1) Make two lists - one of website conventions used on Marcus Rashford's official website and one of social media conventions found on Rashford's Twitter or Instagram pages.
Website key conventions include:
- Logo/brand identity
- Navigation – menus
- Central image
- Multimedia features – e.g. video
- Social media links / integration
- Logo/brand identity
- Bio (personal details/information)
- Profile image
- Background/banner image
- Images and video
- Online engagement/audience interaction
2) How does his website promote the Marcus Rashford brand?
His website includes his logo which additionally promotes the brand and its significance
3) What connotations can be be found in the homepage for Marcus Rashford's website (you can mention either the old or new homepage)?
Marcus Rashford is presented professionally as he is seen wearing a suit and in a dark atmosphere also forecasting his logo showing his brand identity
4) How does Marcus Rashford use his social media profiles to promote his brand and campaigns?
Marcus Rashford has created a strong personal brand that merges different genres – footballer, campaigner / activist, influence and celebrity.
5) How does Marcus Rashford's online presence use the narrative of his childhood upbringing to create a positive brand identity?
His online presence – particularly video content – emphasises his working class background, how hard his mum worked as a single parent and his own positive attitude towards hard work. This creates a narrative of success against the odds. He then uses this to drive his campaigning work on food poverty and reading as well as his commercial endorsements.
Representations
1) How does Rashford use different aspects of mise-en-scene to create very different representations of himself on his own website?
He does this perfectly as he is seen wearing a suit with his head up but then seen also wearing a hoodie with his head down and this contradiction of clothing shows him as being professional and successful and wealthy but then is subverted by his seemingly shy and confined
2) What representations of football or footballers can you find in Marcus Rashford's online presence? Does it reinforce or subvert traditional stereotypes of footballers?
It somewhat subverts the stereotypes as footballers are seen as people who get paid millions weekly for kicking a ball around however Rashford is seen as someone who doesn't only use the money for himself and instead donates to charities and helps people
3) What examples can you find of website pages, social media posts or aspects of the brand that create a positive representation of Marcus Rashford? You may wish to comment on his discussion of family or his campaigns - his page on the FareShare campaign website may help with this question.
Shows him as a member of a charity FareShare which tackle food waste in the UK
4) What representations of masculinity can you find in Marcus Rashford's online presence? Does this reinforce or challenge traditional gender stereotypes?
In most media portrayals, male characters are rewarded for self-control and the control of others, aggression and violence, financial independence, and physical desirability. However Rashford doesn't represent these traits too much apart of the fact he is humble.
5) What representations of race/ethnicity can you find in his website or social media? Does this reinforce or challenge media stereotypes?
There is not many representations of race/ethnicity in his social media
Audience
1) Who are the potential target audiences for Marcus Rashford's online content? Try and cover both demographics and psychographics.
- C – Class (social class – working class people)
- A – Age (youth)
- G – Gender (masculinity)
- E – Ethnicity (black British)
2) Marcus Rashford’s online presence is partly driven by his excellent use of social media. How does he use social media to engage with his fans and make them feel part of his brand?
He includes alot of links so that the audience can engage with them and make donations making them feel as if they are also working with Rashford in donating to charities
3) What is Marcus Rashford's Instagram engagement rate and what does this tell us?
Marcus Rashford’s power as an influencer is shown by his engagement rate of 6%.
4) Go to Marcus Rashford's Twitter or Instagram account. Find and screenshot/link three tweets/posts that show the different aspects of his brand.
celebrity and casual luxury
Charity worker
football career
5) What audience pleasures are provided by Marcus Rashford's online presence? Try and apply Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratifications theory here.
He gives them personal Identity pleasures as alot of his targeted audience being black working class teenagers will relate alot with how he was brought up and this inspires them as they can also do the same as Rashford
6) Applying Stuart Hall's Reception theory, what would a preferred and oppositional reading of Marcus Rashford's online presence be?
Preferred reading:
Marcus Rashford is a humble and kind man who we should aspire to be more like as he worked hard to gain his success although he wasnt brought up with many opportunities
Oppositional reading:
Marcus Rashford only constructs this online persona in order to attract more companies for endorsements as he can make more money
Industry
1) What is Marcus Rashford's net worth and how does his online presence help him to make money?
Marcus Rashford’s net worth has been estimated at around £16 million
2) What charities and companies/brands is Marcus Rashford associated with? Why might they want to be linked to the Rashford brand?
- £200,000 per week from Manchester United (£10.4m a year)
- £2m endorsement deal with Nike
- Additional deals with Burberry, BT Sport (now TNT Sport), Coca-Cola and others
3) Research Twitter and Instagram. Who owns the companies, how do they make money and how much profit did they make last year?
- Twitter was started by Jack Dorsey in 2006. It now has over 200 million active users worldwide.
- Twitter’s 2020 revenue was $3.72 billion.
- Twitter makes most of its money through advertising – promoted tweets or ‘trend takeovers’.
- Marcus Rashford has over 5m Twitter followers.
- Instagram is an image and video sharing site launched in 2010.
- In 2012 it was bought by Facebook for $1 billion. Facebook and Instagram’s parent company is now called Meta – a global conglomerate.
- Instagram has over a billion active users worldwide and more than 25 million users in the UK alone.
- Instagram revenue in 2020 was $24 BILLION.
- Marcus Rashford has over 12m Instagram followers.
4) What are the worries about Instagram’s negative effects?
- Over 40% of Instagram users are aged under 23.
- Research suggests that Instagram is damaging to mental health – particularly for teenage girls.
- Facebook’s own research suggested this – but they allegedly kept this secret.
- The research suggested one in three girls felt bad about their bodies and Instagram made this worse. It is also linked to increased anxiety and depression.
5) How do social media platforms manage online abuse on their platforms and why has Marcus Rashford drawn attention to this? How might this change in the future?
The government put forward the Online Safety bill in 2022 to change the law and add regulation of the internet to Ofcom’s role as media regulator.
6) What happened by law in 2022 that changed the way the internet is regulated? Write three changes that this new law may bring in and explain why it is difficult to regulate the internet.
- Sending threatening posts being punishable by jail sentences.
- Platforms like Twitter and Instagram having to actively prevent users seeing harmful material – or risk being fined by Ofcom.
- Platforms paying Ofcom to regulate their content.
