Monday, July 26, 2010

Lady Gaga's Media Coverage

My recent news story of Lady Gaga’s is compared through online newspapers. These five websites are New York Times, USA Today, BBC, People’s Daily, and Xinhuanet. Most recently, the first three coverage focus more on the daily life of Lady Gaga’s whereas the English version of Chinese newspaper mostly compare the media photos of Lady Gaga’s. All sources except BBC focus on the onstage glamour of Lady Gaga’s and BBC, this scientific group, just reports that a newly discovered study on its publication how dogs respond to Lady Gaga’s song Poker Face.

New York Times article "Girl Pop's Lady Gaga's Makeover" focuses on the chain influence of Lady Gaga's thrilling, impressive and powerful performance on those of other celebrities such as Christina Anguilera, Rihanna, Katy Perry, and beyonce. Its slant is relatively objective and democratic. The article is written based on recorded facts, public opinion and performances comparison. The article is two page long on website. It is also understandable that the writer Jon Caramanica has be knowledgeable in the art field in order to complete this article.

USA Today reports that Lady Gaga is “is on track to soon become the first living person to log 10 million facebook fans.” The article focuses on statistical numbers of Facebook fans of Barack Obama, Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson. Its slant is so based on statistics but perhaps biased because one person can have more than one account on Facebook (I even have three). It is rather a pretty short notice than an article on USA Today website. This report shows that how communication tool Facebook can surprisingly become a popularity test for celebrities.

So BBC News is interested more on scientific research on the dogs’ reaction to Lady Gaga’s song Poker Face, there are several interview questions and answered by the producer of That Mitchell and Webb Look. At the top of the article, attached is a short video about the dogs playing poker. The focus is more on the process of getting dogs to play poker but it is very interesting that they use Lady Gaga’s song to test those dogs’ reaction. The result came out was that big dogs preferred it but small ones found it tiring. The entire article is not too long. Formatting is very loose. So far, this piece of news proves that video has come to a point of being essential in our daily life.

People’s Daily Online and Xinhuanet only show the photo images of Lady Gaga. Both photo image have their respective title. In people’s Daily Online, the title is Who Is Most Glamorous Cover Girl and the latter one is called Sketch of Lady Gaga. It is not surprising that most recent Chinese newspaper don’t have too much opinion about Lady Gaga because of the sexual impact of Lady Gaga’s performance is deemed as negative on citizens; nevertheless, Lady Gaga’s photo image is allowed to be shown on art section of both common newspapers for her art contribution to people’s daily life and culture is undeniable. In general, the slant of both types of newspapers is very objective because there are only photo images. Photo image of People’s Daily Online comes from BBS, a magazine website. The first photo image focuses more on the glamorous ornamentation of Lady Gaga’s body. The second photo image focuses more on her personal level since it is only a sketch of her face. These two photo images make a strong, direct impact on readers of newspapers what a glamorous celebrity Lady Gaga is.


Caramanica jon. “Girl Pop’s Lady Gaga Makeover.” New York Times (2010). Page AR1, New York edition. July 25, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/arts/music/25feminism.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=lady%20gaga&st=cse&scp=2&adxnnlx=1280139744-RMR1j/sne3n4Ue0RBl3h1w

Mitchell and Webb. “ Some Answer About Dog Poker. ” BBC. Comedy. Blog. Friday, July 23, 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/comedy/2010/07/dog-poker.shtml

People’s Daily Online. Home; Life & culture. July 20, 2010. http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/7072904.html

Xinhuanet. Home. July 21, 2010. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/2010-07/21/c_13408860.htm

USA Today. July 2, 2010 http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2010/07/lady-gaga-nears-10-million-facebook-fans/1


4 comments:

  1. I love Lady Gaga! I love her voice and talent! Her performances are excellent! In my personal view, her glamorous style actually can attract so many teenage, however, it can influence them deeply. Lady Gaga once announced her sexuality in public. That surprises a lot of people, including me. Her honest is encouraged and admired. I do agree on those two photo images from People's Daily Online and Xinhuanet, they have direct influence on the readers. I can say now, Lady Gaga is leading the fashion!

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  3. Hello myfreesky
    I read the text from the New York Times that you mentioned in your blog. I like some parts of the article, such as this one: “This new feminism is more about the opportunity to make choices than about any specific choice itself. And it’s freeing, this expansion of musical liberation into spaces visual as well as sonic, instinctual as well as intellectual, performed as well as lived.” LadyGaga is a phenomenon in music industry. I mean her performance shocks people. She is the talent of the moment, as Madonna was in the eighties with her videos Like a Virgin, La isla bonita and Sex, which provoke people to love her. Madonna is an icon of freedom and inspirational liberation. Ironically Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Lindsay Logan and other popular stars are not as liberal and free as they sing. They are prisoners of drugs, scandals and emotional breakdowns just to retain the fame. As we learned in class how executives in the music industry create an image for artists in order to sell, they are not thinking that a sexy image of a woman is sexist and condescending among women and doesn’t promote the real feminism.

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  4. Lady Gaga became so popular in these past years. We all know that she is just another modern version of Madonna. But I do have to say she is over the top with her crazy videos and image she presents of herself. She's amazing. When referring her music to the likes of dogs, I think it's ridiculous how this may be true. I think the dogs would react to all kinds of music and not just hers. I think this is just a coincidence that they happen to react strongly on her Poker Face song. Gaga has done a lot for the society and cares a lot about her fans. The best thing about her is that she does not care about what other people may think of her as. Her image is drastic and she portrays a lot of sexuality but the negative comments from the audience does not stop her from continuing this act. In fact, she makes it even more sexual, more drastic. From the first video to her recent one, Alejandro, there has been a change in displaying her sexuality. She wears less and less articles of clothing as each video progresses. Overall, her videos and appearance may be crazy but the way she speaks and acts towards her fans are completely different.

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