Teen Vogue - background and textual analysis

Teen Vogue: background

Teen Vogue was launched in 2003 as a print magazine ‘little sister’ title to US Vogue. It focused on fashion and celebrity and was a conventional magazine aimed at teenage girls.

In 2015, in response to declining sales, the magazine cut back its print distribution and focused on digital content. After single-copy sales dropped 50% in the first six months of 2016 alone, the magazine went quarterly (four issues a year) before announcing the closure of the print magazine completely in November 2017.

Online growth
Led by digital director Phillip Picardi, the Teen Vogue website grew substantially as the print magazine declined. 

Between January 2016 and 2017, Teen Vogue’s online traffic rocketed from 2.9m US visitors to 7.9m. The magazine then surpassed 10m unique users later in 2017. In addition, the magazine has 6m Facebook likes, 3.5m Twitter followers and a huge following on Snapchat.

Evolution and activism

The spectacular digital growth of Teen Vogue has been credited to the editor Elaine Welteroth and digital guru Picardi leading the magazine in a radically different direction to traditional teenage magazines.

Focusing on politics, activism and feminism, the magazine has developed a reputation for high-quality journalism while recruiting millions of socially-conscious, educated readers.

'Woke'
Teen Vogue considers itself a ‘woke’ brand.

Woke definition: a political term of African American origin that refers to an awareness of issues concerning social justice.

This means Teen Vogue covers issues of politics, racism and gender identity… and amazingly has expanded the appeal and reach of the brand while doing do.

Teen Vogue: background reading and textual analysis blog tasks

Work through the following tasks to complete your first case study on Teen Vogue.

Teen Vogue: background reading

Read this Guardian feature from 2017 on Teen Vogue and answer the following questions.

1) What was the article that announced Teen Vogue as a more serious, political website – with 1.3m hits and counting?

The article was about 'Donald Trump gas lighting America'.

2) When was the original Teen Vogue magazine launched and what was its original content?

The original Teen Vogue was launched in '2004' and their focus is on the standard cocktail of fashion must-haves and celebrity worship. 

3) How did editor Elaine Welteroth change Teen Vogue’s approach in 2015?

The editor Elaine Welteroth changed up the topics they did politicial view points and how to empower females.The editor moved away from the conventions attached with females and stereotyped.

4) How many stories are published on Teen Vogue a day? What topics do they cover?

Between 50-70 stories are published everyday. They cover topics from the fashion and entertainment side to the politics and world affairs that may be happening.

5) What influence did digital director Phillip Picardi have over the editorial direction?

Phillip Picardi is the digital director so his role would be to direct them in that section.

6) What is Teen Vogue’s audience demographic and what does ‘woke’ refer to?

Teen Vogue refer to their audience as 'woke'. “Woke”, a slang term, as “a byword for social awareness.”

7) What issues are most important to Teen Vogue readers?

Welteroth says. “What I find is that when young people find a brand they relate to, that they feel speaks to them, they want it in every format they can get.”

8) What does Tavi Gevinson suggest regarding the internet and ‘accountability culture’ with regards to modern audiences? Can you link this to our work on Clay Shirky?

"Identity is big. We want to help make them feel better about themselves, whether that’s giving beauty tips, or empowering them with political information to have smarter conversations and feel they can stand up for themselves.” 

9) What social and political issues have been covered successfully by Teen Vogue?

Teen Vogue was seen to embody the most bland type of media aimed at young girls; commercial, safe, focused on shopping and body image. As part of a backlash of sorts, the writer and editor Tavi Gevinson set up Rookie magazine in 2011, when she was 15, a website that was explicitly feminist and complex.

10) What do Teen Vogue readers think of the magazine and website?

'16-year-old Paige Wagner, who says truthfulness and trust are the main reasons she reads it, since “most of what I read on social media is unreliable”.'

Teen Vogue textual analysis and example articles

Work through the following tasks to complete your textual analysis of the Teen Vogue website and read notable Teen Vogue articles to refer to in exam answers. 

Homepage analysis

Go to the Teen Vogue homepage and answer the following:

1) What website key conventions can you find on the Teen Vogue homepage?

• They have very bright colours to attract their readers.
• They have a menu bar which is also a key convention.
• They do cookies which allows Teen Vogue to know what the readers are doing on their website.
• They have all the recent new updated news first which could attract their audience.

2) How does the page design encourage audience engagement?

