Taylor Swift: Language and Representations blog tasks

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Taylor Swift: Language and Representations blog tasks


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? 

At 15, Taylor had signed to Big Machine records in 2005, with her contract ending in 2018 they still owned the masters to her 6 first studio albums. Scooter Braun then purchased these masters for 300 million dollars and sold them to Disney's shamrock holdings under the condition he would still profit from them in 2020. Because of this, Taylor rerecorded two of her albums, Fearless and Red in order to take some power back.

2) Why did Taylor Swift choose to make the short film 'All Too Well'? 

She has chosen to push her professional creative boundaries for the sake of her art and her storytelling

3) What other examples are provided in the article of Taylor Swift using media to construct her own image? 

"Shake It Off’ is dedicated to telling Swift’s haters how little she cares for their opinions, while the video for ‘Bad Blood’ is yet another showcase of her filmmaking talents.

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 is bold and big, and in red contrasting with the neutral coloured image. Also bedazzled text which links to the "Showgirl" theme. The image takes up almost the entire webpage and is also an embedded link to the Taylor Swift store, displaying a focal importance.

2) Now visit her Eras tour microsite. What do you notice about the construction of this site in terms of images and website conventions? 

Collage of images symbolises different eras. The top menu reinforcs oppurtunities to spend money or interact with content. Grainy, retro, nostalgic retro to colour grading. Social media fans interact with content, top menu has links to them. Reinforces social media dominance. Representation of Taylor on the main image is unconventional. 


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? 

Shes following 0 people, showing how she is the opinion leader. Her bio emoji changes based off the current era, now being a laming heart, and her profile and banner is also promoting The Life of a Showgirl, which is also her pinned post. Successful engagement, with over tens of thousands of likes per post, reinforcing opinion leader. Most are promoting, the recent ones, but older ones are socially and politically orientated. E.g an attack on Trumps government, showing her political influence 


4) Look at Taylor Swift's Instagram account. What do you notice about the selection and construction of images, reels and posts?  

Most recent highlight solely for new era. Her high follower count symbolises her power and shes following 5 people which shows how her page is used purely promotional, and her highlights display a consistent theme. Both show capitalist ideology reinforced, and her new era posts are pinned. 

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.  

Different to her twitter, her YouTube is purely promotional. Her only videos are her music and her bio is a link to her online store. She has 61M subscribers which is a large amount, again reflective of her success.


A/A* extension tasks

Read this academic history of celebrity culture and social contexts. How much can we find that is relevant to the kind of celebrity persona Taylor Swift has created? 

Read Written and Directed by Taylor Swift in Media Magazine MM84 - a feature on Swift's music videos including how she is using her Instagram channel to position herself as an up-and-coming director as well as music star. You can find this in our Media Magazine archive here.

Finally, consider this question: How does the construction of Taylor Swift's online presence reflect the social and cultural changes of the last 10 years?

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