Taylor Swift: 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? 

- Swift’s deal with Big Machine ended in 2018 and she signed with Republic Records, but the masters remained with her former label, which was subsequently purchased by  Scooter Braun for a reported $300m – with his purchase of the label, Braun became the owner of Swift’s masters in late 2020 on the condition that he would continue to financially profit from them. She 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'? 

-To show how she has broken free of control by others and created an image of the greatest artists of all times.

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

-Album 1989 (2014) were a direct response to criticisms about her private life: the entirety of ‘Shake It Off’ is dedicated to telling Swift’s haters how little she cares for their opinions.


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?

-There is minimum text on the website, just basic info that links to other parts of the website. The colour scheme is black/white/grey to give a classic & sophisticated look. The typography is Serif. The logo shows the brand identity, Top menu is a website convention.

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

-Social media links to engage fan interaction

-Representations- pictures of Taylor swift still contains elements of male gaze even though she is a feminist.

-Can also represent all her different 'eras' 

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? 

-Her tweets reinforce her idea about feminism and also how she supports Kamala Harris. 

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

-Her highlights show her tours and albums. Also the pictures with the royal family show how she is using them to target a mainstream British audience.

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.  

-On her Instagram there seems to be more promotional content- in terms of her advertising her tour and albums whereas in her Facebook it is the opposite. This maybe be because it was the first type of social media she used growing up and she stuck with the realistic stuff she shows on there.

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