zoella - audience Flashcards
who are the audience demographic?
- young females (13-25) social media savvy, fashion focused and materialistic in their shopping trends
- BC1C2 audiences represent a very broad socio-economic fan base, but catered to by mainstream popular brands through advertising and sponsorship (such as ASOS and H&M)
- audiences have access to disposable incomes - Zoella’s aspirational brand lifestyle isn’t cheap
audience psychographics
- audiences whose opinion may parallel the passive representation of femininity
- audiences who think being a ‘girly girl’ in all aspects of gender performance (aesthetically via mainstream cosmetics application and via expectations of behavior and vocalization) is the preferable version of gender dynamics
what of young and rubican’s 4 c’s?
mostly Mainstreamers / Aspirers as the narratives created being largely apolitical, they rarely deal with serious social commentary. choice of cars and home residence represent as aspirational life-style based upon material possessions and their acquisition
who are the producers TA?
young teenage girls - easily impressionable and are still forming their personal identities
young girls could have a full / part time job or a generous parent to supply them with disposable income to participate in the aspirational lifestyles of zoella
they see zoella as an older, more experienced friend or big sister, dispatching wise advice about burgeoning womanhood
who are her secondary audience?
parents and advertisers who are engaged by the content that is ‘safe’ in terms of sexual content and other taboo area
despite often discussing revealing topics and using the odd colloquialism, zoella rarely strays into ‘distasteful territory’
who are her casual followers?
online ‘web-surfers’ who may only occasionally stumble across a vlog of interest and not fully commited to watching every video she creates
perhaps when younger, they were a fan, now they find her vlogs immature or too ‘commercialized’
who else may producers target?
followers of similar vloggers:
attracted by the promise of something like they already follow
could be intrigued by the strategic creation of a collaboration video featuring a vlogger they follow and Zoella, thus following Zoella’s channel after being exposed to her particular brand, by association
gerbner cultivation theory
zoella’s blogs could be influential across a number of areas including; attitudes, lifestyle, endorsed products, friendship groups, experiences, etc.
blumer and katz uses and grats
Surveillance: Informing subscribers as to the reliability of a certain endorsed/sponsored product or the instructional nature of a cosmetics application video
Escapism: Readers can immerse themselves in the highly meditated aspirational lifestyle of someone who is more affluent than themselves
Personal Identity: Blogs/vlogs discussing anxiety and other personal issues may nurture how a subscriber feels about Zoella as a role model
Personal Relationships: Online comment threads allow audiences to leave messages/discuss the vlogs with others
henry jenkins - fandom theory
to stoke the fires of fandom within her followers, zoella encourages audiences to retweet vlog content, celebrating distribution milestones with tweets to thank her audience for their help in sharing key messages
from a subversive perspective, some fans use the blogs and vlogs of zoella as ‘creative scaffolding’ to graft a projection of their own identity onto, including remixes and fan fiction
clay shirky end of audience theory
feedback mechanisms are an essential component of the YouTube viewing experience, with Zoella prompting users to react to ‘hauls’ and reviews via comments
the ability to comment on uploads facilitates the development of an audience community, whilst audience ‘likes’ enables Zoella feedback on upload content
mostly subscribers interact with each other on these message threads as opposed to Zoella (who rarely interacts in this manner – but uses Q&A videos instead)
in response to a Sun article about a photo Zoella posted in her underwear criticising her wholesome image, fans and supporters replied with a series of memes using the hashtag #WeStandWithZoe – an example of the active audience in digital media
