OSP: Taylor Swift CSP- Language and Representations

 Narrative


Go to our Media Magazine archive (issue MM79) and read the feature All Too Well on Taylor Swift and how she controls her own narrative. Answer the following questions: 

1) Why is Taylor Swift re-recording her earlier albums? 
Because a record company bought all her music and she was unable to buy it back and make it her own, so she re-recorded all her music so that she owns all her songs again.

2) Why did Taylor Swift choose to make the short film 'All Too Well'? 
To push her professional creative boundaries for the sake of her art and story telling.

3) What other examples are provided in the article of Taylor Swift using media to construct her own image? 
She directs and writes all her own content/ creations.
She makes public and people aware of her haters and her fallouts
Her albums

Taylor Swift textual analysis

Work through the following tasks to complete your textual analysis of Taylor Swift's website and social media. 

1) Go to Taylor Swift's website. What do you notice about the media language choices - text, font, images, page design, links?
    • Font: Sans Serif, which is modern which represents her and that she is a global mainstream singer who follows trends.
    • Text/ Links: 'Shop Now' and 'Tour dates' being the first links available reinforce capitalistic ideologies, with the incentive to constantly make money. 'Sign up' is kind of like saying 'become a swifty' which shows how she is always willing/ trying to make her fanbase increase in numbers almost like a community.
    • Images: The main image is intimate and personal, it creates a sense of vulnerability and arguably follows the 'Male Gaze'  and Van zoonen's theory on sex role streotypes and that women are a spectacle. This goes against her 'feminist' beliefs (oppositional reading)

2) Now visit her Eras tour microsite. What do you notice about the construction of this site in terms of images and website conventions? 
  • A collage of all her previous albums representing both all her eras and what the tour is ultimately about and what will be performed.
  • Her main image could represent her current era she is going through.
  • The entire design is quite unconventional to a typical album cover due to lack of direct address which is very repetitive within covers. (Neale's repetition and difference).
  • The main image reflects the vulnerability the same way the homepage image does. This connotes the feel and message of her most recent album.

3) Visit Taylor Swift's Twitter feed. Analyse her use of tweets/posts - are they promoting her music, her tour, or something else? Can you find any that are socially or politically oriented? 
  • All her bio's and and posts across her platforms are the same and promote her albums. This shows capitalistic ideologies as the aim is always to earn revenue and fans, shows lack of authenticity. However, this makes sure than her fans are never missing out even if they don't have a specific platform. 
  • Her tweet representing London/ British culture and slang shows her desperation to seem real and authentic and that she appreciates and respects culture. It represents the emojis she used of the British and us flag united, showing she is an ally and respectful rather than looks down on other cultures - this reflects her as  a person.,

4) Look at Taylor Swift's Instagram account. What do you notice about the selection and construction of images, reels and posts?  
  • The pinned images is of her latest album cover which, again, shows constant promotion.
  • She follows no one which implies that her social media accounts are purely for promotion rather than interaction, this reinforces capitalistic ideologies - lack of care for means that are not promoting a higher revenue.
  • One authentic post with the royal family- beneficial for both parties in the sense it makes Taylor look authentic and relatable whilst simultaneously making the Royal family look down to earth. Could be a nother business/ interaction bait strategy.

5) Research Taylor Swift across any other social media accounts - e.g. Facebook. Do you notice any differences in how she represents herself on different platforms? Comment on text, images or tone/content.  
  • Her tiktok account is treated the same as her Instagram. All her latest posts are purely album promotion. 
  • Not following anyone but has 32.7 million followers. This is a large difference from her Instagram following which is 283 million followers which shows too things: Most of her fans utilise Instagram and that tiktok is a more interactive app so considering she is interactive or entertaining on it, having a equal following wouldn't occur. 
  • Her tiktok bio is "This is pretty much just a cat account" which implies that she doesn't use it and it is probably run by her team for promotion.

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