The Voice CSP: case study blog tasks

 Language and contexts

Homepage

Go to the Voice homepage and answer the following:

1) What news website key conventions can you find on the Voice homepage?

- Top bar menu - insight into content that is both hard and soft news

- Search icon - eases audiences to find content

- Advert (job opportunity at The Voice) - support their community 

- Soft news dominates the home page which celebrates success of the black community

- Hard news still valued in this community which subverts the idea race and class are merged as it shows deprivation does not equal to lack of education

- Thumbnail - attempts to hold interest through digital content "clickbait" 

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 top bar menu features news sports and lifestyle before important issues. This may suggest that the values of the Voice focus on the successes of the black community rather than the losses and negative news. This subverts negative stereotypes of the British Black community as it promotes a positive representation of the community by celebrating and prioritising successes of 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. 

Stories that may appeal to the Voice's target audience are:

- "Boy 11, launches world's first hip hop affirmation event to uplift black children" - this appeals to the Voice's target audience as it celebrates successes in the black community and represents them their youth as accomplished

- "Sport tennis" - It highlights how the black community is successful in all areas which targets the Voice's audience as it shows how they are being represented in a positive light

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.

One narrative code used to encourage audience to interact with the news is enigma codes. This is because withing their thumbnails, the captions are fairly vague and short which acts as an enigma code to entice audiences into clicking the story and learning more about it.

Lifestyle section

Now analyse the Lifestyle section of the Voice and answer the following:

1) What are the items in the sub-menu bar for the Lifestyle section and what does this suggest about the Voice audience?

The sub menu bar for the lifestyle section is fashion and beauty, food, health and wellbeing, relationships and travel. This suggests that audiences could be more interested in soft news and use the Voice for cultural related things rather than for hard news about the world.

2) What are the main stories in the Lifestyle section currently?

"Check out the first ever Harrods and Brand63Africa pop-up"

"From Louder Than Words to MAPED Therapy, Myvanwy Evans Davis continues to grow"

"Justin Onuekwusi: Someone has to open the door"

"What I took from the Windrush Wealth Expo"

3) Do the sections and stories in the Voice Lifestyle section challenge or reinforce black stereotypes in British media?

The stories featured in the lifestyle section of the Voice subvert negative stereotypes of the black community that are normally seen in British media. This is because they focus on positive aspects of the British Black community as they highlight successes within their communities aswell as promote a healthy and motivational lifestyle to their readers. 

4) Choose two stories featured in the Lifestyle section – how do they reflect the values and ideologies of the Voice?

"Check out the first ever Harrods and Brand63Africa pop-up"

"What I took from the Windrush Wealth Expo"

These two stories featured on the Voice both promote and endorse black businesses or events. This reflects a capitalist ideology as they promote their readers to support businesses within their community. Furthermore, it shows that they value their community and culture as they endorse the support of Black British businesses.

Feature focus

1) Read this Voice opinion piece on black representation in the tech industry. How does this piece reflect the values and ideologies of The Voice?

This piece of news that the Voice has published states how they are unsatisfied with the underrepresentation of black individuals within the British tech community. They state that only 4% of the tech force are black which reflects their value in promoting black individuals in a competitive environment. 

2) Read this feature on The Black Pound campaign. How does this piece reflect the values and ideologies of The Voice?

This feature of The Black Pound campaign reflects the ideologies and values of the voice as they promote a campaign for audiences to follow which reflects their support for their community.

3) Read this Voice news story on Grenfell tower and Doreen Lawrence. How might this story reflect the Voice’s values and ideologies? What do the comments below suggest about how readers responded to the article? Can you link this to Gilroy’s work on the ‘Black Atlantic’ identity?

This story reflects the Voices values and ideologies as they support Doreen Lawrence's argument that the Grenfell tower incident would have had maximised efforts to prevent the incident is the building was "a block full of white people".

Social and cultural contexts - 40 Year of Black British Lives

Read this extract from The Voice: 40 Years of Black British Lives on rapper Swiss creating Black Pound Day (you'll need your Greenford Google login to access the document). Answer the following questions:

1) What is Black Pound Day?

The Black Pound Day is a UK/European economic campaign which promotes individuals to support black owned businesses by spending money on them.

2) How did Black Pound Day utilise social media to generate coverage and support? 

The Black Pound Day utilised social media to generate support by gaining support from high profile celebrities which made it 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?  

These campaigns link to social, cultural and economic contexts in British society as the fact that these campaigns need to be established reflects how black communities within all these contexts are unfairly treated compared to white individuals.

Audience

1) Who do you think is the target audience for the Voice website? Consider demographics and psychographics.

Demographics: Black British, 30-40 years old, Middle class and working class, primary UK based

Psychographics: Reformers and aspirers 

2) What audience pleasures are provided by the Voice website? Apply media theory here such as Blumler and Katz (Uses & Gratifications).

