Language and contexts
Homepage
1) What news website key conventions can you find on the Voice homepage?
- Top menu bar with links to: Home, Sport, Opinion, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Faith
2) What are some of the items in the top menu bar and what does this tell you about the content, values and ideologies of the Voice?
The items on the top menu bar include: Home, Sport, Opinion, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Faith.
These topics suggest that The Voice is well rounded and they make sure they cover a wide range of topics. The fact that 'Sport' is second on the list suggests that this is something The Voice cares about a lot and reports a lot of news around it. Furthermore, the way they report news stories is from a black perspective and the section 'Black parent-child experiences of racism affect whole family’s mental health, new study' highlights their ideologies and values regarding the black community.
3) Look at the news stories on the Voice homepage. Pick two stories and explain why they might appeal to the Voice's target audience.
Some of their stories have an element of surprise and most have an element of familiarity to their Black-British target audience. However, their stories aren't updated frequently so lack immediacy.
4) How is narrative used to encourage audience engagement with the Voice? Apply narrative theories (e.g. Todorov equilibrium or Barthes’ enigma codes) and make specific reference to stories on the homepage and how they encourage audiences to click through to them.
The Voice uses Todorov's theory of equilibrium to engage their audience. For example, they will cover both the disequilibrium and equilibrium of a recurring story. AN EAST London mother has expressed her shock and anger after armed Metropolitan Police officers knocked her 13 year old son off his bike and pointed their firearms at him after wrongly suspecting that the toy gun he was playing with was a real weapon.
Lifestyle section
1) What are the items in the sub-menu bar for the Lifestyle section and what does this suggest about the Voice audience?
The items in the sub-menu are:
These items show that the voice's audience is very family-centric and into lifestyle things. They also appear to be more on the older side.
2) What are the main stories in the Lifestyle section currently?
- ASTON UNIVERSITY’S Vice-Chancellor has told Birmingham Tech Week that diversity is the region’s ‘superpower’, and it must be used to drive forward tech innovation.
- Access a range of health and wellbeing services through your GP Practice
- October is black history month and a time to draw strength from our history as we plan our futures. We hope our health series with the NHS helps to inform and empower our community to make informed health choices.
3) Do the sections and stories in the Voice Lifestyle section challenge or reinforce black stereotypes in British media?
I believe that they challenge black stereotypes in the British media. There are so many stories of black successful people on The Voice even though black people are usually stereotypes to be unsuccessful. For example, the founder of Beats and Bands, is giving you all a chance to come and see what the hype is for yourself.
4) Choose two stories featured in the Lifestyle section – how do they reflect the values and ideologies of the Voice?
- Beats and Bands, where ‘Litness meets Fitness’- shows how dedicated they are to their community and how they always give back and supports those around them.
- 'Collaboration' is the region's superpowers - shows that breakthrough ideas rely on diversity, inclusion and collaboration.
Embracing a bold, Black British future in the tech industry means giving our community the opportunity to thrive and flourish in an environment where authenticity and talent is appreciated and celebrated.
We, the Black British community continue to shape the culture and inspire innovation. It is important to understand that diversity and inclusion go hand in hand – you cannot have one without the other.
Black Pound Day has successfully elevated the visibility of more than 1,500 British Black-owned businesses through its comprehensive directory and marketplace, including those participating in the Wray Forward program.
“Since launching three years ago, we have exponentially raised the awareness of spending with Black businesses, and our two premium retail locations allow thousands of conscious and ethical consumers to access a unique and broad range of underrepresented brands.
Lady Lawrence said: “Had that been a block full of white people in there, they would have done everything to get them out as fast as possible and make sure that they do what they needed to do.”
She added: “Nobody wanted to mention the word ‘race’ in the whole thing. [Because] when I saw the residents who lived in that block, to me it was under no doubt around the racism that existed at that time.”
''I have listened to “baroness”Lawrence interview and I can not believe the comments she made, how dare she, she is a disgrace and doesn’t deserve the baroness title, to say that the firefighters were racist and if the poor people who were in that tower had been white more would have been done is absolutely disgusting, those firefighters risk their own lives everyday they get called out, sometimes it must cross their minds “wonder if I’ll go home today “ but I bet it never crosses their minds “ if they are people of colour I don’t want to save them “ that woman should be made to public apologise to all firefighters and stripped of her title, she is using what happened which was awful to her son at every opportunity and now she is going too far, racism should go both ways but no it doesn’t it’s so unfair that she can get away with this, if it was the other way round there would be an uproar''
Social and cultural contexts - 40 Year of Black British Lives
1) What is Black Pound Day?
