OSP: The Voice CSP

 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?

The menu tab, the headlines, the advertisements and videos.

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?

This is more niche due to headlines like faith and opinion while the other headlines are more typical.

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. 

Black parent-child experiences of racism affect whole family’s mental health, new study - raises awareness about racism within society.

MP barred from British Museum- stolen African artefacts which resemble within the culture.

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.

Enigma code is used in order to draw mystery into the stories and capture audience's attention. The equilibrium could be that the Voice is raising awareness for social issues.

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?

Food, relationships, fashion and beauty, travel and music. They are heavily involved in different aspects of changing their lives.

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

Beats and Bands, where ‘Litness meets Fitness’

Clive Lacelle Dwyer thanks mum for the grit

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

This does not reinforce black stereotypes at all and portrays them in a more glorified way by showing that they benefit society.

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

Mwaksy Mudenda supports 20th anniversary of Recycle Week- raises awareness about protecting the environment.

Jamelia and SheaMoisture launch ‘Same Roots, New Rules’- shows the social pressures on black women.

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?

Only 4 percent of the tech force are black and that more should be done in order to diversify this.

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

IN A bid to raise awareness about the challenges confronted by Black business owners and entrepreneurs when it comes to securing financial funding, a groundbreaking initiative called the ‘Black Pound’ has been unveiled.

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? Many people are in agreement with the article in the comment section.

This links with how black people reflect with each other.

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?

An event aimed at celebrating black owned businesses.

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

Used the help of celebrities and went trending on Twitter.

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?  

This is giving the voice for the black community who were once silenced and neglected within society but now they are being included and celebrated.

Audience

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

Middle class with a age ranging of 24- 40. Appealing to mainly black audience.

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

Personal Identity- Relate with the stories

Diversion- Escape with their own lives and consume the content.

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

The "Faith and Opinion" tabs and exclusive stories aimed at black target group. 

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?

They may connect with these topics through their own life experiences.

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’?

There is 2 way communication between the audience and the producer through comments, social media and etc. The video production is very low quality and clearly not made by professionals and lacks the current standard.

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?

Yes because they can see different ways of their race being represented.

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?

There is a massive liquidity of culture in between the stories.

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

Some may see this in a positive or negative way.

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.)

Black people are represented in a positive way throughout in order to change the stereotype.

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? 

"Mr McCalla, who loved horseracing, established the Voice newspaper in 1982 and will be fondly remembered by many as a pioneer in the publishing industry, and someone who gave Britain's black community its leading black newspaper."

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? 

The Voice's early sales were poor, but it was buoyed by job adverts from the newly aware London boroughs, which were willing to pour in money to satisfy their consciences, regardless of the response. Sales eventually rose, and by the start of the 1990s the Voice had its circulation officially audited at 45,000 - a figure which was proudly printed on the front page each week above the masthead. Nothing, it seemed, could stop the inexorable rise of the Voice - not even a challenge from me, its former assistant editor, when I launched a competitor, Black Briton, in 1991. This article is not 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.

The Gleaner Company has bought full ownership of the Voice and Young Voices magazine from the family of Mr McCalla, who died two years ago, in an all-share deal. "We have been looking consistently to expand our presence overseas and the acquisition of the Voice and its Young Voices magazine gives us a golden opportunity to better serve our readers of the diaspora. The group already runs the Weekly Gleaner UK and free newspaper Extra from its south London headquarters, and has five titles in the US and Canada.

4) How does the Voice website make money?

Through selling copies and advertisements.

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?

The level are both cookie and fixed adverts and very basic form of technology on the website. Most websites have these.

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?

It can debated to be both since this made the Voice founder a millionaire but also raise have a Voice for the black community.

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

YouTube content and talks.

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

They have online content which can be consumed.

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?

There is no examples of clickbait but Voice has more general and not personal feel to it while others like Zendaya have a more personal appeal with its audience.

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

Very low quality and fails to reach today's standard.