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? 
In 2005, aged just 15, Swift signed a record deal with the label which gave it ownership of the masters to her first six studio 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 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'? 
In choosing to make the song into a short film, rather than just a music video, Swift has consciously 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? 
Many aspects of her follow-up 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, 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?
Home page background- shattered glass imagery, unconventional for a homepage feels more like a tour or billboard poster.

2) Now visit her Eras tour microsite. What do you notice about the construction of this site in terms of images and website conventions? 
Navigation bar reinforces opportunities to either spend money or interact with fans or her music.

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? 
A tweet with '#Womensmarch' which reflects her feminist credentials and support for fellow females this post would be considered 'woke' and liberal.

4) Look at Taylor Swift's Instagram account. What do you notice about the selection and construction of images, reels and posts?  
Through her socials she contracts her on identity and controls how much engagement her fans participate in.

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.  
She has different ways of representing herself on different platforms like twitter being more political while YouTube consisting of more of her performances and work.

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