Online Media

What is Online Media?

• The Internet
• A network system of computers
• Hyper-reality, beyond reality/ Hyper-link goes beyond the text
• Lead to a state of hyper-modality (process of going beyond one format/mode/format) 
• Multi-modality, process of media product that uses different modes of communication
• Same thing
• 'above the fold', all the information 
• Vlog is contraption of video log, aka online diary
• Subgenres
• Makeup tutorials
• Educational
• Travelling
• Fashion
• Lifestyle
• Tech
• Videogame streaming
• Cooking
• Sports
• Unboxing
• Songs
• 50% of 16-24 year olds watched vlogs in 2015
• Research says that 42% of the internet have watched a vlog within the last month
• Their informational and instructional
• There is a huge element of Voyeurism
• There is a sense of escapism
• They are relatable
• Vlogs oftenly do not have a narrative

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• Zoella
• UK based
• 12 million fans
• started in 2009
• has over 1 billion views
• 147th most subscribed person
• Her 2nd channel 'moreZoella' has 4.8 million subs
• Has 727 million views
• Has 13.6 million followers on twitter
• 10.9 million followers on instagram
• Videos
• Low production values and a clear lack of script
• Constructs a compelling and relatable persona for the audience
• Zoella is a 'real person', with faults
• MES high key unnatural lighting, low production values
• Constant reference to the brand primark, a budget clothing superstore, indicating a predominantly working class target audience. Yet does explicate on what Primark actually is or means, inferring a British working class target audience
• Accent- well spoken, maybe forced? Bubbly, colloquial personal
• Use of informal language such as the word 'bloody' indicates a relaxed and informal persona
• Costume is everyday and approachable, comfortable. Low cut top, yet absolutely no sexualisation: atypical representation of women!
• Makeup clearly visible yet not particularly over the top: 'going out' as opposed to 'high fashion'. Zoe sits and talks directly to the camera with very little movement. Video structure is straightforward and repetitive
• Constructs a hyper-real version of herself
• Video resembles a long and unscripted advertisement. A cultivation of materialistic and capitalistic ideologies
• The Zoella Apartment
• 
  

• Logo is right at the top
• Gold and sparkly, indicates stereotypical young, working class female audience
• Sans-serif font is scrappy and shabby, perhaps reflecting the relatable personality
• Social Media icons
• Multi/hyper- modality
• Banner ads
• long and thin advert, specific to online media and may pop up whilst watching a video
• Footer
• bottom of the webpage
• Carousel and slider
• side scroller 
• Menu-bar 
• on the left
• Search bar
• at the top
• Everything here has been crafted to make a familiar and enjoyable experience for the audience
• UX, User Experience
• Videos are arranged in a nice way, each of these thumbnails which are crafted to be nice

• Symbiotic relationship: where a youtuber and youtube rely on each other for money
• Thumbnails exist to entice and try to force you to watch the videos
• She uses a range of theatrical and exaggerated mode of address with her expression
• She does this to try to make the video better than it is
• Hyperbolic mode of address
• Bright. vibrant colours, further anchored by high-key lighting and post-production editing
• Uniform, similarity creates a recognisable brand identity for her target audience
• Use of makeup, reinforces brand identity and hegemonic social values
• Titles, big bright bold colours and text
• Products/ commodities presented, encoding the dominant ideological perspective of consumerism 
• Head is often tilted to the side, gives of the illusion of attractiveness and approachability
• Zoella does repetitive content in order to maximse her click and her revenue

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Zoella Theories

1. Semiotics: The proairetic code created by the pizza thumbnail informs the target audience that the video will focus on pizza, a fast food popular with Zoella's young, female, working-class, target audience
2. Structuralism: A binary opposition is created in Zoella's apartment video, where Zoella is represented as small, petite and vulnerable, while Alfie is masculine, large and confident. This reinforces notions of patriarchal hegemonic values.
3. Postmodernism: The representation of pancakes in the pancake blog constructs a hyperreal representationof Zoella as a hegemonically perfect and flawless woman.

Zoella representation theories

1. Representation`; Zoella presents herself as stereotypically hegemonically attractive woman. Petite and girlish, she reinforces certain expectations of how women should look
2. Identity: the 'FuckZoella' account demonstrates an opportunity for the audience to present their own specific ideological perspective, and to engage with Zoella in an oppositional manner.
3. Gender performativity: Zoella continually self-represents as a sexless, virginal hyperreal construct. This in turn influences and manipulates her young and impressive target audience t follow certain hegemonically constructed expectations of women
4. Postcolonial theory: Gilroy's theory of post-colonial identity assumes that there is a definite hierarchy thats exists with the representations of ethnicity. Zoella presents a hegemonic construction of beauty that assumes that the audience is white. By presenting white ideals of beauty in her videos,  Zoella is effectively symbolically annihilating any representation of black and ethnic minority voices.

Zoella industries theories

1. Power and media industries: Zoella uses algorithmically appropriate and effective titles in her videos in order to ensure that she attracts a much larger audience and maximises advertising revenue
2. Regulation: Zoella was threatened with court action, after not announcing that she was sponsored by a brand on instagram post. However, this example underlines how totally ineffective the regulation of online media is.
3. Cultural industries: Zoella works independently in a small group. Ultimately her business endeavours are vertically integrated, with all forms of production and distribution under her control.