It will allow the readers to know any updates about their favourite celebrity perhaps as it has been shown by the layout that is the first thing the reader sees is any recent celebrity updates.

3) Where does advertising appear on the homepage?

Advertising is appeared to the top below the menu bar and if you scroll down it is to the right side of the reader.

4) What are the items in the top menu bar and what does this tell you about the content of Teen Vogue?

The menu bar includes style, politics, culture, identity and summit. That they are a unique website and they challenge traditional print magazines towards females.

5) How far does the homepage scroll down? How many stories appear on the homepage in total?

The homepage scrolls down a lot which shows there is a lot of time and effort used in it to produce the content they do and attracting their target market.

Lifestyle section

Now analyse the Lifestyle section of Teen Vogue (in the Identity section) and answer the following:

1) What are the items in the top menu bar for the Lifestyle section?

• Careers
• Campus Life
• Food
• Decorating ideas
• Tech

2) How is the Lifestyle section designed to encouragement audience engagement? Think about page design, images, text and more.

For the text the audience engagement is done through by having a lot of different topics that the audience can engage with.

3) What do you notice about the way headlines are written in Teen Vogue?

The headlines are written as a shirt description that the audience can read and it is not like a normal headline that is short and bold.

4) What does the focus on education, university and ‘campus life’ tell you about the Teen Vogue audience demographics and psychographics?

They are aiming for an educated audience that can be informed about that sort of stuff and they can find it helpful.

5) Choose three stories featured in the Lifestyle section – why do they fit the Teen Vogue brand?

'21 Under 21 Class of 2018'

Five key articles

Read the following five notable Teen Vogue features then answer the questions below for EACH feature.

Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America

1) Who is the writer and what is the article about?

The writer for this article is called Lauren Duca. This article is about how Donald Trump is making Americans have very less freedom in the country.

2) How does the article use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible.

The article talks about how Donald Trump is manipulating the people in America.

3) Why is this article significant?

This article is significant is significant as this was very unconventional for a fashion and beauty magazine.

4) How does this article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?
This article allows the people with a much broader idea to be engaged in the article.

The new face of teen activism 

1) Who is the writer and what is the article about?

The writer is called Alexis Manrodt, The article is about activism on the internet.

2) How does the article use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible.

The article used Todorov Equilibrium as they are trying to make a new progressie world for the upcoming generations. 

3) Why is this article significant?

The article is significant as it helps readers and Teen Vogue's audience to understand the power if and how effect it really is.

4) How does this article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?

Teen Vogue 'woke' brand- have a voice

Black Teens Have Been Fighting for Gun Reform for Years

1) Who is the writer and what is the article about?

The writer for this article is Lincoln Anthony Blades. This article is about 

2) How does the article use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible.

It has been on social media the past few years till this day.

3) Why is this article significant?

This article is significant as the teenagers as the ones that get impacted by this so if they realise the reality of it they will be prevented from that. This could have a very positive change.

4) How does this article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?
Teenagers making positive changes.

Netflix and strong female leads 

1) Who is the writer and what is the article about?

The writer for this article is De Elizabeth. This article is about how Netflix is making female stereotypes be challenged.

2) How does the article use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible.

This article shows the stereotypes linked with female stereotypes.

3) Why is this article significant?

"They're [changing their minds] about the system and how broken it is, changing their minds on religion, or what it means to be transgender…. This show has really hit it when it comes to dealing with female [characters] in" television."

4) How does this article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?
This article empowers female characters.

How to Break Away From the Gender Binary

1) Who is the writer and what is the article about?

The writer for this article is Samantha Riedel. This article is about Samantha Riedel explains how everyday actions and words can enforce an archaic gender binary, and how you can stop doing that today.

2) How does the article use narrative to engage the reader? Try and apply narrative theory here if possible.

Sex and gender should have better ideologies attached with them.

3) Why is this article significant?

This article significant as this allows people to see the social changes and encourage them.

4) How does this article reflect the values and ideologies of the modern Teen Vogue?
This article reflects this as they show that they are supportive of the social changes that are happening which they encourage towards their readers as well.

Y13 baseline assessment learner response

The mark scheme for this assessment
1) Type up your feedback in full (you don't need to write the mark and grade if you want to keep this confidential)
WWW- There are flashes of real potential here and if you can develop that consistently you will move up the grades.

