Double Page Spread Analysis

Use these questions to help you to analyse at least 2 magazine articles:
1) how does the choice of band featured in the article suggest who the target audience will be?

The band is an unsigned, new band called “Little Boots”. The target audience would be girls aged 16-25, judging by the image of the woman with extravagant eyelashes. The section of the magazine is called “New Noise 2009”.

2) What type of language is used in the article? Give examples of words or phrases which are specific to the style of the magazine?

The article uses quite colloquial and conversational language, attempting to relate to the target audience by using friendly language. There are a few buzz words included such as “cool” and “hot”.

3) How is colour used?

A monochrome effect is used on the image, to show that bright colours are not needed to make the image look effective and attractive. However, the colour used on her face is effective as she has bright pink lips, with blue eyes and obvious eye makeup. A few bright colours such as purple and pink are used in the actual article to make the article look a bit more attractive for the young readers. Also, the music logos in the corners are a range of blue, purple and pink, relating to the favourite colours of young people.

4) What style of text is used? Is it similar to any other pages? What does it say about the image of the magazine and the audience?

The title used on the double page spread is in black and white, being quite different to the other articles. The pull quote is quite funny, amusing and random, which is what most young girls want to read. There is a drop cap at the beginning of the article, giving it a kick-start feel, preparing the reader for the article. There is a use of sans serif and serif font in one page, with the article text being serif font and the slug font being sans serif.

5) How is the double page spread laid out? How much of the pages are taken up by images and how much by text? How does this reflect the audience? What do they value?

The double page spread is laid out in a very orderly way, with the image and slug on the left hand side page and the article on the right hand side page, being a very ordinary article. The image is quite big, which is why it took up one whole page, with the article only being one page, being very short and simple compared to other articles.

6) What tone is the magazine using when addressing the reader (as a close friend, a member of an 'in' crowd or an informed intelligent fan?) - provide evidence

The tone of the magazine is, like I mentioned above, quite conversational and talking as if we are close friends. The article can be read in two ways, a conversational way and a formal way, which can confuse the reader but also seem more interesting to actually read. An example of conversational language is, “She was at a fashionable east London fashion hangout”. A formal part of the interview would be Intuition is a key part of Little Boot’s thing. She has a rare ability to stay focused on her own interests and beliefs, unfettered by what’s happening around her”.

7) How is the artist/band presented to the audience through the images? You may wish to carry out a textual analysis.

The artist, “Little Boots”, is presented with an image of herself, wearing extravagantly strange eyelashes, with strange triangles at the tips, referring to her genre of music being unique and different to other genres of music. She is looking up, which has connotations of her having high hopes, dreams and ambitions in life and her music career.

8) How does the style of the article match the style of the front cover?

The style of the article does not match the front cover at all, because the front cover has the colour red as the key theme, whilst in the article the key colours are black and white.
9) Does the article demand any prior knowledge? Give examples.

To understand a few of the programmes mentioned in the articles such as “The X Factor” or consoles such as Nintendo Wii, you would have to be familiar with the popular culture and youth values, because music magazines are for entertainment purposes and they include popular content for their target audience.

Questionnaire and Analysis and Masthead Research

Questionnaire
Music Magazine

1. What type of music magazine would you purchase?
RnB= Indie= Pop= Foreign/Cultural=

2. How much would you pay for your music magazine?
Up to £1.00= Up to £2.00= Up to £3.00=

3. What age group would you categorise your magazine in?
16-24= 25-39= 40+=

4. What promotional features would you prefer to get with the magazine?
CD= Calendar= Poster= Wristband= Voucher=

5. What colours on the front cover are you attract to?(Please circle as many as you want)
Blue Green Black&White Red Purple Pink Yellow Gold Silver

6. What would you like to see in your music magazine?
(Please circle as many as you want)
Interviews Horoscopes Posters/Images Celebrity Autograph Concert Dates

7. Which artists would you prefer to see on the front cover of your music magazine?
Lil Wayne= Green Day= Britney Spears= Miley Cyrus= X Factor Contestants=

8. Which do you prefer?
Fortnight= Monthly=

What type of music magazine would you purchase?