An event aimed at celebrating Black-owned businesses and giving the Black community a financial and emotional boost, after the racial inequality in the UK evident by the protests that followed Floyd's death.
2) How did Black Pound Day utilise social media to generate coverage and support?
The inaugural Black Pound Day attracted support from the high profile celebrities and quickly became the top-trending topic on Twitter in the Uk.
3) How do events such as Black Pound Day and the Powerlist Black Excellence Awards link to wider social, cultural and economic contexts regarding power in British society?
One of the most important manifestations of this is the Powerlist magazine and the annual Powerlist Black Excellence Awards. The Powerlist was established in 2007 when Michael Eboda, a former Editorial Director of Ethnic Media Group, left to start his own company, Powerful Media. Initiflly billed as a role model guide for young people, The Powerlist published a list of the UK's 100 most influential men and women of African, African Caribbean and African American heritage. Using his contacts in government Eboda managed to secure then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the inaugural launch, a feat that was to set the bar for the publication going forward. The following year, the Powerlist was launched at 10 Downing Street. At that time, Black people outside the realms of sport and entertainment were rarely given any recognition. Men and women such as Damon Buffini, Tom Ilube, Ric Lewis, Karen Blackett, Ken Olisa and Jacky Wright, all of whom have been hugely successful and influential in their respective sectors, were barely known until the Powerlist spotlighted them as number one on the list. The headline from The Voice's report on the 2020 Powerl-ist - 'We have the power' - in its November 2019 edition illustrated why so many in the community point to the Powerlist Black Excellence Awards as an inspirational event.
Audience
1) Who do you think is the target audience for the Voice website? Consider demographics and psychographics.
- Psychographics- strugglers
2) What audience pleasures are provided by the Voice website? Apply media theory here such as Blumler and Katz (Uses & Gratifications).
- Surveillance- news on the black community in Britain and other countries
- Personal identity- can relate to the people they report about
- Diversion- lots of room for entertainment: sports, etc.
3) Give examples of sections or content from the website that tells you this is aimed at a specialised or niche audience.
- The Black British Voices (BBV) survey, the largest study into social attitudes in the UK’s Black community, also found more respondents saying they were ‘spiritual’ than ‘religious.’
- A BRITISH historian has called for William Cuffay, the son of a freed slave from St Kitts, who played a key role in the struggle for democracy in Britain, to be honoured with a statue in Parliament Square.
4) Studying the themes of politics, history and racism that feature in some of the Voice’s content, why might this resonate with the Voice’s British target audience?
Applying Gilroy's theory of black diasporic identity and the idea that people have been 'scattered', we can say that the Black people living in Britain feel this way. There is this idea of 'liquidity of culture', where Black Britains are both British but still hold values and traditions from their original culture. Despite being born and raised in Britain, some still face prejudice and are asked 'why don't you just go home?'. The Voice's content will, therefore, resonate with them because they understand the impacts of racism and are a part of that history.
5) Can you find any examples of content on the Voice website created or driven by the audience or citizen journalism? How does this reflect Clay Shirky’s work on the ‘end of audience’ and the era of ‘mass amateurisation’?
An article on Rebel Wilson being accused of blocking black women on twitter is a prime example of Clay Shirky's 'end of audience' theory. The twitter users took to themselves to address and solve the issue.
Representations
1) How is the audience positioned to respond to representations in the Voice website?
The audience are positioned to respond positively. The Voice presents its audience with the opportunity to see the world through their own eyes rather than through the prism of white, often racist, mainstream British media.
2) Are representations in the Voice an example of Gilroy’s concept of “double consciousness” NOT applying?
Yes, the Voice presents its articles and news specifically through the eyes of black people. Therefore, they are seeing the world through their own eyes for once.
3) What kind of black British identity is promoted on the Voice website? Can you find any examples of Gilroy’s “liquidity of culture” or “unruly multiculturalism” here?
The Voice seems to capitalise on the fact that the majority of its readership/audience would originate from another country - particularly places in Africa/the Caribbean. This is highlighted through the use of banner advertisements promoting sending money to other countries. This directly relates to Gilroy's theory about "liquidity of culture" as it emphasises the sense of displacement that some Black Britons may feel as their families are likely to still be in their countries of origin despite them being in Britain - their identity has come from travelling to multiple countries rather than it solely being based on where they originate from.
4) Applying Stuart Hall’s constructivist approach to representations, how might different audiences interpret the representations of black Britons in the Voice?