EBI-There's quite a bit that concerns me: you can't spell a key CSP incorrectly throughout- it's in the question! Attention to detail a key area to improve.
-In Q1+Q2 you just don't know the CSPs well enough. You need specific examples for each.
-In Q3 question focus is crucial + you don't address the digital/industry element.

2) Focusing on the BBC Life Hacks question, write three ways it helps to fulfil the BBC's mission statement that you didn't include in your original assessment answer. Use the mark scheme for ideas.
Life hacks offer educational content as this is shown through informing them about sexual and mental health. Allowing the listeners to get more informative about sexual and mental health ideas that people in everyday life may be going through.

3) Question two asked you how useful media effects theories are in understanding the audience response to War of the Worlds. Complete the following:

• Gerbner's Cultivation theory: This is useful if we were to link Gerbner's cultivation theory as the audience took in and believed what was said by the hosts.
• Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle model: This is not as useful.
• Stuart Hall's Reception theory: This would be useful as this can help the listeners understand War of the Worlds.

4) Write a full essay plan for the 25-mark Magazines question. The mark scheme contains plenty of ideas you can use here. Your plan should include notes/bullet points addressing the following:

• Introduction: one sentence answering the original question and laying out your argument clearly.
• Paragraph 1 content:Men's Health- Men marathon section of the older man.
• Paragraph 2 content:Men's Health- Sophisticated and Greek mythology used to their target market.
• Paragraph 3 content:Men's Health- Hyper-masculinity.
• Paragraph 4 content:Oh Comely- Have a niche target market. art book style shows creative audience.
• Paragraph 5 content:Oh Comely- Absence of men.
• Conclusion: Both the magazines have different target market audience.

5) Finally, identify three key skills/topics you want to work on in A Level Media this year before the final exams in June.

• Csps knowledge and revise them more.
• Read the question properly.
• Use more example when looking at the CSPs.

Teen Vogue: Audience and Representation

Audience

Although the brand name suggests a teenage audience, the typical Teen Vogue reader has evolved in recent years. The move to more political content has broadened the appeal and changed the genre – young women now expect more from their media.

The ‘Campus Life’ section in Lifestyle also suggests an older readership. However, the audience is still interested in celebrity content and beauty – which Teen Vogue addresses by featuring the ‘opinion leaders’ (two-step flow) of social media.

Generations

Generation X: Born between 1965 – 1980
Millennials / Generation Y: Born between 1981 – 1995
Generation Z (or iGen): Born 1996 – 2010

Teen Vogue: political positioning

Teen Vogue generally takes a liberal, left-wing political stance and positions its readers to become active in their support:

• Pro-feminist
• Pro-gender fluidity and gender identity
• Supports LGBT equality
• Pro-multiculturalism
• Supports Black Lives Matter
• Pro-environment (accepting science on climate change)
• Pro-choice (abortion)

Teen Vogue: audience interaction

How does Teen Vogue encourage audience interaction?

• Activism
• Social media
• ‘Clickbait’ and first-person headlines
• Events – Teen Vogue summit

Representation

Changing representations

Feminist bloggers and websites such as Rookie and liberal blog Jezebel have been credited with changing the representation of women and feminism in the digital age.

This can be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory with digital influencers changing the media landscape for women – and established mainstream brands like Teen Vogue are following to stay relevant.

Audience

1) Analyse the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What is the Teen Vogue mission statement and what does this tell us about the target audience and audience pleasures?
Teen Vogue's mission statement is to educate, enlighten and empowering. They are aiming for a more educated young audience around the age of 25.

2) What is the target audience for Teen Vogue? Use the media pack to pick out key aspects of the audience demographics. Also, consider the psychographic groups that would be attracted to Teen Vogue: make specific reference to the website design or certain articles to support your points regarding this.
The target audience that Teen Vogue is aiming at is teenagers and younger adults as they are on digital platforms and the younger adults and the teenagers are more active on social media. The psychographics that Teen Vogue are aiming at would be reformers as reformers are looking for a change and Teen Vogue does that on their website and social media.

3) What audience pleasures or gratifications can be found in Teen Vogue? Do these differ from the gratifications of traditional print-based magazines?
Personal relationships can be found in Teen Vogue in where the audienec will be able to relate it back to their own real life situations. I do not think there is much difference from a traditional print-based magazine.

4) How is the audience positioned to respond to political news stories?
The audience is positioned to respond the political news is through Teen Vogue's social media pages such as Instagram, twitter and many other social media platforms.

