebrity’s content strategy is showing off one’s personality and human side.

5) How does social media allow influencers to interact with fans? Give examples.  

Beyond likes and retweets, celebrities can drive engagement and interact with fans simply by asking questions. Visiting a new town while on tour? Ask about the local cuisine. Looking for something new to watch or read? Again, ask fans! Celebrities and their managers can keep an eye on mentions and DMs to figure out who to like and shout-out. And remember:  while something as simple as a “Like” or retweet only takes a moment for a celeb, but could very well mean the world to a fan.

 Guardian article: Social media harming young people

1) What did the YMCA's report suggest about social media content and celebrity culture?  

The youth charity YMCA spoke to more than 1,000 young people aged between 11 and 16. They found that 62% of 15 to 16-year-olds felt that social media had ramped up expectations over their personal appearance. Photoshopped images and the sharing of only the most flattering shots shifted young people’s understanding of what a normal body looked like, the charity said.Ideals of physical perfection were also said to be driven by celebrity culture, with 58% of 11 to 16-year-olds identifying it as the main influence.

Denise Hatton, the chief executive for YMCA England and Wales, said: “We’ve all been guilty of only posting our most flattering pictures on social media. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to show yourself from your best angle, it’s important that we still like ourselves when we’re not looking our best, which is probably the majority of the time for most of us.”

Social media was already a concern among 11 to 12-year-olds, with 43% of those surveyed claiming individuals they saw on online influenced them.

The charity has joined Dove, the health and beauty products company, for its Be Real Campaign, which is asking people to sign up to its body image pledge, IPledgeToBeReal.

It urges social media users to stop editing their pictures and to hold brands and organisations responsible for not promoting healthy body images and diversity.

2) What examples are provided of how this can have a damaging effect on young people? 

Increasing numbers of academic studies have found that mental health problems have soared among girls over the past decade, coinciding with the period in which young people’s use of social media has exploded.

Dr Bernadka Dubicka, the chair of the child and adolescent faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said last year: “There is a growing crisis in children and young people’s mental health, and in particular a gathering crisis in mental distress and depression among girls and young women.”

Dubicka said social media such as Snapchat and Instagram “can be damaging and even destructive” to girls’ mental wellbeing. “There’s a pressure for young people to be involved 24/7 and keep up with their peer group or they will be left out and socially excluded.”

Social media use has also contributed to a increasing sleep deprivation among young people, which could both be a symptom of mental illness and also raise the risk of it developing, she added.

3) What is YOUR opinion on this topic? Do you feel social media is dangerous to young people? Should age restrictions be enforced? Explain your answer. 

I believe that social media has its ups and downs and it depends on how the user uses their platform that shapes the type pf content they pots and also view, through that comes their intake not whether it is positive posts they are viewing or negative.

A/A* extension tasks

Read this excellent, academic article on the history of celebrity culture recommended by exam board AQA. Has digital culture changed the nature of celebrity or have things always been like this?  

It’s only in the past decade or so that this problem of playing to the crowd has become widespread: Before the advent of YouTube, reality television stars were the only “ordinary” people to appear on screen with any regularity, and before blogs and social networks, we only paid attention to the eating or beauty routines of movie stars or rock stars. While we can therefore blame social media for making the problem of celebrity into a mass phenomenon, anxieties about the hazards of public exposure long predate the internet.

Read this Forbes article on how covid and TikTok have changed the influencer market in the last couple of years. What does this tell us about society and media culture - are we becoming more creative and independent or is this just another way to sell more products to more people?

Lockdowns led to increased social media usage, a change in consumer behaviour from Covid-19, there were production challenges around traditional advertising shoots, audiences turned toward authenticity and curated content, and brand budgets were upended, requiring quick-turn pivots. All of these issues and more inspired plenty of brands to partner with influencers this past year in order to get the word out in a relevant, topical and mindful way.

Celebrity-level influencers certainly have the kind of follower numbers that implies slam-dunk campaign success, but it’s the smaller creators who bring more sway to their sponsorships. Their audiences are more engaged, more loyal, and more likely to pay attention to a review or recommendation. Simply put: people relate more to “everyday” influencers than they do Kim Kardashian or PewDiePie. 

Authenticity and transparency became important in 2020 as brands struggled to find meaningful ways of staying relevant without coming off as insensitive or appearing to capitalise on a crisis. This trend is likely to continue into 2021 as our “next normal” evolves throughout the year, with consumers being more drawn to campaigns that feel genuine and personal.

Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks

Clay Shirky: End of audience

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?

• we could email and exchange files with people at other universities.

• we had access to a way to talk to hundreds of thousands of other computer users around the world.

• at the same time to be acutely aware of what it is, how it works, and how to ensure it is a tool for active citizenship, free expression and social justice, rather than one for oppression, surveillance, control and repression.

• The network connects us to other people, it provides a great source of information, it can be used for campaigning and political action, to draw attention to abuses and fight for human rights. It’s a great place for gaming and education, which can also be used to make a lot of money (for a few people) as well as a place where you can meet your friends.

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

• A lot of bullying and abuse takes place there.

