OSP: The Voice CSP

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?

- Masthead

- Top menu

- Search bar

- News headlines

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?

 

- The Opinion section reflects the Voice's Black perspective, showing representation that prevents double consciousness for a Black British audience

- Faith reflects Black British audience, perhaps suggests audience is older and grew up with the paper in the 80s and 90s 

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. 

- "AI replicates anti-blackness": The Voice takes an angle towards the currently huge story of AI by focusing on the institutional racism that may be coded into AI models, a perspective not covered by mainstream media

- "300 Black Africans feared drowned in latest boat tragedy": Migration crisis, headline represents victims as people rather than 'illegal immigrants' or asylum seekers

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 codes: The audience may wonder how machine learning models can replicate racist patterns, making them want to read the article to find out more

- Action codes: The headline about 300 Black Africans having been drowned indicates to the audience that something tragic and upsetting has happened at the Channel, making them want to read the article to be informed

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?

The items in the Lifestyle section are fashion & beauty, food, health and well-being, relationships and travel, intended to reflect Black British culture's values and ideologies. The Travel section could reflect Gilroy's concept of the liquidity of culture in reference to diasporic identity. 

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

The main stories in the Lifestyle section currently are "Frank Bruno's charity fight is given a Royal seal of approval", "British African heritage brand make history at Arsenal" and "Don't Let Your Pride Get in the Way of Your Health: Marcus's Crohn's story". 

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

The sections and stories in the Voice Lifestyle section challenge Black stereotypes in British media by showcasing stories of successful Black people that are contributing to their community. 

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

"Frank Bruno's charity fight is given a Royal seal of approval" and "British African heritage brand make history at Arsenal" both the values and ideologies of the Voice by focusing on the achievements of prominent Black figures. 

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?

The opinion piece discusses the diversity gap in the British tech industry, with only 4% of the workforce consisting of Black British people. It reflects the values and ideologies of The Voice through highlighting an issue that the Black community faces (a lack of fair representation in tech) that would not usually be discussed in mainstream news outlets. 

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

The feature discusses an initiative to support Black businesses called the Black Pound, providing Black business owners with access to a range of free workshops and masterclasses for entrepreneurship, reflecting the values and ideologies of The Voice by empowering Black people in business endeavours which is something that is not traditionally encouraged. 

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?

The news story explores how the response towards the tragedy in Grenfell tower may have been influenced by racial discrimination. People are against Mrs Lawrence's comment especially suggesting that the firefighters were racist. It suggests that even though there was a possibility of discrimination being involved, we are able to tell how the fire fighters risked their lives in order to save countless lives.

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 and giving the Black community a financial and emotional boost.

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

Black Pound Day attracted support from high-profile celebrities and quickly became the top trending topic on Twitter in the UK. 

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?  

Both Black Pound Day and the Powerlist Black Excellence Awards have highlighted issues of systemic racism and class disparity within the Black community. 

Audience

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

- Demographics: 25+ target audience (actual audience may be a lot older), working class to middle class, London, niche audience

- Psychographics: Strugglers, resigned, reformers

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

- Audience pleasures: Surveillance, personal identity, nostalgia (personal relationships)

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

The website uses headlines that humanise Black protagonists and feature positive representation through campaigns and activists, showing that The Voice is aimed at a niche audience that want to read about mainstream issues through a Black British lens. 

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?

The Voice initially started out to give people from Black backgrounds representation in a white dominated media landscape. These themes resonate with their target audience as they provide a new point of view not discussed in mainstream newspapers.

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’?

Articles about the death of Chris Kaba on The Voice website have been driven by audiences, who are not passive consumers of the news story but are active in voicing their outrage and opinions on the case, showcasing Shirky's ideas around the end of audience. 

Representations

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

The audience is positioned to see mainstream issues through a Black British lens through the use of humanising language and positive representation of Black protagonists. 

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

The Voice was made to give Black audiences an opportunity to see the world through their own eyes rather than through the prism of white mainstream British media, preventing double consciousness from arising as it reflects the lived reality of Black Britons. 

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?

The Voice promotes stories about the achievements of Black people from many different backgrounds and cultures, providing a sense of multiculturalism that exists within Britain and the Western world when it comes to Black identity. 

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

Black British readers of The Voice may find themselves represented in The Voice accurately and relate to the content of the website due to their own experiences, whereas non-black readers may not have the same personal connection to the stories. 

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 women in particular are highlighted through articles and headlines for achievements, uplifting a historically targeted demographic. In The Voice's content, white people are usually only mentioned in a neutral or negative light as part of other stories and are not protagonists. 

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? 

Val McHalla, the founder of The Voice newspaper, originally aimed to write for an audience of Black people who were born in Britain and had spent most of their lives in Britain, by campaigning against racism and injustice. 

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 has struggled with its downward trend of circulation, caused by an inability to keep the changing demands and interests of audiences in Britain today and a lack of content available for young people on The Voice. Due to these issues, other newspapers that cater to ethnic minority groups have increased their sales. 

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 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. The Voice allows them to expand their presence overseas to readers in the diaspora. 

4) How does the Voice website make money?

The Voice website makes money through advertisements, print sales, subscription, and donations through PayPal. 

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?

Many of the advertisements on the website are fixed adverts, indicating that The Voice's website is technologically behind, as a majority of websites use adverts based on the user's cookies in order to target them specifically.

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?

While The Voice is owned by a private company, there is arguably a level of public service that it offers to the British media landscape by showcasing Black British perspectives on mainstream societal and cultural issues. 

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

There is technological convergence on the website through the use of embedded YouTube videos alongside articles. 

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

Digital distribution of content allows niche publication such as The Voice to directly target their audience, allowing for greater outreach than traditional publishing where the audience would have to organically find their content. 

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?

The Voice's Twitter feed has a low amount of engagement with barely any retweets, likes or replies on news coverage or stories, even highly relevant ones such as content about the recent case of Chris Kaba. It often has to resort to clickbait.  

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

The production values of The Voice's video content is evidently very low, due to the lack of high audio or video quality.