The Voice CSP: case study blog tasks

Language and contexts

Go to the Voice homepage and answer the following:

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

The common menu tab at the top of the page. With tabs such as Sport, News and lifdestyle.

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?

Howe to get involved with the voice such as the last tab called competitions.

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. 

‘Nigeria will be the team to beat at AFCON’ : This would relate to a predominate black African audience because they might be Nigerian be meaning that article would relate to that demographic of people because they may also follow football or any sports.

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.


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?

  • Fashion & Beauty
  • Food
  • Health & Well being 
  • Relationships
  • Travel+

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

Black women of African descent more likely to die of medieval plague

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

They are quite generic apart from the title including disease in Africa which could lead to some bias stereotypes.

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


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?

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

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?


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?

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

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?  


Audience

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

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

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

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?

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’?


Representations

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

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

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?

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

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.)


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? 

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? 

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.

4) How does the Voice website make money?

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?

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?

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

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

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

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

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