Surveillance: audiences can learn about things that are happening within the British Black community

Personal identity: target audiences can relate with individuals within the stories they publish

Personal relationships: audiences may look up to people who are featured in the Voice and may read the stories to learn more about them

Diversion: audiences can read about interesting stories about successes within their communities (such as sports or tech) which may be seen as a source of entertainment 

3) Give examples of sections or content from the website that tells you this is aimed at a specialised or niche audience.

"‘We’re at a crunch point’: The fight to save Britain’s Caribbean carnivals as money runs dry"

"“There is a real issue,” says Donna Briscoe-Greene, CEO of the East Midlands Caribbean Carnival Arts Network (EMCCAN)."

"WHEN THE newly appointed and first-ever Black CEO of Investments at the UK’s largest wealth management organisation tells you that ‘building meaningful relationships’ is the key to his success, you’d be wise to listen up."

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?

These topics, themes and values mentioned within the Voice's content would resonate with their British target audience as they promote an ideology that uplifts the target audience and provides them a sense of justice.

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’?

On their navigation bar, they have an opinion section where news posted under that section has a comment area. This reflects end of audience as viewers  are able to share their opinions and updates under these comment sections.

Representations

1) How is the audience positioned to respond to representations in the Voice website?

They are positioned to respond positively to representations in the Voice as they promote positive representations of black individuals.

2) Are representations in the Voice an example of Gilroy’s concept of “double consciousness” NOT applying?

You cannot apply double consciousness to the Voice as it shows how black individuals have their own culture within the UK rather than having multiple cultures rooted else where.

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?

We can see liquidity of culture as the Voice shows how Black British culture is a mix of different cultures (Caribbean/West Indian and British) by talking about events that involve this mix.

4) Applying Stuart Hall’s constructivist approach to representations, how might different audiences interpret the representations of black Britons in the Voice?

 The target audience would have the preferred reading as they have a similar conceptual map to the producers. This is because the target audiences and producers may be from the same  background and may share the same experiences and values.

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.)

They show case successful black individuals in professional areas such as business and tech which is unconventional in other British news outlets such as The Sun. These other news outlets typically focus on more negative news whereas the Voice focuses on positive news.

Industries

1) Read this Guardian report on the death of the original founder of the Voice. What does this tell you about the original values and ideologies behind the Voice brand? 

- The original idea was to act as a source of information that comes from black individual perspective 

- Capture the understandings of a niche market who had never had a voice before

- This tells us that the original values were to give a niche community a voice that could be heard by other individuals

2) Read this history of the Voice’s rivals and the struggles the Voice faced back in 2001. What issues raised in the article are still relevant today? 

In 2001, The Voice had heavy competition with "New Nation" to maintain the British Black community within their circulation. This may not be relevant today as the media landscape has shifted to online meaning circulation figures may not matter as much.

3) The Voice is now published by GV Media Group, a subsidiary of the Jamaican Gleaner company. What other media brands do the Gleaner company own and why might they be interested in owning the Voice? You'll need to research this using Google/Wikipedia or look at this Guardian article when Gleaner first acquired The Voice.

- The Star

- The Gleaner

- The Children's Own

- Youth Link

- The Weekend Star

- TVJ Sports Network

- Television Jamaica (TVJ)

 

4) How does the Voice website make money?

The Voice website makes money through donations and subscriptions. However, the sign up to the subscription website does not work showing how they have a low production budget. 

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?

One advert is a job promotion for the Voice and the other is a promotion for their newest issue of their newspaper. This shows that the Voice doesn't gain money through paid advertisements and doesn't used the user's "cookies".

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 believe that there is an element of public service in the content the Voice produce as they cater to a minority that is either under or mis represented in the main stream media. They also don't require viewers to pay for their online content.

7) What examples of technological convergence can you find on the Voice website – e.g. video or audio content?

On the website, you can find features of news, links to buy their newspaper issues and videos related to the content that the post. The website acts as a place where viewers can access everything.

8) How has the growth of digital distribution through the internet changed the potential for niche products like the Voice?

The internet has allowed products like the Voice to have a wider reach of audience as the internet can be accessed globally. This may increase the viewership and profits made by the Voice as they have a larger audience.

9) Analyse The Voice’s X feed. How does this contrast with other Twitter feeds you have studied (such as Taylor Swift)? Are there examples of ‘clickbait’ or does the Voice have a different feel?

The vague and short captions entice viewers to click onto the post and their website for more engagement. This is an example of click bait as it gets viewers to engage with them through short and vague explanations.                                                                                                                                                                     

10) Study a selection of videos from The Voice’s YouTube channel. What are the production values of their video content?

We can see that their production values are low as:

- Poor editing (tansitions)

- Fonts which don't fit with the brand identity

- The audio quality isn't clear

- Bad camera quality (pixelated or highly saturated)