• There’s pornography that you don’t want to see, and illegal images of child abuse that you might come across. 

• Extremists and radicals can use the network to try to influence people to join their cause, and fraud, scams, ripoffs and malicious software are everywhere. 

• Then there’s the dark web, made up of websites and online services accessed via specialised browsers and tools that make it very hard to identify who is using them, which is used to sell drugs and for other illegal activity.

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?

The idea of ‘openness’ lies at the centre of this debate: I believe that if we want an open society based around principles of equality of opportunity, social justice and free expression, we need to build it on technologies which are themselves ‘open’, and that this is the only way to encourage a diverse online culture that allows all voices to be heard.

4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?

Digital information is very hard to control in an open world, because it arrives in a form that allows it to be manipulated by its recipient. When you listen to the radio or record a TV programme, all you can easily do with the result is listen or watch again. You may be able to select which bits you watch, but transforming the stored form is complex and often impossible.

5) Where do you stand on the use and regulation of the internet? Should there be more control or more openness? Why?

The fact that we currently have a mostly open network is no reason to believe that there is a pre-ordained path towards constant improvement as we deploy advanced digital technologies throughout the world. Different choices could be made at every stage, and the outcome is far from determined. It could be a regulated, managed and limited network, of the sort being constructed in China and Libya. Access to dissenting or distinct voices could be limited and managed.

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody


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

A profession is something that exists to solve a hard problem - typically one that requires some form of specialisation. (For example a race car driver requires specialised training in order to ensure that he/she can drive the car safely and at speed).

In the newspaper industry, this idea of professionalism can be applied to the concept of having a "good journalist." Journalists traditionally needed to be trained in order to know how to seek out newsworthy stories, and how to do so quickly.

2) What is the question facing the newspaper industry now the internet has created a “new ecosystem”?

As a result of the development of the internet and its "new ecosystem", the newspaper industry now ask different questions regarding publishing. The questions have changed from "why publish this?" to "why not?" The internet has promoted this concept of mass amateurisation and therefore, there seems to be less focus on the quality of the news - mainly the quantity. Another question is "what happens when there's nothing unique about publishing anymore, because users can do it for themselves?"

3) Why did Trent Lott’s speech in 2002 become news?

Lott remembered and praised Thurmond's presidential campaign of fifty years earlier and recalled Mississippi's support for it: "I want to say  this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

The growth in the amount of self-published content found on the internet. The idea of everyone being able to produce and publish content as well as consume it.

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’?

This suggestion links to the concept of fake news because it implies that if one news story is consistently repeated throughout the media, then it is more likely to be repeated. Frequency acts as a determinant as to whether something is believed. For example, if nearly all the major newspapers report on climate change being a lie, then people will be more likely to believe them over a small group of professionals saying otherwise.

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?

We are in the midst of an internet revolution because the internet enables us to encourage significant changes. On the other hand, this can also be viewed as chaos because the changes that come about as a result of the internet cannot always be controlled/are not always changes that we welcome. 

7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?

It means that audiences are no longer just the people that consume/watch the content but they are now able to create it too. This also means that people do not need to be trained to a high standard in order to create news stories. This is important as it hints at the fact that the quality of news may decrease as a result of audiences having less professional skills/know-how when it comes to compiling news stories etc.

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?

The changes brought about due to the Gutenberg/Printing Press Revolution created great anxiety amongst those who prided themselves on their work/lives as scribes. Because a quicker, more efficient method of printing words in masses was introduced, it meant that these scribes were no longer needed. Being a scribe was a respectable job because you needed a great deal of literacy in order to do so. Therefore, when the job of a scribe could be done by anyone operating the newspaper, this acted as a form of intellectual chaos. 

Recent examples of political chaos - people agreeing with different political parties despite not truly knowing what they mean.

9) Why is photography a good example of ‘mass amateurisation’?

Traditionally, photography required a professional camera in order to produce high quality photographs. However, due to the developments in technology, this is no longer needed. People can simply take professional, high quality pictures on their phone without having to spend hundreds on a digital camera. Additionally, dark rooms are no longer needed to develop photographs - they can just be uploaded and edited using a computer/device.

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? 

I think that this era of mass amateurisation is a good thing to some extent. This is because it means that people can now add to the media and really develop their own voice by contributing to the news in their own ways. This is a positive thing because it increases the range of opinions and perceptions shared in the media; thus, enabling the media to remain diverse.

On the other hand, it may also be a negative thing because it means that the quality of news is also decreasing due to the lack of professionalism of amateur journalists. Also, it means that those attempting to find professions in the newspaper/journalism industry have more difficulties in doing so because professionally trained journalists are no longer needed.

Magazines: final index

Your final Magazines index should include the following:

1) Magazines: Front cover practical task

2) Magazines: GQ - Language and Representation

3) Magazines: GQ - Audience and Industry

4) Magazines: The Gentlewoman - Language and Representations

5) Magazines: Front cover practical task LR

6) Magazines: The Gentlewoman - Audience and Industries

7) Magazines: Industries - the appeal of print and independent magazines