Double page Spread Annotation

Second Contents Page Annotation

First Contents Page Annotation

Third Front Cover Annotation

Second Front Cover Annotation

First Front Cover Annotation

Magazine cover analysis

Analysis of magazine covers

These are two different magazines in the genre of Rap/ Hip-hop. The common conventions in Rap and Hip-hop magazines are tough, gangster looking music artists. Lots of jewellery shows that they’re rich and can wear what they like. This appearance shows they have a lot of power.

I choose to talk about these two covers because they are definitely all the opposites of the conventional Rap and Hip-Hop covers. The cover on the right shows a well-known music artist ‘Kanye West’. However he is not shown covered in ‘Bling’ as rapper usually are. His facial expression is also quite sad and this seems to make us think that he is not as tough and powerful as all rappers seem. His beard has some grey hairs and this makes him seem old. This is the total opposite of a stereotypically gangster rapper.

The second magazine also challenges conventions and it does this by putting a beautiful woman on the cover with revealing clothing. This magazine is uses sex as a selling point. As I said before, the stereotypically rapper is covered in jewellery and must look tough. This is such and opposite and I believe these challenging conventions are used to grab your attention.

However there are many conventions to do with the layout of the magazines, which is kept the same. The fonts are usually thick bold writing. This shows strong wording and a macho style layout. This style of writing is usually associated with Rap and Hip-hop.

The magazine on the right has its masthead covered. This shows that the magazine is well known and people know what magazine it is without actually reading the masthead. The left third of the magazine is where you attention is drawn to on cover. Having an eye on the left third really increases the focus on a person. In both magazines there are eyes in the left third and this allows us to focus on the images, which will make want to buy the magazine, it seems more interesting. Having lots of writing here can be boring and this will result less people wanting to buy the magazine meaning fewer sales for the magazine.

The layout for both magazines is quite similar. There is a famous person on both who cover almost the entire length of the cover. The cover on the right uses a close up. The reason for this is that it shows the effects, which have been used on the artist. This include, grey hair in his beard, messy hair and his eyes are slightly closed showing he could be tired and stressed. The corresponding story for this image is ‘ The truth hurts’. This could suggest that he is dealing with hard news and has let him self-go. He doesn’t care about his appearance. This is what the image portrait. Although this challenges conventions of Rap and Hip-hop magazines it could also show a convention that rappers are so tough that they do not care what people think about them.

The cover on the left uses a long shot. The reason for this is similar to the cover on the right. It is used to focus on the person, again a famous singer. However, the reason a long shot is used instead of a close up is the focus is on the body of the singer. The shot type was selected to show the singer in revealing clothes. The purpose for this is to engage readers and use sex as a selling point.

The cover lines are on the edges of the page. This means there is more space for the image. The image is the main aspect of a cover as this is what grabs the reader’s attentions. It is important that the images are not covered or covered as little as possible to make it more interesting.

The mis en scene used in both these magazines is very unique as far a Rap and Hip-hop magazines go. The magazine on the right seems to go against well-known stereotypes for rappers. We cannot see all of him but we can see his face and judging by this we can see he is very different from other rappers. He seems very depressed and the grey hairs in his beard make him seem old. Rappers are not old at all and this makes him instantly seem like the opposite of a rapper.

The woman in the cover of the magazine on the right is wearing revealing clothes and this makes her seem like a ‘sex object’. This could be used for many things, either that she is being used to interest readers and make them want to buy the magazine. The other way it could be used is to show the opposite of stereotypical rappers. The woman on the front is actually a rapper as well.

Audience Theory

Audience theory

There are 6 different types of audiences. These are:
(A) Upper middle class
Top management, bankers, lawyers, doctors and other professionals
(B) Middle class
Middle management, teachers, many 'creative' e.g. graphic designers etc
(C1) Lower middle class
Office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc
(C2) Skilled working class
Skilled workers, trades persons (white collar)
(C) Working class
Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (blue collar)
(D) People at lowest level of income
Unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers

Using these groups of audiences media institutions will conduct market research while in the making their media text. They need to think what the particular target audience will like. Things that will determine what they like are things like their age, gender, where they live etc. After working out what they need to add they will then incorporate that into there magazines that will increase their sales.

In the 1920s a theory was thought that large audiences would interrupt mass media in different ways. The theory basically says that people are injected with media. Once taken in, this then influences people and this was largely used during the World Wars to recruit more troops. Mass media was new when this theory was thought up. Things like radio and cinema were about 20 years old.

The Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that, media might easily change the audience’s behavior and thinking. The information is passively absorbed. This theory is still used today.

A well-known case of this was two boys named Jon Venables and Robert Thompson who killed a toddler named Jamie Bulger. The boys were influenced by violent video games and movies. This is what was thought to make the boys commit this awful crime.

Here you can see a famous rapper holding a gun. This can influence people listening to Rap and Hip-hop or following this culture to think it is correct to posses a gun. Media is giving off the wrong impression in this case..

Main Task Introduction

The objective of our main task is to create a Front cover, contents page and double page spread for a music magazine. The music magazine genre i have decided to make is a Rap / Hip-hop magainze.
The reason i chose Rap and Hip-hop was because i am aiming my magazine at teenagers and people that are in their early 20's. Rap and Hip-hop is very popular amongust this age group and that is why i thought it would be good to aim it at them.

To make sure my magazine is successful i will complete some market research. The reason for doing market research is to find out what people like and would want in the magazine. I can then incorperate this into my magazine and hopefully this will make it more intertesting and a better reading experience.

My Preliminary task magazine cover

My contents page