5) How does Teen Vogue encourage audiences to interact with the brand – and each other – on social media? The ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ section of the media pack may help with this question.

Teen Vogue's summit allows the audiences to interact with the brand and they are encouraging to make new connections with people that are just like them in the summit.

Representations

1) Look again at the Conde Nast media pack for Teen Vogue. What do the ‘tentpoles and editorial pillars’ (key events and features throughout the year) suggest about the representation of women and teenage girls on teenvogue.com?

The stereotype of teenage girls are subverted through this and this shows that apart from fashion that they are also interested in the political views and social affairs in the world.  

2) How are issues of gender identity and sexuality represented in Teen Vogue?

These topics for Teen Vogue allow the audience to see the negative sides and this prevents the idea of a traditional print magazine even though teen vogue is digital now.

3) Do representations of appearance or beauty in Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge traditional stereotypes?

in some ways it is reinforced and some certain areas of the website it is challenged. They have some models for example they had Skai Jackson be natural and let out her afro hair for the magazine but in other sections they have models or celebrities with a ton of makeup and costume.

4) What is the patriarchy and how does Teen Vogue challenge it? Does it succeed? 

Patriarchy is when in society men hold more power than the females. Teen Vogue does challenge this as most of Teen Vogue is about empowering females and their roles in society should be equal as men.

5) Does Teen Vogue reinforce or challenge typical representations of celebrity?

Teen Vogue does a mix of reinforcing and challenging them as they do not make the celebrity be sexually objectifies towards the audience.

Feature: how Teen Vogue represents the changing nature of media aimed at women

Read this Quartz feature - The true story of how Teen Vogue got mad, got woke, and began terrifying men like Donald Trump - and answer the following questions:

1) How was the Teen Vogue op-ed on Donald Trump received on social media?

One twitter user said “Who would have guessed @TeenVogue might be the future of political news. Unreal coverage of the election.”

2) How have newspapers and magazines generally categorised and targeted news by gender?

For the females newspapers and magazines have shown beauty,fashion and cooking in their products usually. On the other hand the men have it categorized with health, fitness and much more stereotypical ideas attached with men.

3) How is this gender bias still present in the modern media landscape?

The gender bias is still present in the modern media landscape as it still is represented in modern media the traditional stereotypes attached with the different genders.

4) What impact did the alternative women’s website Jezebel have on the women’s magazine market?

Jezebel challenged traditional print magazines that were targeted at females by showing that females can also have political views and have an interest in the world affairs going on apart from focusing on fashion,beauty and cooking.

5) Do you agree with the writer that female audiences can enjoy celebrity news and beauty tips alongside hard-hitting political coverage? Does this explain the recent success of Teen Vogue?

Yes i do agree as the female audiences also have interest and view points about the political coverage alongside the celebrity news and beauty tips. That is why Teen Vogue is successful as other magazines targeted at females did not realise that but Teen Vogue did therefore they are so successful now.

6) How does the writer suggest feminists used to be represented in the media?

The writer suggests feminists 'struggled to overcome the perception that they were sexless, grim bra-burners, uninterested in pleasure or aesthetics.'

7) What is the more modern representation of feminism? Do you agree that this makes feminism ‘stereotyped as fluffy’?

They in the modern representation of feminism are mostly presented strong and independent and in some little aspects they are still 'stereotyped as fluffy'.

8) What contrasting audience pleasures for Teen Vogue are suggested by the writer in the article as a whole?

The female audience can enjoy reading about the world news and political views.

9) The writer suggests that this change in representation and audience pleasures for media products aimed at women has emerged from the feminist-blog movement. How can this be linked to Clay Shirky’s ‘end of audience’ theory?

People are now longer passive vessels when consuming media is what Clay Shirky talks about. 

10) Is Teen Vogue simply a product of the Trump presidency or will websites and magazines aimed at women continue to become more hard-hitting and serious in their offering to audiences?
I think they will be continuing to be become more hard-hitting and serious in their offering to audience.

OSP: Clay Shirky

The internet: a brief history
The internet has been the most significant social, cultural and technological development of the last 30 years.

• In 1998, just 9% of UK households had internet access.
• In 2018, it had risen to 90%.
• Daily internet use in the UK has doubled since 2006.
• Smartphones are now the most popular device to access the internet. The iPhone was launched in 2007.