The preferred reading would be that audiences interpret the representations of black Britons on the voice positively and realise that this representation of black people is the true reality, not the negative representations that major media platforms show concerning black people.
However, the oppositional reading would be that audiences see the way that The Voice represents black Britons as a cover up for the 'truth'. They have been bombarded with negative sterotypes regarding black people for years and they might see The Voice as a joke.
5) Do you notice any other interesting representations in the Voice website? For example, representations or people, places or groups (e.g. gender, age, Britishness, other countries etc.)
Gender
- Females are highlighted in a positive way - portrayed as professional individuals attempting to become involved in a variety of career paths.
Age
- Portraying the black youth as creative individuals attempting to make a difference in their community rather than the typically negative portrayal of young black males (aggressive,violent etc).
Health
- Discusses sexual health, general health issues, diet/lifestyle related content on things that are usually not covered in as much detail.
Industries
Born in Jamaica, McCalla trained as an accountant at Kingston College, moved to London in the 1970s and started working on leftwing newspaper the East End News, where he helped edit a double-page spread called the Voice aimed at black readers.
He had the idea of expanding the column into a weekly title for black Britons and in 1982 founded the Voice newspaper.
The paper and the mini publishing empire that grew up around it quickly came to be regarded as a pillar of the black community in Britain and made McCalla a millionaire.
"I decided deliberately to have a newspaper that targeted people who were born here and had spent most of their lives here," said McCalla in a rare TV interview in 1992.
"In doing so I had obviously captured a niche market, a market of people who had never had a voice before."
The Voice, dubbed "the black Sun", has never shied away from controversy, building up a reputation for campaigning against racism and injustice.
The Voice's early sales were poor, but it was buoyed by job adverts from the newly aware London boroughs, which were willing to pour in money to satisfy their consciences, regardless of the response. Sales eventually rose, and by the start of the 1990s the Voice had its circulation officially audited at 45,000 - a figure which was proudly printed on the front page each week above the masthead. Nothing, it seemed, could stop the inexorable rise of the Voice - not even a challenge from me, its former assistant editor, when I launched a competitor, Black Briton, in 1991.
Unable to break the Voice's stranglehold on advertising, Black Briton folded after a year and by December 1993, Voice sales reached 51,318. But a few months later, the sales figure mysteriously disappeared from the front page, and observers began to realise something was going wrong. Sales began to slump and by the end of 1996 when another rival, the New Nation, was launched, circulation had dropped by 20%.
Despite a shaky beginning, which caused the Nation to be sold on after less than a year to a local newspaper group, it slowly turned the corner. It joined a group with three other ethnic-minority newspapers, giving it strength in numbers; its owners were bought out by the giant Trinity-Mirror; and it is now widely regarded as the country's best-quality black paper. And as if to confirm the Voice's decline it decided not to have its sales figures audited last year, having seen a drop to 30,000 in 1999.
4) How does the Voice website make money?
Through advertisements - they sell space on their website to promoters who need the advertising space.
5) What adverts or promotions can you find on the Voice website? Are the adverts based on the user’s ‘cookies’ or fixed adverts? What do these adverts tell you about the level of technology and sophistication of the Voice’s website?
They are typically fixed adverts. This shows that the Voice has quite a basic level of technology and that compared to most modern websites, the Voice is a lot less sophisticated. The fact that they don't use the consumer data to create specific/personalised advertisements suggests that the Voice are unable to operate at a technology level that high/they do not have the funds to do so.
6) Is there an element of public service to the Voice’s role in British media or is it simply a vehicle to make profit?
I think the Voice was originally designed as a public service tool - a means of giving those in the black community a platform to express themselves and be represented through (dispelling this concept of double consciousness).
7) What examples of technological convergence can you find on the Voice website – e.g. video or audio content?
The interviews offered with different influencers.
8) How has the growth of digital distribution through the internet changed the potential for niche products like the Voice?
I think that it has increased the potential outreach for products like the Voice. I think this is because people are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of gaining an insight on multiple perspectives, and because they can access the content easier now it makes it easier for niche products like the Voice to receive more recognition.
9) Analyse The Voice’s Twitter feed. How does this contrast with other Twitter feeds you have studied (such as Zendaya's)? Are there examples of ‘clickbait’ or does the Voice have a different feel?
- The Voice's twitter feed has a lot more clickbait compared to the twitter feed for Zendaya.
- Does have a lot less text in the actual tweets - very image/video based.
- Production values are of a lower quality
- They receive a fewer views (some videos have less than 100 views).
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