Online Media practice question
Clay Shirky states "the future presented by the internet is the mass amateurization of publishing and a switch from 'why publish this?' to 'Why not?'. To what extent is this concept of amateurization applicable to Zoella and Attitude, and to what extent can audiences meaningfully interact with these products?
Audience question:
Amateurization: The process of making something once professional the domain of amateurs and those who are inexperienced.
Online Media is prone to the notion of amateurization, as it is an open platform resource, both universal and inclusive and democratic.
Zoella presents herself as a relatable amateur for her target audience.
However Attitude Online is a perfectly curated and maintained website serving a valuable purpose.
Many opportunities for meaningful interaction.
Zoella and Attitude both sell ideology and a lifestyle to their specific target audiences.
Reception theory
Rather than being a shining light of alternative system, Zoella is a straightforward capitalist, existing only to make money.
Audiences are not producers when interacting with Zoella, but marketers and distributors.
Maximising profit and power.
"This essay should explore..."
Zoella shows amateurization by leaving in mistake in her vlogs.
Response video are a way audiences can meaningfully interact with Zoella, for example after her advent calendar scandal, many videos were made calling her out. For example, Jaackmaate's "ZOELLA'S £50 ADVENT CALENDAR | HONEST,BRUTAL REVIEW" video received 4.5 million views. After this and many other videos and interactions on social media like twitter and instagram, Zoella addressed the scandal in a vlog.
audience can interact through her PO box, social media and email etc.
Attitude limits their audience interaction by not being able to comment on their online articles however you can share it on social media.
Youtube is a closed system, self regulation. Motivated solely by power and profit.
While it seems to give users the opportunity to create.
Only very few users actually meet the criteria for monetisation.
Zoella constructs and presents a fake and hyperreal persona to her target audience.
She is using a business model based on algorithmic knowledge and udnerstanding. Each of her preview thumbnails provide the audience with a carefully selected close-up iamge of her with a hyperbolic expression of joy that resembles a cartoon character as opposed to a real person. This confirms and reinforces Zoella's status as an amateur presentign a compelling and hyperreal world to her target audience.
Utlisation of commodity fetishism with the ASOS packaging, providing the audience with a capitalist escapist fantasy.
Karl Marx
Positively: Zoella's videos featuring Mark conveys inclusion and sexuality. This allows audiences to construct their identity. (Pick and Mix theory).
(newspaper, radio, videogames, online media)
• New media, as in the Internet and digital technologies, have had a significant effect on the relations between media and audiences
• Just thinking of audience members as passive consumers of mass media content is no longer possible in the age of the Internet. Now, media consumers have become producers who ‘speak back to’ the media in various ways, creating and sharing content with one another.
• This can be accomplished through comments sections, internet forums, and creating media products such as blogs or vlogs
X - However, this theory can and should be criticised. Arguably the media industries are just as exclusionary as they always ave been, and audiences are less 'producers' than 'unwitting advertisers'., promoting pre-existing products through retweets, fan accounts and derivative vlogs that could never be financially successful without aggressive monetisation!
Key work – Here Comes Everyone!
(radio, videogames, television, online media)
• Fandom refers to a particularly organised and motivated audience of a certain media producer franchise
• Unlike the generic audience or the classic spectator, fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings
• Fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully intended by the media producers (‘textual poaching’). Examples of this may manifest in conventions, fan fiction and so on
• Rather than just play a videogame or watch a TV show, fans construct their social and cultural identities through borrowing and utilising mass culture images, and may use this ‘subcultural capital’ to form social bonds. For example, through online forums like Reddit or 4chan.
Key work – Textual Poaching
(advertising, music videos, magazines, online media)
• Audiences are not passive, and media products allow the audience to construct their own identities
• Audiences can pick and mix which ideologies suit them, and completely ignore the elements of the product which they do not agree with in a process of negotiation similar to the one suggested by Stuart Hall
Key work - Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction
Audience question:
Amateurization: The process of making something once professional the domain of amateurs and those who are inexperienced.
Online Media is prone to the notion of amateurization, as it is an open platform resource, both universal and inclusive and democratic.
Zoella presents herself as a relatable amateur for her target audience.
However Attitude Online is a perfectly curated and maintained website serving a valuable purpose.
Many opportunities for meaningful interaction.
Zoella and Attitude both sell ideology and a lifestyle to their specific target audiences.
Reception theory
Rather than being a shining light of alternative system, Zoella is a straightforward capitalist, existing only to make money.
Audiences are not producers when interacting with Zoella, but marketers and distributors.
Maximising profit and power.
"This essay should explore..."
Zoella shows amateurization by leaving in mistake in her vlogs.
Response video are a way audiences can meaningfully interact with Zoella, for example after her advent calendar scandal, many videos were made calling her out. For example, Jaackmaate's "ZOELLA'S £50 ADVENT CALENDAR | HONEST,BRUTAL REVIEW" video received 4.5 million views. After this and many other videos and interactions on social media like twitter and instagram, Zoella addressed the scandal in a vlog.
audience can interact through her PO box, social media and email etc.
Attitude limits their audience interaction by not being able to comment on their online articles however you can share it on social media.
Youtube is a closed system, self regulation. Motivated solely by power and profit.
While it seems to give users the opportunity to create.
Only very few users actually meet the criteria for monetisation.
Zoella constructs and presents a fake and hyperreal persona to her target audience.
She is using a business model based on algorithmic knowledge and udnerstanding. Each of her preview thumbnails provide the audience with a carefully selected close-up iamge of her with a hyperbolic expression of joy that resembles a cartoon character as opposed to a real person. This confirms and reinforces Zoella's status as an amateur presentign a compelling and hyperreal world to her target audience.
Utlisation of commodity fetishism with the ASOS packaging, providing the audience with a capitalist escapist fantasy.
Karl Marx
Positively: Zoella's videos featuring Mark conveys inclusion and sexuality. This allows audiences to construct their identity. (Pick and Mix theory).
19 - ‘End of audience’ theories - Clay Shirky
(newspaper, radio, videogames, online media)
• New media, as in the Internet and digital technologies, have had a significant effect on the relations between media and audiences
• Just thinking of audience members as passive consumers of mass media content is no longer possible in the age of the Internet. Now, media consumers have become producers who ‘speak back to’ the media in various ways, creating and sharing content with one another.
• This can be accomplished through comments sections, internet forums, and creating media products such as blogs or vlogs
X - However, this theory can and should be criticised. Arguably the media industries are just as exclusionary as they always ave been, and audiences are less 'producers' than 'unwitting advertisers'., promoting pre-existing products through retweets, fan accounts and derivative vlogs that could never be financially successful without aggressive monetisation!
Key work – Here Comes Everyone!
18 - Fandom - Henry Jenkins
(radio, videogames, television, online media)
• Fandom refers to a particularly organised and motivated audience of a certain media producer franchise
• Unlike the generic audience or the classic spectator, fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings
• Fans appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully intended by the media producers (‘textual poaching’). Examples of this may manifest in conventions, fan fiction and so on
• Rather than just play a videogame or watch a TV show, fans construct their social and cultural identities through borrowing and utilising mass culture images, and may use this ‘subcultural capital’ to form social bonds. For example, through online forums like Reddit or 4chan.
Key work – Textual Poaching
7 - Theories of identity - David Gauntlett
(advertising, music videos, magazines, online media)
• Audiences are not passive, and media products allow the audience to construct their own identities
• Audiences can pick and mix which ideologies suit them, and completely ignore the elements of the product which they do not agree with in a process of negotiation similar to the one suggested by Stuart Hall
Key work - Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction
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