I asked this question because I wanted to identify the most popular genre of music amongst a range of people and it had obviously come up as RnB. The impact it has on my magazine is that I now know that people prefer RnB to Foreign and Cultural, so I know that I should base my magazine on RnB.
How much would you pay for you music magazine?

I asked this question because I want to place the price of the magazine on my front cover, so I want to choose a price that people would agree with and actually purchase. The impact this has on my magazine is that I know that I should choose a reasonable price that does not exceed the limit.
What age group would you categorise your magazine in?

I want my magazine to have a target audience, so I want to know what age group to aim it at. The impact this will have on my magazine is that I will know what type of editorial to use on my front cover and which colours and artists to use on my front cover.

What promotional features would you prefer to get with your magazine?

To attract readers to purchase the magazine, most music magazines like NME use promotional features to lure readers and to gain core buyers.

What colours on the front cover are you attracted you?
Colours are an important issue which is why I gave a range of colours for my questionnaire audience to choose, to see which colours they prefer, primary colours or secondary and bold colours like gold and silver.

What would you like to see in your music magazine?

To sell the magazine and create its target audience, I need to include articles and kickers and explanatory lines to attract the reader’s eye. Horoscopes have proven to be the most popular within the other options, even though this is a music magazine. The impact this will now have on my magazine is that I will be inputting articles that will intrigue and interest the core buyers.

Which artists would you prefer to see on the front cover of your music magazine?
I chose to ask this question mainly because I want to decide what to base my magazine on. I have chosen to create an Indie style magazine, influenced by NME magazine, with all the same key themes. Lil Wayne has proven to be the most popular, however, Green Day is not far behind, meaning I can intertwine these two types of genres into one magazine possibly.

Which do you prefer?

A magazine is distributed and sold either weekly or monthly. A weekly magazine has its benefits of bringing gossip and news every week, however if there is not enough news to publish, some of it can be unreliable and made up, meaning monthly magazines can be more reliable and efficient, having more news and gossip to publish in the space of one month. Monthly has proven to be more popular amongst the questionnaire results, which is why I have chosen to create a monthly magazine.

Masthead Research

Music Magazine Analysis

Use these questions to analyse at least 2 music magazine front covers: What type of magazine is it?
NME is a magazine that is aimed at young students that obtain a passion for rock/indie music, with socio economic grading of C2 or D. The bands that seem to appear on the front cover of NME are usually The Horrors, The Killers and The Automatic. NME has hosted events for MTV awards and to advertise their magazines further.
However, in contrast, Essence magazine is a magazine that includes artists such as Erykah Badu and Alicia Keys. Essence magazine has also been known to host events and invited guest stars such as Jada Pinkett Smith, awarding her with “most inspirational Black woman” of Hollywood. Essence is quite an exclusive magazine, mainly aimed at darker women, judging by the language device on the front cover, for example “Be a Rich, Black Woman”.

From the front cover what kinds of issues/articles are going to be inside?

In NME, the articles would be about Glastonbury festival, gossip about a variety of bands and interviews with the front cover stars, The Horrors.
Essence magazine would include articles about inspiration darker women, who share their marriage and love secrets, including sexual reference. Also, there are lot of kickers and explanatory lines on the front cover that introduce some of the articles, which have been hinted to be aimed at only African women.
Who is the target audience for the magazine? What particular age group? What are their interests? How do you know all of this?
The target audience for NME would be young students, aged 16-29, with socio economic grading of C2 or D, with not much experience in employment, but have an extreme passion with music and its industry. This is evident because of the ABC figures and percentages posted on the internet, stating that NME’s core buyers are usually young males. Essence’s target audience are dark skinned women, aged 30-45, who aspire to be good housewives, mothers and employees, with socio economic gradings of B or A.

what mode of address is the magazine using? What does this tell you about the type of relationship it wants with its reader?
The mode of address used within NME is evidently informal and colloquial, shortening words such as “Glastonbury”, using words such as “freaky” and “rock”, to fit in with their target audience’s conversational, normal day-to-day basis language. NME is quite exclusive, making it clear from the image of The Horrors, that the magazine is aimed at people that share a passion for Indie music.
Similarly, the mode of address is Essence is very exclusive, mainly in a racial way, because the magazine is aimed at dark skinned women. This is evident from the language device used, with website links such as “Brownsista.com” and large sans serif font kickers saying “Be a rich, black woman”. It is significant how the word “black” is in a bigger font than “rich”, insinuating that culture and race is more important and valuable than money. With articles on what “black men really want”, being very exclusive to lighter skinned women and men.

