Online Media: Zoe Sugg - Representation

The video being referenced is My Newborn Favourites & Things I'll Use Again With Baby Number Two | Vlogust Day 20

• Sugg self-represents through the mise-en-scene of her costume and her makeup
• while her shoulders are bare, here they do not symbolise sexuality or sexual availability
• instead her hegemonically attractive body here functions as a stereotypical site of aspiration for her primary target audience of middle class white women
• Sugg is clearly pregnant with her second child. The ideological implications of her motherhood status are clearly related to her carefully self-constructed identity, where being pregnant symbolises the ability to create new life, as well as her maturity and living up to hegemonic societal expectations
• by becoming pregnant and sharing this information with the world, Sugg is accepting hegemonic societal expectations of being a woman and therefore reinforcing conservative ideologies
• this stereotypical representation of gendered identity will clearly appeal to her young, female target audience and the preferred reading is that Sugg is a role model and that she presents a definitive and aggregable life choice
• Sugg does not advocate certain other alternative lifestyles. While she is not currently married to Alfie Deyes, her monogamous relationship by default excludes other lifestyles such as polyamory and child-free lifestyles
• her dress has connotations of sophistication, maturity and an almost angelic mode of address, which is reinforced through her smooth delivery and gentle hand gestures,
• however, this persona forms binary opposition with Sugg's middle class status as a sexually active woman
• additionally, being unmarried, Sugg's models an alternative lifestyle while never explicitly advocating this
• this clear contradiction glosses over in a hyperreal mode of address which will certainly appeal to her fans
• the graphic description of her bleeding and cracked nipples splitting open 'like an egg' presents abject and upsetting mental images that provide a counterpoint to the idealised representation of motherhood that many vloggers present a relatable and complex representation of motherhood and femininity

Liesbet Van Zoonen and bell hooks - feminist theory

Gender is constructed through media language, with the primary function of any media products being to represent female bodies as sexual objects. We should actively resist the sexist representation of woman as a political act

Metonymy - where one concept stands in for another concepts

• Zoe Sugg is defining herself as a woman, not through a complex set of intensifying features, but instead through her metonymic status as a woman, which is defined and reinforced through her ability to get pregnant

Gender performativity is a ritual, as argued by Judith Butler. How our gender performance affects the world around us