The Voice CSP: case study blog tasks

 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?

Established brand identity - "40 years", commemorating legacy, as well as a search button to archive their 40 years on content 

menu bar - key convention of news sites with news sub-sections 

"subscribe" button - trying to monetise brand 

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?

- News, sport, lifestyle, entertainment, competitions, opinion and faith 

- This conveys the Voice to be a tabloid newspaper, with more soft news than hard news 

- With the faith section it illustrates its values to be rooted in Christianity 

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. 

"Top Jamaican diplomat and acting legend joins fight to save Black Britons affected by sickle cell"

" Women's health campaigner calls for medical professionals to believe Black women when they raise concerns about reproductive issues" 

Both of these stories are medical issues that specifically effect the black community and have been circulating topics for years amongst the black diaspora, which is why they appeal to the target audience as the newspaper is specifically targeted towards the black community, and now they may feel as if they are seen and heard in the media. 

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.

With the use of Barthes enigma codes the "subscribe" button using verbal codes encourages the audience to engage with the newspaper regularly. And with action codes the search button encourages the audience to read through their 40 year digital archive. 

  

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 sub-menu bar consist of UK news, world news, celebrity, tech and business - suggesting that the Voice's audience have a range of interests from hard to soft news 

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

"Urban synergy continues to open doors" and "In review: black tech fest 2025" 

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

It illustrates black men and women as business moguls, entrepreneurs and public speakers - it  subverts the idea of black people being only entertainers or sportsman in British media - despite the featuring of the retired Jamaican runner Usain Blot 

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

"Black joy takes centre stage at "The Sitdown UK" - this story reflects the values of the Voice as it portrays the black community in a good light and illustrates niche topics associated with the black diaspora 

"Stars unite at Black Women Rising's first awareness luncheon" - again niche topics for a niche target audience 

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?

It highlights diversity within the black community with a black hijabi as the cover feature for this article - reflecting the Voice's value for diversity. The article talks about tokenism which POC's view to be a huge problem which reflects the brands ideological position by calling out companies that do this.

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

Again the article is based around the uplifting of the black community and the nuances about black people

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 story conveys that the newspapers values lie within the e black community and the black community only - it falls in line with the rise of identity politics - making everything about race, religion or sexuality anywhere they see fit, even if it there is no evidence for this discrimination. Gilroy’s theory of the “Black Atlantic” fits this article as it takes the transnational identity and pits it against its ambivalent relationship with whiteness. 

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?

It is an initiative to increase visibility of and spend in black owned business across the UK and Europe 

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

Following its June 2020 launch, several businesses shared on social media how they had experienced their biggest growth in sales after the event. Black Pound Day not only highlighted issues of systemic inequality in the UK, it held up a mirror to a major shift in how Black Britons supported Black-owned businesses. 

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?  

The Black pound 2022 report found that minority ethnic consumers have become an increasingly important economic force.  They have an annual disposable income of £4.5 billion - the figure for African Caribbean consumers alone is £1.1 billion. 

Audience

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

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

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

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?

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’?

Representations

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

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

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?

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

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.)

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? 

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? 

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.

4) How does the Voice website make money?

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?

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?

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

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

9) Analyse The Voice’s Twitter feed. How does this contrast with other Twitter feeds you have studied (such as Taylor Swift)? Are there examples of ‘clickbait’ or does the Voice have a different feel?

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


A/A* Extension tasks

Read Factsheet #272 on Nationhood, Britishness and Identity. This explores the work of Paul Gilroy in more detail and will be very useful in writing about The Voice. It also has an excellent example of how to apply these ideas to a media text.