Who is on the front cover and why?

The Horrors are on the front cover of NME, being a very clear representation of the magazine’s chosen genre of music, Indie. They have the appearance of young males who listen to Indie music, but this is obviously a stereotypical image that is followed by many Indie fans. I think the editing that has been done to the band’s faces makes it look scary and live up to the name of their band “The Horrors”. Also, the band have had massive success from 2006 to present, which is why NME readers would be attracted to purchase it.
Essence has soul and RnB singer Erykah Badu on the front cover, for many obvious reasons. The magazine is aimed at dark skinned women aged 30-45, women to admire the likes of Erykah Badu, who is a dark skinned woman, with the similar problems as other women in life, a single mother, heavy career to handle and success and fame that could put her children in danger. So, she shares her secrets with her fellow sisters.
What does the main cover line say? What does this imply about the artist/band? What overall message is the artist/band giving?
NME’s front cover line is the name of their front cover band, “The Horrors”, making it quite confusing as there are no main kickers or explanatory lines on the front but it gets to point very quickly.
Essence’s main cover line is “Be a Rich, Black Woman”, which implies that not only is this music magazine, but a magazine that offers tips and advice on how to climb the social ladder of life.

Are any (social/ethnic/political) groups being represented? How does the magazine represent them?
In Essence, the black ethnicity is promoted and the magazine is racially exclusive to white women, from the fact that the language they have used is only aimed at black women. The magazine represents the black culture very respectively and well, which is why there are so many dark skinned talented stars that have been credited for their work. There are no social, ethnic or political groups represented in NME. This may be because NME wants to stay away from representing anything socially, morally or ethnically and wants to just focus on music.
Are there any ‘buzz’ words? What effect does it have on the reader?

The words “hot”, “rich”, “sex” and “rock” all stand out, because these are the words that have been proven to constantly attract a reader’s eye in a newsagents. The effect these words have on the reader is that it makes the articles look more interesting and also promotes and augments the suspicion of what the article would be about, making the reader purchase the magazine.

What do the ‘kickers’ in the cover lines suggest will be inside the magazine? What does this tell you about the type of audience the magazine expects to get?

NME will have interviews with The Horrors and Glastonbury details. Essence will have articles on music with Erykah Badu and will have tips and advice on life aswell.

What colours are used? Do you find them attractive?
I like the colours used in NME, because they are colours that clash slightly and stand out, which is what Indie is all about, standing out and clashing. The bright, fluorescent colours like the yellow make it more striking to look at. The colours used in Essence are quite regal but faded, maybe used with an overlay or Gaussian blur on Photoshop, making it look attractive but also quite difficult to look at because it can make the reader feel dizzy.

What fonts are used and why?
A decorative and sans serif font is used in NME, to make it stand out more as there is quite little text. Essence uses sans serif font on all of its kickers but on the “buzz” words, it uses a serif font, to point out how “hot” the article and magazine will be.

Evaluation Draft

Evaluation Draft

Susan's Media Blog
In the evaluation the following questions must be answered:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
From the technical aspect of my Xpress magazine cover develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products. The camera angle used is a long shot, so I can include the playground’s appearance and connotations of it. The lighting in the picture was not edited on Photoshop, because I wanted the picture to look as natural as possible, which is why I took the picture in the playground, to use the natural light of the sun instead of lights. The advantage of taking the picture outside is that the sun is in my model, Nik’s, face which accompanies the picture with more clarity. The composition of the front cover is simple but meaningful, with Nik jumping and playing basketball, with the picture showing the basketball net and the playground, matching the magazine’s performing arts theme. The model I used, Nik, is a male with 17 years of age, was told by me to wear black and white specifically, to stand out from the red background. Also, I wanted the magazine model to look classy and sophisticated, with a student who dresses smartly.
The amount of text I have used is not as much as I had planned, mainly because I only wanted to use a few kickers and explanatory lines, to stress the meaning and connotation of my main image, of Nik playing basketball, jumping, reaching and working hard to achieve his ambitions and goals.
I have used an inclusive language device, by saying “Feel free to Xpress yourself”. Also, I have included all people who do not even attend a Performing Arts school, as I say “Are you scared of performing talent?” which can encourage and almost advise those who are not talented in performing arts. However, on the other hand, it could be perceived as an exclusive magazine because its core buyers and target audience are students who are members of a performing arts school or group, which can exclude others. The register is quite formal although I have included a very colloquial manner, to relate to the students and their worries, concerns and ambitions.

