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Samantha Singh
Media and Politics
December 9, 2015
News & the Lifestyle Brand

While outlets like CNN and Fox dominate the media landscape in terms of sheer
presence, smaller niche channels have begun to develop significant followings. Vice News,
originally founded in Canada in 1994, now boasts 1.1 million subscribers and 175 million video
views (as of early 2015). The Blaze, a conservative publication started by Glenn Beck, popular
republican talking head, claims 13 million international views monthly. These small, specified
news outlets have succeeded explicitly because of their size; they pander to a specific
demographic because they represent a lifestyle brand more than they represent any sort of real
journalism. These sites exist to manifest a certain worldview and support a specific aesthetic;
their existence in and of themselves presupposes cognitive dissonance among its readership.
This is because of very specific choices and situational responses on the part of the staff of these
publications - none of it is accidental.

Vice, out the gate, appears to render all Ive already said untrue - with constant
investigative pieces and op-eds that in theory represent many different view-points, it looks to be
a veritable eden of journalistic practices. They obtain their own content and approach the topics
they cover from sterile unbiased standpoints. Except not really. Vices investigative team appears
to only cover topics they consider to be adventurous and edgy (for lack of better word) enough.
Their investigative journalism then, more serves the purpose of reinforcing an aesthetic than

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actually obtaining content. If they can manifest this left of centre, counter culture aura around
themselves they guarantee themselves an audience - specifically an audience that by and large
would not have been reading the news in the first place. Vice aims to address the youth, counterculture market. The cynical but well informed hipster is who they write for, who they create
content for, who their entire visual aesthetic was created to appease. Vice often covers stories
concerning drugs and illegal substances, all this because of the specific audience they hope to
address. The reader who looks to obtain their political news from the same place they obtain their
information on South American drugs that might cause mind control is the individual the
publication is pandering to. Millennial, modern, considering themselves members of some sort of
counter-culture movement; this is the audience that Vice has manifested.

The Blaze on the other hand is quite different. Founded by Glenn Beck, of Fox News
fame, the Blaze panders to what is essentially the opposite of Vices audience. While they may
speak to a slightly younger demographic than typical conservative media (by sheer virtue of the
publications online-only platform), the Blazes audience is conservative no less, simply more
modern. The Blaze, with Beck at the helm manifests this aura of elitist pseudo-intellectualism
that appeals to the other side of the millennial generation. A very heavy social media presence (in
some cases, heavier than even Vice has been capable of generating) paired with conservative
principles means the audience for the Blaze, while still guilty, by and large, of cognitive
dissonance, is in some situations infinitely vaster. The click bait the Blaze provides, while
accessible to the younger generation, at the same time, contains information and biases shared by
older generations. Young republican will share the content they have found as an answer to their

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friends liberal think pieces and their parents and relatives will view and share and vice versa.
While the same is theoretically possible for Vice, the counter-culture bent it takes prevents it
from being more largely accessible to older audiences.

But what exactly is it about the two sites, visually, that has such an obvious influence on
the audience they garner? It is in their very coding. Vice News landing page features a slider
with the top stories of the day - generally a gritty think piece about the underbelly of some
Eastern European country or the continued spread of some drug youve never heard of (on
December 8th, its Beaten, Robbed, Set Upon By Dogs: Welcome to Europe) - alongside bold
black lines and a monochromatic logo. The photographs are action shots, and show visceral
emotion. Political headlines ring more sour than usual in terms of politicians; Donald Trump
Doesn't Care That You're Horrified About His Comments on Muslims. The entire visual Vice
presents is amalgamated with the express purpose of appealing to the counter-culture crowd.
Politically active youths whose interests include extreme sports, street art and obviously, extreme
news and politics.

Where Vice is modern, minimalistic and edgy, The Blaze is comparatively gaudy. Bright
reds complete the color palette and a popup upon loading urges you to get up to $950 off at My
Patriot Supply - a doomsday preppers supply warehouse. The top story generally covers Trump
(on December 8, 2015, the cover features Donald Trump pretending to sleep with his hands
folded at his head side while at a podium; the headline reads We Will Go To Break if You Keep
Talking), religion, or gun related stories.

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These two publications present two very different pictures. Very little is necessary to
understand the biases implicit in their reporting - the simple act of opening them to their landing
page provides the reader with enough information to make a judgement within moments. No
time wasted, a straight shot to cognitive dissonance, made simple through color coding and
advertisements. But how does the Black Lives Matter movement fit into all this? Its all in terms
of how these two media outlets have covered news items involving it.

