Taylor Swift and Beyoncé Speak Through—Not to—the Media
Whether landing magazine covers or making political statements, stars are avoiding the scrutiny of traditional interviews.
Taylor Swift stares defiantly from the cover of her album Reputation, newsprint scrawled on the side. Taken together, the image and the title are a taunt to the media, to whom she hasn’t given any interviews about the album.
This week, though, Taylor Swift stares out from the covers of two mega-famous magazines: the Person-of-the-Year issue of Time, and the U.K. edition of . Both are striking examples of how she is helping pioneer a new image-management playbook, one in which politics and paparazzi have moved celebrities to speak through the media without necessarily speaking to it.