For my contents page, I have decided to choose a more different theme, by not using a primary image and just using black and white stripes, with a distorted effect to it, making it look more interesting for the reader to look at, almost like a crossword puzzle to entertain the reader whilst they look for a page. This does play with the codes and conventions slightly; however I have used page numbers and page names, just not an image, to be a more different option to other magazines. I have not included anything else apart from the page numbers and page names on my contents page, because I feel that students would not want to read anything else about the magazine publishers or editors and would rather just figure out what numbers the pages are on.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product represents students from the Sixth Form, who enjoy and take pleasure from playing sport, playing music, acting and drawing. This could also relate to the teachers however it is mainly aimed at social groups and ages of 16 and above. The model on my front cover is a male. I chose to take an image of a male because this school is an all girls school, but the sixth form is mixed, I wanted to show the gender equality within the school and show that the school accepts boys just as much as girls.

My contents page is a monochrome, striped page with the page numbers and page names written in a zig zag style. This can represent the spontaneous and creative side of the school and students, showing the confidence that they have within performing their talents. Also, it shows how black and white are significant colours, that can look as effective as brighter colours.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My magazine would be distributed in school, mainly because it is inclusive to all students in the school. However, there is a bar code on my magazine, which indicates that the magazine would be sold at least 50p each, raising money for a charity or for a school fund, paying towards more school equipment and facilities for the students.


• Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience would be students at the performing arts school, mainly because the language device used and the images are inclusive to the students. For example, on my front cover I have used kickers and explanatory lines such as “Are you scared of performing talent?” aiming at all students, young to older. The mode of address on my front cover is suitable for students because it is not too informal but not too formal, which is perfect for students to read. My magazine’s core audience would be girls and boys, referring back to the decision I made about using a male model instead of a female one, to promote gender equality within the younger generation.


• How did you attract/address your audience?
My contents page attracts students because monochrome is in fashion at the moment with young people and it has proven to be a much more effective use of colour rather than bright colours. I have not used a boring and neat order for listing the page numbers because I wanted the contents page to be like a crossword puzzle almost. Also, I wanted my contents page to look effortlessly good, without using any images and techniques that would look like masses of detail has been inputted. I wanted a simple but spontaneous looking contents page that would be attractive to the eye.
My front cover attracts both girls and boys for many reasons. Firstly, girls would like to see boys on front covers, especially because this is a all girls school with a mixed sixth form, to show that the sixth form has as much talent as the lower school. Also, boys would see the basketball being played on the front cover and immediately assume that the magazine would be their type. I have used bright colours on the front cover, in contrast to the contents page, because the colours should stand out just like talent should, which can be seen as an intertextual reference. I have used different types of fonts on the front cover, from a serif font to a sans serif to a decorative, to show the variety and for it look as creative as possible. I have chosen to take the picture in the courtyard rather than in the sports studio, mainly because I wanted the outdoor courtyard to match the colours I would be using, such as red and white and blue, rather than an indoor setting.

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have learnt a variety of techniques whilst constructing this product, using creative imagery to actually invent a product that you would see as a perfect way to address the students of the school. Using programmes such as Adobe Photoshop has helped me edit and change my primary image into an image that binds well with the text and looks good overall. The technique that I found most useful and effective was the Gaussian Blur tool and the Overlay colour too. This is because it gave my image more clarity and definition whilst not making it look as different as it originally was. The technique I found most difficult to use was the Magnetic Lasso, mainly because my image was a medium shot and it was difficult to edit the sections that I wanted, however it shows that the knowledge I have now of Adobe Photoshop will be helpful for the future.

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I felt like I have progressed within the past few months, because I never knew how to work with Adobe Photoshop, but now I know how to work most of the tools whilst taking images with more focus and attention, to make the image look as clear and understandable as possible, with all the sings and semiotics that will embellish the product, making it look as attractive to the core reader as possible.