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? 

Taylor Swift is re-recording her earlier albums as she when she was 15 years-old she signed up with Record Label which ended in 2018 and she signed with Republic Records, but the masters remained
with her former label, which was purchased by American businessman Scooter Braun for a reported
$300m – with his purchase of the label, Braun became the owner of Swift’s masters, which he sold to Disney’s Shamrock Holdings (a private investment firm run by the Disney family) in late 2020 on the condition that he would continue to financially profit from them. Swift quickly announced her intentions to re-record her Big Machine albums, which would give her complete ownership of the records and nullify Braun’s involvement.

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

Taylor Swift chose to make the short film 'All Too Well' as it is allegedly about her relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal, with Sink playing the role of Swift and O’Brien the role of Gyllenhaal (the age gap of eleven years between the two performers is close to the real-life age gap between Swift and Gyllenhaal). The film charts the downfall of the relationship between ‘Her’ and ‘Him,’ as the characters are dubbed in the credits, due to a variety of factors that all seem to point the blame at Him. The story shows of how Swift and Gyllenhaal's relationship was and how they broke up and thirteen years onwards they show Swift again who is now an author and selling her novel of 'All Too Well'. This film is also a autobiography of Swifts life and the challenges she had to conquer in this relationship.  


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

Taylor Swift uses media to construct her own image through her music videos such as with her song '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. Another example of image control was again seen in 2017 with her album 'Reputation'. Here, she divorces herself from her former personas entirely with both her musical styles and her look: around this time, she donned darker clothing and black eye shadow, which, paired with Swift’s black or red lipstick, gave an impression of maturity she hadn’t previously adopted.

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?

*Typography and font is in serif which fits well with the colour scheme.
*Colour scheme is grey, black, white which can connote meanings such as classical, sophisticated and timeless as these colours will never get old.
*Central image - wearing revealing clothes (sexualised) which we can link to Mulvey's 'male gaze' theory.
* Logo/ brand identity - for her albums. This is Taylors trademark so no one else can copy her. Shows she owns these albums all to herself. 

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 - of Taylor Swift to symbolise different 'eras' of her lifetime. Some sort of timeline. 
*Design and colour of images - grainy, nostalgic, retro to colour grading. Reflects Taylor Swift's ability to reinvent herself as artistic and being a celebrity. 
*Representation - juxtaposes main image on home page (more dominant in these ones?). Reinforces feminist value as a liberal? Possibly reinforces 'male gaze'?. 

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? 

*Logo - repetition again to help promote her music to show that these albums are owned by her. Wants people to acknowledge that her music is owned by her and no one else. 
*Bio - 'All’s fair in love and poetry... New album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. Out now' connotes T.S trying to promote her music to her fans. 
*Tweets - Taylor Swift going against Trumps views and supports Kamala Harris. Connotes that Taylor Swift is a political influence knows how to get people to vote for who she prefers. 

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

*Has pictures with the royal family (Prince William and Kates family). Shows that the monarchs are in tune with modern society. In addition to this, reflects Taylor Swift's incredible reach she has and mainstream influence. 
*Uses Instagram for promotional purposes only. 
*Pinned pics to promote her albums. Helps to reinforce capitalist ideologies that Taylor Swift might have. Promoting her tour as well to try persuade fans to buy tickets and come to her next tour. 

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.  

As we can see from the various examples of Taylor Swift being on different social media platforms, the ones that do stick out the most is Instagram and Twitter (X). This is because Taylor Swift likes to keep her status as serious and professional due to the heavy amount of political tweets she has shared trying to show her support towards Kamala Harris and letting people know that this is who she is going to vote for. Whereas on Instagram, we see her promoting more pictures and images of herself being on tour trying to engage with her fans as well replying back to some comments that fans have left for her. This shows that Taylor Swift as well trying to conduct herself in a professional manner knows how to socialise and talk with her fans to show that she still cares for them and values them. 

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