Who do you think is the target audience for the Voice website?
- BC1C2
- Black Britons, aged 18-50
Psychographics
> Reformers: value own
... [Show More] independent judgement, socially aware + pride themselves on tolerance
> Succeeders: tend to occupy positions of responsibility, have a strong goal orientation
> Mainstreamers: core need in life is for security
Give examples of content from the website that tells you this is aimed at a specialised or niche audience.
> Navigation bar gives access to a section of the website called 'Windrush 70'
> The key signifier of most of the images is a black person
> The tagline 'Britain's Favourite Black Newspaper' i.e. provides a specific country and race
What audience pleasures are provided by the audience?
Uses and gratifications theory:
> Surveillance/information - conventions of a news platform; articles about stories that concern those of the black community e.g. 'Netflix announces first original African animated series'
> Personal identity - articles addressing issues that directly affect the target audience of Black Britons, anchored by key signifier of the images (black people)
> Entertainment - articles about TV and film, polls in the sidebar, competitions to enter etc.
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?
> issues that directly affect the audience (personal identity - uses and gratifications theory)
> issues that are not as commonly talked about in the mainstream media as issues that affect white people/those of Western descent; find themselves being represented more so than in traditional news media, such as BBC news
Can you find any examples of content on the Voice's website created or driven by the audience or citizen journalism? How does this reflect Clay Shirky's work on the 'end of the audience' theory and the era of 'mass amateurisation'?
- social media hyperlinks; links to The Voice's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram pages = example of convergence, builds a community around the Voice.
- ability to post comments at the end of the articles
- ability to vote in polls on the homepage (above the fold; suggestion that audience participation is important and achors title of newspaper)
What adverts or promotions can you find on The Voice's website? Are the adverts based on the user's cookies on fixed adverts?
- adverts are fixed rather than cookie-based, suggestion that they don't want any content on website catering for audiences that aren't black
- cookie-based adverts would risk alienating their intended audience
- no adverts on mobile, banner adverts on site but only when viewed on a computer
- e.g. money transfers to African countries; catering for a black, disporic audience
What do the adverts tell you about the level of technology and sophistication of The Voice's website?
- not very advanced, most other websites use cookies and showcase adverts that cater for the person viewing page
- website does not fill the screen, proportions not smartphone appropriate
Is there an element of public service to The Voice's role in British media or is simply a vehicle to make profit?
- When depictions of black people in mainstream media take place in the mainstream, the representation is often problematic. They are sometimes rendered as threatening and this portrayal is supported by sensationalist techniques, headlines and popular stereotypes.
- These types of negative depictions assert the need for an alternative representation and a black press moves towards providing this.
- The Voice looks similar to BBC website; suggestion that there is limited representation of black people in mainstream broadcasting.
Debates about audience segmentation
Is the product a safe space where the audience can go to build a sense of identity or is it a ghetto which allows the target audience group to be cut off from mainstream culture (not represented or engaged with)?
How does The Voice exhibit churnalism?
It doesn't effectively cover news stories affecting Black Britons (the Guardian led the way on The Windrush Scandal) and mostly seems to process press releases and cut and paste material.
- For example, in March 2019 there were a series of racist attacks in UK cities but most of these were not covered by the paper, and the one that was contained no different information from mainstream news sources.
How can we tell that The Voice Online is not reaching its target audience?
Despite claiming to speak for Black British people, the magazine can only afford one journalist - suggesting they can't have the readership to support major advertising revenue.
In what way is The Voice Online similar to the BBC's website?
Seems to be between the 2003 and 2008 models. This does mean that the site signifies to the audience that it is a news site with headlines, a news-flash scroll and news images, whilst also suggesting a lack of representation of Black Britons in the mainstream news media.
Use of menu bars
On the landing page - clearly signify that this is an internet product however some are misleading (the Racism in Football section contains no stories more recent than 2014).
How is the design of the website outdated?
> Few choices have been made recently.
> The typeface (sans-serif) is supposed to feel modern but within articles is blocky and dated.
> All design signifies values and ideologies to the audience - two big areas that design connotes are either modernity or tradition.
> In the case of The Voice, the website followed modern trends but now subtly signifies that the site has not been kept up with the times (perhaps it also might signify that the site's attitudes may be similarly dated)
How does the magazine fulfill he concept of 'The Talented Tenth' popularised by American writer W.E.B. Du Bois in 1903?
Idea that by celebrating the achievements of black success stories and promoting achievement, it would elevate the aspirations of the entire black population.
- Because the site is reliant on processing press-releases for copy it is full of articles about successful people.
- Combination of text and image which promotes a positive impression of the person and their achievements e.g. 'Black Excellence At Its Finest' anchored by images of Dionne Emmerson and Sherif Olatunji smiling
What is wrong with TVO's emphasis on sports and entertainment?
There is an over-emphasis on sports and entertainment stars on the pages of The Voice.
- The black Powerlist shows that achievement is from a more diverse field of endeavours.
What is wrong with the Faith section of the website?
_ Concerns itself solely with black Christianity (at least 15% of the black British population is Muslim).
- Also links to both News and Entertainment through the coverage, and representation of, gospel music
- Makes the site unusual in the U.K. as there is rarely in white Christian culture a crossover between religion and entertainment.
Who is The Voice owned by and how does this effect the website?
Owned by The Gleaner Company in Jamaica (which has its own Jamaican paper).
- There is representation of key Jamaican individuals in the paper e.g. 'Hottest Name in Danchall' article about Rygin King.
- Jamaica takes on more psychogeographic importance, in the site, than other places.
- Black Britons who have African heritage now more numerous than those with Jamaican heritage, but there are fewer stories concerning Lagos than Kingston.
Why was The Voice created?
- Early 80s = a strong sense from within the black community that they needed a newspaper for the community.
- Events like the riots were being reported on by journalists (on T.V. and in print) who were often negative towards black people.
- Even if positive they were outsiders who didn't really know what was going on.
- Black people were always being represented from a white person's perspective (in this way this links to the post-colonialist ideas of Edward Said).
Who was the paper created by?
- Val Mcalla started the paper in 1982 from a small council flat in east London.
- The paper was an independent.
- It started with a print run of only 4000 copies but within eight years was shifting over 53,000 copies a week.
Who did the paper aim itself at?
squarely at the second generation of black Britons. Those whose experience did not lead them to look at another country as home.
Where did McCalla secure funding from?
Greater London Council (The GLC).
- This was run by Ken Livingstone and was often in direct opposition to the Thatcher government of the day. Livingstone was a supporter of minority and working class groups.
Barclays Bank
- The bank had been the subject of high levels of criticism because of its investments in apartheid-era South Africa. Supporting The Voice would be a good P.R. move.
Influential black British media, journalistic, and political, talent who honed their skills on the paper
> Former Commission for Racial Equality chair Trevor Philips
> ITV's Martin Bashir
> Filmmaker and novelist Kolton Lee
What was the purpose of the paper?
The issue of police racism and harassment being the defining story. Mainstream media was not reporting the issue or framed it through the perspective of the police, government and lawmakers.
What had happened to the paper by the late 90s?
The paper was in a bad way. There were financial irregularities, lots of staff sackings, the readership dropped to 12,000 and the paper was not faring well against the new rival, The New Nation (which seemed much fresher and more in tune with the Zeitgeist).
What happened in 2002?
McCalla died and the whole enterprise was thrown into disarray.
- Not financially viable and was sold to The Gleaner Group in Jamaica in 2004.
- This media group already had a presence in the UK as The Gleaner was one of their newspapers, consumed by Jamaican migrants, which The Voice had supplanted in the early 80s - although it still sells. [Show Less]