Source: ONS (Office for National Statistics)

The 'Information Revolution'

550 years ago, the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg meant that the number of books in existence rose from a few thousand to 20 million in just 25 years. This led to the Reformation, the Renaissance and the scientific revolution in which centuries-old modes of thinking were radically questioned.

The internet has been likened to the Gutenberg revolution – which means we’re living through this ‘Information revolution’ right now:

• “The most important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burke 2005) 
• “An application that will usher in The Information Age” (Castells 1996)

Clay Shirky: End of audience




Clay Shirky suggests the 20th century media model “with professional producers and amateur consumers” has been replaced by a more chaotic landscape that allows consumers to be producers and distributors. 

From the rise of collaborative projects to publicity campaigns run by volunteers, he believes that “organizations now have to understand, and respect, the motivations of the billion new participants in the contemporary media ecosystem.”

One of big changes with digital platforms is that “Every consumer is also a producer, and everyone can talk back.”  Yet what may be more significant is the simple math of how many people can reach each other through the connections in a network.  The result is always more connections. 

Shirky adds that media had been a hierarchical industry—in that one filtered first, and then published. “All of that now breaks down,” he says. “People are producing who are not employees or media professions.  So we now publish first, and then filter.  We find the good stuff after the fact.  This is dramatically different.”

Source: Internationalist Magazine Trendsetters profile 

Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks

Media Magazine reading

Media Magazine 55 has an overview of technology journalist Bill Thompson’s conference presentation on ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ It’s an excellent summary of the internet’s brief history and its impact on society. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 13 to read the article ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ Answer the following questions:

1) Looking over the article as a whole, what are some of the positive developments due to the internet highlighted by Bill Thompson?
'The internet lets any two connected computers exchange data'. This makes it an easier way for any two people to be able to communicate more faster and efficiently.

2) What are the negatives or dangers linked to the development of the internet?
The negativity of the internet is that there would be the 'spam, abuse or the trading of images of child abuse'. This would be a negativity as people will use the internet to abuse it.

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?
'Open technology' this means 'social justice and free expression, we need to build it on technologies which are themselves ‘open’'. I do agree with this as it would create a more positive network.

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

• Does it mean an internet built around the ‘end-to-end’ principle, where any connected computer can exchange data with any other computer, while the network itself is unaware of the ‘meaning’ of the bits exchanged?
• Does it mean computers that will run any program written for them, rather than requiring them to be vetted and approved by gateway companies?
• Does it mean free software that can be used, changed and redistributed by anyone without payment or permission?

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

I feel like the internet can be abused in many different ways which does not create a good impact on the lives of people's. This is why the internet should be regulated but not controlled. This would allow people to have some freedom but to create a positive impact not a negative impact by using the internet.

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody charts the way social media and connectivity is changing the world. Read Chapter 3 of his book, ‘Everyone is a media outlet’, and answer the following questions:

1) How does Shirky define a ‘profession’ and why does it apply to the traditional newspaper industry?
To label something a profession means to define the ways in which it is more than just a job. In the case of newspapers, professional behaviour is guided both by the commercial imperative and by an additional set of norms about what newspapers are,how they should be staffed and run, what constitutes good journalism, and so forth.

2) What is the question facing the newspaper industry now the internet has created a “new ecosystem”?
The old bargain of the newspaper-world news lumped in with horoscopes and ads from the pizza parlor has now ended. The future presented by the internet is the mass amateurization of publishing and a switch from "Why publish this ?" to "Why not?"

3) Why did Trent Lott’s speech in 2002 become news?
Negative press coverage altering a political career-except that the press didn't actually cover the story, at least not at first. Indeed, the press almost completely missed the story.

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?
Mass amateurization is the growth in the creating and distributing institutions.

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’?
If one company makes that their headline then the other institution will as well make their newspaper have the same news as a headline no matter whether it is fake or real.

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?

7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?
That anyone can write up something and make it in to a headline whether it is fake or real. Anyone in the developed world can publish anything anytime, and the instant it is published, it is globally available and readily findable.

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?
This makes the readers feel apprehensive as they invested in their work and they could become jobless.

9) Why is photography a good example of ‘mass amateurisation’?
This means that even though the person that posted that picture has taken it down the picture will always stay there.

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 this is positive as the individuals have a platform in where they can voice out their opinions and view points.

A/A* extension work: read Chapter 1 ‘It takes a village to find a phone’ and Chapter 4 ‘Publish, then filter’ to further understand Shirky’s ideas concerning the ‘End of audience’.