Online Media - Blogs (Zoella and Tanya Burr)

Zoella Website

• Sans-Serif font - basic font suggests that the target audience are young and uneducated.

• Titles are all in capital letters, she is using capital letters as it is easy to read and easy to understand.

• Lexis appeals to a younger audience.

• The things she shows in her blog serve an aesthetic function. She is showing her bar cart but she isn't going to get drunk it is a hyperreality.

• Zoella's website is full of hyperlinks, so when you click on a link you get distracted by another website. Known as a rabbit hole.

• The user experience (UX).

• The string of fairy lights on the top of the website exaggerates her girlyness which is a stereotypical representation of girls.

• No nudity in Zoella's blog, The way she's represented is childish and innocent, she is a young woman in pyjamas in her bedroom with her dog.

Tanya Burr Website

• It is different to Zoella's blog as it is more sophisticated through the font (Serif) - and titles are in lower case compared to capital letters.

• Tanya Burr is a bit more exposed on her blog, we see photos with cleavage and in bikini's demonstrating that she is adult and mature.

Multimodality

• Combines different types. Magazine - images and text. All media are types of multimodality.

Introduction to Online Media - Lesson 1 and 2

Online Media

• Media which is distributed using the internet. Digital technology is making things happen.

• DIGITAL CONVERGENCE

• An example of digital convergence is radio and it has been converged into podcasts which can be listened to through the internet and online.

• Another example is Youtube.

• Youtube has been made possible through the use of Broadband and fibre optic. Also made possible through the use of advancement of storage.

Vlogging

• A document of your life, like a diary.

• Microblogging - Twitter - short updates of your life.

• Vlogging is interesting as the audience for it is predominantly young people/ teenagers.

• Participatory Culture - Clay Shirky

• Vlogging and online video has become one of the biggest and most influential forms of media. Recent research shows 42% of internet users said they have watched a vlog within the last month rising to 50% for 16-24 year olds (Guardian, 2015), clearly demonstrating an ability to reach and influence vast range of audiences.

Producers sell audiences - giving the audience to a company.

• Aspirational 
• We see what we want to be

• Personal Identity/Identification
• Able to relate to people

• Unscripted Narrative
• Random topics, anything can happen, they can say what they want

• Authenticity
• Being real

• Direct mode of address
• Talking to the audience directly

• Audience interaction
• Comment on Youtube

pseudo science - Jackson Galaxy

• USP - different because he's got a weirdly shaped beard and he's bald, full sleeve arms and stretched earlobes.

Zoella

• UK based Zoella is the world's most popular beauty vlogger, with 12 million fans subscribed to her Youtube channel at this current time. Zoella, who started broadcasting fashion and beauty related videos from 2009, has over 1 billion video views, and is the 147th most subscribed channel on the website; her second channel 'MoreZoella' has over 4.8 million subscribers and over 727 million video views. She also has over 13.6 millions on Twitter and over 10.9 million on Instagram.

• A persona - an online persona is another personality.

'June Faves' - June 2016

• Intertextual knowledge - 'nala' her dogs name is taken from the Lion King. (Referential Code)

• Her facial expressions are extremely expressive and exaggerated.

• She has a neutral british accent its not posh.

• Her vocal delivery is undulating (up and down)

• She speaks like that is it keeps the audience involvement.

• Zoella doesn't sware, if she swares on her youtube account then her account would get demonitized.

• We are currently in the age of web 2.0, clean white background, simple logical layout.

• There are frequent jump cuts which is a cut from one thing to the same thing.

• Increase the level of authenticity is when 'mistakes' happen. (sitting on her leg, calling her dog).

• Her mode of address is like a children's show presenter, she's consistently happy and consistently welcoming.

• Linda Blacker Zoella - Photoshoot.

• She's very petite and childlike, the preferred reading is that were not supposed to find her sexually attractive. As heterosexual men are not the preferred audience it is actually young heterosexual women that she is targeting. Were supposed to think she is 'cute' and 'pretty' not sexualised.

• She's cultivating herself to be young approachable this is through her high pitch voice and she looks significantly younger than what she is. She has learnt how to speak in a nice and approachable way.

• She is portrayed as cute through her very large eyes, they're inviting and also her teeth are a little wonky but they're not hollywood perfect but she hasn't perfected them so she'll be more relatable although she has definitely got the money to get them fixed.

• She has strands of hair out of her bun, it makes her haircut non threatening and girlish.

Radio Unit - Lesson 3

How does LNWH abide by OFCOM's regulatory framework?

• 'Ensure a wide range of services and a wide appeal is available.'
• Although the show is broadly middle class, the show always has something different therefore a wide range of services and a wide appeal is available.

• 'Maintain plurality in broadcasting.'
• Through use of the danish chef.

• 'Protect audiences from offensive or harmful material.'
• the show does often swear but swearing isn't deemed as offensive to the audience through regulations.

• 'Protect audiences against unfairness or infringement of privacy.'
• They never talk about anyone else, if they are to be brought up then they wont explain who they are which keeps the persons privacy.

Diversity and Creativity in the media.

• Curran and Seaton claimed that the media are controlled by a small number of companies driven by profit and power. They claimed that the concentration of media is limiting variety, creativity and quality and that if ownership of media can be more diverse this will help to create more varied and adventurous productions.

• BBC could be seen as an exception as they are not driven by profit due to them not making a profit as they are a public broadcasting service, however they do need money as they need money to make more shows.

• Adbusters is a completely not for profit media product.

The Times is published by NewsUK, they are a major publisher this is bad as we will constantly be seeing the same ideology through different media products.

Comfy Radio - LNWH

• They do not have any annoying voices, they're just calm and not annoying to watch.

• It meets the needs of the audience as it is repetitive and slow, there isn't much going on, and its relaxing for the target audience.

• It offers a non judgemental space, nobody is having a go at anyone they all have their own time to speak there is a friendly egalitarian and producing a utopia for the audience where middle class women sit and talk being undisrupted.

One of the most important things for a media product is that it needs to have authenticity. They can do this through hashtags.

Hashtags are used to share information quickly.

They mention the hashtag on the show but the hashtag isn't used very much which shows that their target audience is older and they aren't on twitter a more suitable social media platform is Facebook for the older generation.

It allows people who are not the target audience to still interact with it. For example, a man with no hair enjoyed the hair episode, so he is the complete opposite from the target audience intended for LNWH.