Media Studies - Online Media (Taylor Swift + The Voice) - Definitions, Theories + Facts

Audience positioning

the technique used to persuade the audiences to interpret a media product in a particular way

Stan (Stalker + Fan)

An excessively avid fan and supporter of a public figure or media product

Technological convergence

The evolution of combining of old technologies to form new online interactive technologies

Commodification

Turning everything into something that can be bought or sold

Textual poaching

Fans taking pieces from the original media and creating something new (e.g. fanfiction, fan movie posters, fan trailers, fan edits)

Henry Jenkins and ‘Fandom’

Fans have to be devoted followers of the media text, actively engage with the product and construct their own meanings and interpretstions beyond the original message

Being a Fan (Jenkins’ View)

-Mode of reception (intense engagement)

-Viewer activism (protest and praise)

-Interpretive community (theory and criticism)

-Cultural production (textual poaching)

-Social community (subculture)

Prosumer (Producer and Consumer)

We are no longer consuming the media, we are producing media based off that media

User Generated Content (UGC)

Any content created and distributed on a particular platform by a user of that platform

‘End of Audience’ and Clay Skirky

-audience behaviour has changed from the passive consumption of media texts to a more interactive experience

-new digital technologies and social media has made connecting and collaborating incredibly easy

-places mass communication tools in the hands of people

-the difference between producer and consumer has become harder to define

-symbiotic relationship

Livingstone + Lunt

The internet makes regulation much harder due to the expansion of social media users being so large and online anonymity

Curran + Seaton

The internet is increasingly commercialised, becoming a place of commerce rather than creativity

Mean World Syndrome

Viewers of electronic media exposed to mainly bad events or things happening in the world as more likely to see the world negatively

Hypodermic Needle Theory - Passive Audience Theory

The model suggests the public are easily brainwashed by the media.

This means we do not critically assess the media we consime

Western Feminism/White Feminism

Focuses on the role of woman in Western countries and ignores woman of colour, woman from the outside western world, trans woman, disabled woman etc

Celebrity endorsement

Marking strategy that uses a celebrity’s fame and image to promote a brand or product e.g. Taylor Swift has worked with Diet Coke since 2013

Paradox

When two contradictory things/ideas are combined

Taylor’s Main Demographic + Psychographic

Social Grade A, B, C1, C2

13-30 (Gen Alpha-Millennial)

Female

White

Mainstream/Aspirer

Gerbner - Mainstream

The media moulds the audiences’ understanding of issues and the people around them, rather than the real experiences of life

Gerber - Resonance

Something in the media correlates to aspects of their own lives → Taylor’s lyrics, her casual dress codes, cat content/photos (used to make the audience feel aligned with the celebrity/person)

Self-representation

The act or an instance of representing oneself

Bisan

A way of Palestine supporters to ‘hijack’ Taylor’s socials to raise awareness of the conflict (mentioning/referencing this ‘Bisan’ person)

Conglomerate

A large corporation that owns a large number of media companies e.g. Meta owning Facebook, Insta, Snapchat and 80+ others.

Concentration of ownership

The number of organisations or individuals who control ownership of the media. Fewer people own more things

Horizontal intergation

Businesses fron the same sector merge to reduce competiton e.g. Meta, Disney

Two-tier justice

the idea that some behaviour, are dealt with more harshly than others that are viewed to be similar (e.g. hate speech on social media)

Data mining

Turning large databases of raw data into useful information

Gaylor

The fan theory that Taylor is gay/queer, based on perceived hints and clues (a subculture of ‘Swifities’)

The sub-reddit community is called /GaylorSwift

An example of a negotiated take on Taylor Swift

Affirmational fandom

Engaging with the work as the producer intended - original work

Transformational fandom

Fan-fiction, theories, art work (interpretative community)

Fanon

Majority agreement of fans on a interpretation

RPF

Real-Person Fiction (type of fanfiction that includes real life people like celebrities)

Hesmondhalgh + Taylor Swift

Symbol Creators = Taylor Swift

Symbolic Creativity = Her social media posts

Commodification = Taylor Swift, the brand

Globalisation = Her social media and website

Reception Theory + Taylor Swift

Culture, class etc all have an impact on how an audience will decide a piece of media

Dominant Reading - Exactly how producer intended (Swifties)

Negotiated Reading - Adapts meaning into their own beliefs (Gaylor Sub-reddit)

Oppositional Reading - Rejects producer’s message (Critics-her music, her predatory business practices, her ignorance to parasocial fans, her political views [from both left and right critics] etc)

Dyer’s Star Theory + Taylor Swift

Construction: Feminine, Girl-Next-Door, Glamorous

Commodity: Taylor Swift brand (merchandise, albums, concert tickets)

Ideology: Progressiveness and female empowerment (some suggest White Feminism)

Ordinary Vs Extraordinary (Cats, Language usage Vs Sparkly leotard)

Present Vs Distant (Social Media posts Vs Celebrity)

