Starter - Pair discussion: To what extent does your chosen celebrity (from previous task) represent traditional or progressive gender roles? What images of themselves (or others) do they post? To what extent are they traditionally masculine/feminine? To what extent do they challenge gender stereotypes?


Extension: What about other social groups? How do they reinforce or challenge stereotypes of age? Class? Ethnicity? Sexuality? Nationality?

QuestionCwestiwn Your ResponseEich Ymateb Suggested ResponseYmateb Awgrymedig

Suggested Response:

Ymateb Awgrymedig:


Link to theory: How do you respond to these representations of women? Stuart Hall said there are three different ‘positions’ that audiences take when interpreting a media text:

  • Preferred - accepting the intended meaning of the author.
  • Negotiated - accepting some of the intended meaning, but also finding other meanings.
  • Oppositional - rejects the intended meaning and reinterprets (accidentally or intentionally) the text.

Audience research task: Interview 3 people in the class about the representations of women on the Zoella site. What do they think the intention is? How do they respond - do they agree with these meanings? Negotiate a different meaning? Or reject the messages about gender ‘encoded’ in these representations?