The first starkly obvious difference between the two (observed over the period of
November 21st to December 2nd) and their coverage of the protests centered around this time
period is the disparity between the media used by the conservative side and the progressive
(liberal) side. That is, the photos and videos they chose to use to help support tell their version of
the story. The Blaze, for example, concerning the capture of two gunmen charged with the
shooting of two Black Lives Matter protesters during protest, used a photo of police officers at
night near a police line as the featured image (on November 24th, 2015). Vice on the other hand,
for the same story chose something immediately emotive; the faces of several protesters, visually
distraught, engulfed in what appears to be an emotionally charged, but civil discussion with a
black police officer. Both of these image choices present an obvious narrative selection. Because
the shooting at hand did not involve a police officer (the Blaze being a large supporter of Blue
Lives Matter), the choice to position police officers as involved with the story is out of intention
to position the police is a positive light. That is to say that because the police have a history of
brutalizing black people, placing them at the forefront of a story concerning a shooting that by

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some act of god did not involve an officer seems to be attempting to position them as the saviors
of this situation; its an attempt to reposition the police as beacons of justice, but in this specific
situation its rather unsettling. Its almost like the Blaze is suggesting that its readership (or
rather, the Black Lives Matter protesters) should be glad that this time it was not an officer. Its
as though the Blaze made a point to position the police within the story so its readership would
remark on that it was not an officer this time - this time, theyre there to help!.

This simple, seemingly random choice, speaks mountains to the intentions of each outlet
when it comes to their publication of this story. Vice intended to take the side of the protesters, so
the image needed to humanize them. The Blaze intended to advance a Blue Lives Matter
narrative (a narrative whose existence is intrinsically dependent on the Black Lives Matter
movement), to subtly bring attention to what they see as disparities in how the public views law
enforcement and criminals. But why exactly does Vice prioritize the Black Lives Matter
movement while the Blaze doesnt? Although its worth noting that the Blaze had published
drastically more articles within the time period concerning the subject matter (or at least
mentioning it within stories on other topics), the tone taken is often dry and obsessively factual at
best and downright racially insensitive at worst. While the Blaze seems interested in putting out
as much information concerning the subject as possible because of the attention and controversy
(particularly among its readership who by and large disapprove of the movement) it garners,
Vice seems more concerned with providing a benevolent shoulder for protestors. That is to say
that Vice is more concerned with presenting the protesters in a positive light than the Blaze is
because the audiences of both desire different things.

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Vice readers want to think of themselves and socially conscious, intellectual, active,
interesting and more than anything - progressive. Readers of the Blaze view themselves as
champions of traditional morals, and nothing is more traditional than the concept of a police
force one can trust - it goes hand in hand with the milk man and the fireman cliche; public
servants there to help. Although decades of police brutality appear to more than prove that this
idea is an anachronism, it is intrinsic to conservative though - this idea of a 1950s paradise where
the police officer on the street corner helps little Billy find his parents instead of shooting Jamal
dead for wearing a hoodie (almost as though these two things cannot exist simultaneously).

While the Media Meter tool suggests that both publications covered the Black Lives
Matter protests over the time period almost exactly the same amount, this is because it doesnt
make space for the allusions the Blaze makes to the movement in almost every article they post.
Whether its a Trump article in which they wonder what the candidate would have to say about a
certain occurrence or a think piece on the relation between the Black Lives Matter movement
and the African-American abortion rate; it is constantly in their vocabulary because of the
instantaneously aggressive response it implies from its audience - something one only need visit
the comment section of any article onsite to understand. While the Blazes articles may not be
outrightly racially insensitive, the lean they take and the audience they offer themselves to
implies intolerance, at the very least an acceptance that intolerance can equal ad sales. Whats
quite interesting, though, is that aside from the allusions the Blaze makes, if we simply look at
articles about the subject matter, both publications have covered the movement almost exactly

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the same amount: consistently a significant amount more than the mainstream media. Where the
mainstream barely covered the movement, both of these niche outlets were pumping out articles
on the subject at an alarming rate (on November 24-25, it even exceeded 25k sentences per day).

What it comes down to is that both publications are selling themselves to a specific
audience, the Black Lives Matter movement and their coverage of it is simply one example.
Their focus is on developing a lifestyle brand and supporting a specific ideology than it is on
journalism and the quest for information. The Blaze will cover the movement and things
involved with it in a way that implies disapproval and its audience will eat it up, make Beck
more famous and more wealthy, and Vice will do the very same, just inverse. This is because
neither of these publications exist in a vacuum. No matter how much Vice will try to position
itself as the true progressive north, representative of the younger generation that looks to push
the United States forward, it does not change the fact that it is a business, not a charity. A
capitalist society necessitates this sort of journalism; there is money in capturing an audience.
While larger outlets can (dishonestly) claim journalism for journalisms sake, these smaller
specialized outlets are in no position to do so. Their intentions are explicit at the outset and their
methods are clear; Vice Magazine and The Blaze are about journalism about as much as
Cosmopolitan magazine is. Its all about racking up those statistics and the add revenue they
imply.

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Works Cited

Beck, G. (n.d.). TheBlaze - Breaking news and opinion. Retrieved December 9, 2015, from
http://www.theblaze.com/

VICE | United States | The Definitive Guide to Enlightening Information. (n.d.). Retrieved
December 9, 2015, from http://www.vice.com/