Homepage

The front page of the website

Domain name

The name that identifies the website

Navigation bar

A set of links that allows users to find their way around a website

Hyperlink

A word, phrase or image that when clicked on opens a new page or directs the user onto a different website

Banner ads

Marketing messages that appear at the side of the website, usually hyperlinked

Thumbnail

A small version of a bigger image

Video clip

A short, moving image sequence that can be embedded into a web page

Scroll line

The part of the website that is visible to the user

Blog

Short for web log, this refers to a list of nourbal entitled posted on a web page (Taylor had a Myspace)

Social networking site links

Links within a website to social media e.g Insta, Twitter/X, Tumblr etc

Footer navigation

The line of text links at the bottom of the page that usually contains terms and conditions, site map and contact details

Iconography

Symbols or images that have come to represent a person or band, an ideology or set of ideas (e.g. Taylor’s red lipstick)

Copy right

The legal ownership of creative and intellectual property

r/travisandtalyor / “snark sub

-A space for critics of Taylor Swift to take an oppositional reading of anything about her

-Moderators (mods) are unpaid volunteers who try and keep discussions civil and respectful

-One of the most popular posts (posted in 2023) was a criticism of Swift’s use of two private jets

Example of Taylor creating Artificial Scarcity

Only had 80 hours to get a variant of ‘The Tortured Poets Society's with a different cover and bonus track (plays into FOMO)

26th August 2025 - Taylor Swift

-Swift posted her engagement to Travis Kelce on Instagram, which received around 36 million likes in less than a week

Effects:

-One class at a All Girl’s Catholic High School was interrupted by a staff member so that they could announce the news

-One swiftie took to the rooftops of New York to scream the news to the people below

Monoculture

A sociological concept of a unifying and shared cultural experience amongst the global or national masses

Paul Platt argues that Taylor Swift is one of the last of this phenomenon (e.g. 26th August 2025)

Example of Taylor Swift being against parasocial fans

In Miss Americana, she mentions how she had a “crazy dude” break into her apartment and sleep in her bed once

Taylor Swift + Capitalism

-The ‘Eras’ tour brought a $5.7 billion boost to the US economy

-Swift personally made $4.1 billion from the ‘Eras’ tour (according to the Post)

-Daughter of a stockbroker who helped to buy part of her original label to boost her early career

-Has 20+ variants (with little change and some being limited editions) of her album, Life of A Showgirl

Cultural industry

The idea that under capitalism, art becomes standardized and formulaic and it's purpose is only to sell e.g Taylor Swift’s Life of A Showgirl has 20+ variants

Algorithms

-Creators’ posts are boosted by people liking and commenting on them

-Reward quantity over quality

Taylor Swift + Politics

-Initially apolitical due to the 2003 Dixie Chicks controversy

-Became more political in 2020, causing more registration in one day than the entire month of August for the mid-term elections (Cultivation Theory)

-Supported Biden’s run for president in 2020 and let her protest song ‘Only the Young’ to his campaign

-Supported Harris in the 2024 election

Criticism of Taylor Swift + Politics

-Some liberals say her activism is preformative and inadequate

-Trump supporters and right wingers have said she is too ‘woke’

The Voice - Historical Context

-Lanuched in 1982 in the wake of the Brixton race riots by Val McCalla to empower the black community

-Got off the group with a £62,000 loan from Barclays Bank (cause they were being accused of supporting the Apartheid)

1981 - The Voice (before it was launched)

January - New Cross Fire (13 people died, still hasn't been solved)

March - Black People’s Day of Action March

April - Operation Swamp launched by police

July - Moss Side riots (80% black young men were unemployed) and Handsworth riots

News Values - Galtung + Ruge

Impact (Threshold, Frequency, Negativity, Unexpectedness, Unambiguity)

Audience Identification (Personalisation, Meaningfulness, Reference to Elite nations or people)

Pragmatics of coverage (Consonance, Continuity, Composition)

Also argued that journalists tend to select stories with lots of/high news values

Liquidity of culture

The idea that black identity is formed by journeys across the seas, not the solid ground of a home country or culture

Genre

A type of class of a text (can be recognised by its common set of codes and conventions)

Black Diasponic Identity - Gilroy

Black identity is formed by dispora and this identity is impossible to reverse

Paul Gilroy’s Post-colonialism theory

That we still see effect of colonialism in the media today (e.g. ethnic minorities often show to be weak, powerless, dehumanised, marginalised etc)

Kanter’s Theory of Tokenism

Tokens: proportions of significant types of people are highly skewed and treated as representations of their category

Double consciousness

Feeling stuck between two cultures

Diasphora

The scattering of people/a community

Stuart Hall’s reception and stereotypes theory

The idea that media, and therefore audiences, often see certain races with certain classes and that audiences read a particular text due to their understanding which leads to the three main stereotypes in media of ethnic minorities:

-The Slave

-The Native

-The Clown/Entertainer

Alvarado’s Theory of Representation of Ethnicity

The Exotic, The Dangerous, The Pitied, The Humourous