Zoella Audience Theories

1. Cutivation Theory: Cultivating the ideology that makeup is what every girl should wear
1. Cultivating maetrialistic ideologies
2. Fandom: Use of hyperlinks to follow Zoella on many different platforms and ability to contact Zoella through the use of Comments
3. End of Audience: Media in which Zoella started herself as a producer using online media
1. Community are able to subscribe and unsubscribe from following the producer, showing if she doesn't perform she will be losing her following

Utopian solution

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Gender Performance: how people demonstrate their gender through our actions (Judith Butler)

• 'gay man acts flamboyant'
• There is no gender identity behind these expressions of gender
• Performativity is a repetitious and ritualistic act that constructs identity
• Our identity only comes as a result of this performative act
• Gender is a performance, whilst Sex is what we biologically are.

For Zoella, performativity for women can be displayed on the mise-en-scene

1. makeup, covered to appeal to men, wearing heavy makeup
1. not particularly sexualised, she appears 'sexless'
2. She seems normal, approachable, a girl on the street
2. Outfit
1. 'normcore' plain jumper, grey and non-form fitting. Cre-neck grey jumper, symbolic pf a standard-straightforward and non-sexualised fashion
3. hair
4. straight boyfriend
5. middle class house, stereotypical girls house, all accessories and flowers
1. Reinforces stereotypical representation of gender
6. Setting
1. kitchen, symbolic of old fashioned representations of femininity, and reinforces hegemonic norms and social values regarding women
7. "boys are too big to get in the back" [of the car], clear distinction between genders. Alfie announced loudly he has been down to the gym, and is wearing a vest, emphasising his body
8. white people
9. performing as a stay at home mother
10. Target audience is teenage girls
11. A clear binary opposition is constructed between zoella, who is small, and alfie who is significantly larger. The binary also constructs diametric opposiiton between genders
12. Zoella's lifestyle: 'i've been busy baking' a clear and gender role is constructed between Alfie and Zoe in their leisure activities
13. Yet alfie subverts representations of masculinity through sharing his life and his emotions. He demonstrates extreme happiness at having completed a gym workout
14. Zoellas gender peformance is arguably subversive. She does not wear any revealing clothing, nor bad language
1. Constructs a stereotypical soft and caring. (Sigmund Freud)
15. Shot of Zoe in bath, covered in ball pit toys and laughing with poppy is a stereotypical girlish construction of gender. DEFIES hint of sexualisation
16. zoella is pushed in to bed by Alfie, in a gesture that briefly hints at eroticism. Yet instead they simulate having a nap while lying down and not kissing. Their gender performativity constructs idealised, non-sexual, childish and loving relationship. Instead, Zoella turns the conversation immediately to candles. Here commodity fetishism replaces any reference to sexual intercourse.
1. A Madonna/whore complex? Zoella is completely sexless, and sells this ideology to her target. In performing in such a way. Zoella reinforces that sex and sexuality are undesirable aspects in young woman 
17. Zoella's gender peformativity creates a complex set of reactions and interactions in her target audience
18. Zoella is asexual, no have no sexual preference 
19. During makeup tutorials we see Zoella with spots suggests she is relatable

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To what extent an Zoella and attitude be seen as postmodern

• breaking the 4th wall is when a character addresses the audience
• Zoella constantly breaks the 4th wall
• Jean Baudrillard: We live in a world where there is more and more infomation, and less and less meaning
• Hypereferentiality: beyond intertextuality, when someone makes reference to themselves
• Zoella relies heavily on other vloggers to create intertextuality

Blog redesign

• much more sophisticated
• less girly, less childish, more adult
• Easy to use, easy user expirience
• Fashion and lifestyle blog
• 
• The pancakes are an example of commodity fetishism
• Creates a stereotypical and hyperreal representation of women
• Zoella is constructing a stereotypical representation metonymical, the pancakes are meant to show that they are as perfect as Zoella, this is meant to direct to audiences that the ideal women must be perfect
• Is run by Team Zoella, suggested she is not a person anymore, she is a brand
• The longer we spend engaged with a website, the more likely we have our ideology cultivated by the website

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In 2017, Zoella released a christmas calendar, it was expensive and was crap

• Zoella's audience was meant to be kids
• The calendar did ruin her reputation
• Many saw this as Zoella taking advantage of her audience 
• This calendar did ruin her image, previous audiences were able to feel related to Zoella however the calendar made the, feel more distant
• Comment left on Zoella's page
• Fuck Zoella 

Controversial tweets

• Extremely disruptive to her image

Machine-learning: the way in which a machine learns such as learning what you like to watch on youtube and gives you a recommended.

30 seconds into a video counts as a view, so Zoella talks gibberish to keep the watchers intrigued until it reaches 30 seconds

Zoella is using the logic of algorithms in order to capture her target audience

producers no longer target their audience, instead they try to target the algorithm so the videos are at the top of the search list

Henry Jenkins

Fandom

Clay Shirky

End of Audience

User engagement: when a product tries to keep you involved in the product for as long as possible
Conspiracy theories are the ideas that the world is against them, people with schizrophenia and paranoia will be more likely to believe in such stuff

A high-engagement person is a euphemism for being addicted to something on the internet

• Reptoids conspiracy
• Famous celebrities are reptiles
• 911 was an inside job
• George Bush
• Hitler survived WW2
• Fled to Argentina
• These all get popular due to becoming viral

Component 2 Section C: Online Media