15.4.24 Zoella Notes

 Representation

Gender - fashion and beauty commonly found in vlogs and blogs aimed at teen and pre teen girls could be seen to reinforce stereotypical understanding of gender and gender roles. In many ways the function that these products perform, particularly in terms of gender socialisms, is similar to the role that has traditionally been performed by girls magazines. The makeup tutorials and demos that feature prominently on YouTube channels of beauty vloggers like Zoella could be said to perform a function in reinforcing beauty standards and consumption of beauty products. Significantly these channels are often monetised through advertising and sponsorship relating to the beauty industry.

Self-representation - online media forms such as vlogs and blogs enable content creators to create and distribute and representations of themselves without the need for intermediaries. This is one of the main ways they differ from traditional mass media forms. However it is important to understand that these seemingly authentic representations are still constructed through selection and combination. Vloggers/Bloggers decide what they share and withhold. The gatekeeping function they perform therefore has a significant influence on the persona they construct.

Self representation and Zoella

Zoella mediates and chooses what she shares with her audiences. There is a suggestion that we have access to everything but actually, she is in complete control of her representation. There s no intermediary - no cameraman, no director, no editor. Could this mean the text is more real? The representations feel less constructed and therefore more real. She makes a real effort to keep her vlogs as authentic and 'real' as they can be, showing all of her life rather than just the positive aspects. With it being a self-representation there is obviously a sense of biasness as she is unlikely to present herself in a negative light. However she is representing herself as the way she would like to be portrayed. Remember context - vlogger are able to bypass gatekeepers - they have total control over what they publish but also in how they represent themselves. Virtue signalling (Bartholomew 2015): the positing of certain content for creators to suggest how good or virtuous they are. This contributes to the sense of identity as it establishes them with a strong moral compass. Is Zoella guilty of this? Challenge: What should she be trying to project? why?

Gauntlet theory of identity - key to his theory is the media provides us with tools we need to carry out identity formation, 'we use these narratives to frame our experiences and to bring order to the stream of ''stuff'' that goes on in our lives'. We draw on the representations that we see in the media and this helps us to construct ourselves, 'provide an opportunity for individuals to think about the kind of person they want to be'. Gauntlet argues that we use texts to help us work out our own identity.

Halls theory: The idea that representation is the production of meaning through language, with language defined in its broadest sense as a system of signs. The idea that stereotyping, as a form of representation, reduces people to a few simple characteristics or traits. (The idea that stereotyping tends to occur where there are inequalities of power, a subordinate or excluded groups are constructed as different or 'other')

Zoella has constructed herself as a young woman who is very relatable to younger woman and teenagers trying to influence them to how they act and their feminism side

Her self representation has changed due to how her life has changed through having a boyfriend, then fiancee and a baby.

Gatekeeper - In the newspaper industry, this is the editor – the person who determines what stories go into the newspaper

Episode makes Alfie look very masculine from the very start by saying he went to the gym, and interrupting Zoella to show the dominant force. Lots of feminine colours of pink and red and screams and laughs. Inclusion of candles and flowers that are related to feminism. Lip balm/fashion station.

Key Terms

• Colonial discourse​

• Media plurality​

• Absent representation​

• Hegemony​

• Socially constructed gender​

• Gender binary​

• Gender as performance​

• Heteronormative representation​

• Fixed identities​

• Fluid identities​

• Post-traditional society

• Representation​

• • Ideology​

  • Dominant ideology​

  • Stereotype​

  • Countertype​

  • Beauty ideal​

  • Objectification​

  • Subversive representation​

  • Star power​

  • Cultural hybridisation​

  • Realism​

  • Otherness