MAGAZINE MEDIA LANGUAGE and how they represent your magazine (learn and apply! )
• Layout and design
• House style - do you recognise it as belonging to this magazine’s style and genre?
• Convergence – links to Photo Galleries, Videos, Downloads, Lyrics, Bibliographies, News, Gigs, Merchandising and Blogs
• Ratio of Photography to text – can reveal crucial information about the target audience
• Masthead - often contains advertising and evidence and convergence here (see TOTP)
• Cover Lines - also reveal linking and convergence and ‘sell’ the magazine’s contents
• Typography - use of serif/sans serif font, size and body type of font, bold, block, WOB, WOR, italics, underlining, upper case, lower case (different connotations e.g. bold, sans serif block on Q magazine’s cover has connotations of masculine culture in terms of target audience).
• Use of Graphics and graphical devices often reveal genre (Dance magazine front covers)
• Mode of address – reveal how the magazine speaks to its target audience
• Language code – restricted or elaborated again helping to identify target audience
• Colour/BW (monochrome) – bright colours often have connotations of Pop genre (TOTP)
• Lighting – again, bright lighting has connotation of pop, dark colours, rock
• Cover Price, Production Values , Advertising – identifies the socio economic target audience
• Taglines – very important in Music Magazines, a personal address to the audience
• Connotations of title – Q is very enigmatic while Top of the Pops is very obvious
• Publisher Name - revealing an independent or mainstream convergent organisation (EMAP)
• Framing, type of shot – Lilly Allen on Q cover is framed centrally revealing her importance
• Camera angle – Rock Magazines often have low angle subject camera signifying dominance
• Juxtapostion – what something is next to can reveal meaning (Lilly Allen and Black Panthers)
• Body language, expression, pose, eye contact (Lilly Allen seductively looks back at a male TA)
• Dress code and clothing (a half naked Lilly Allen reveals stereotypical female objectification)
Example – Rock Music Magazine Genre Conventions
• Males are usually the subjects, women are the objects (see Lilly Allen on Q magazine cover)
• Mainly use of dark colours, the use of night rather than daylight connoting mystery
• Photographs of stage performances in front of screaming crowds and Backstage footage
• Gestures of male bonding – ‘high fiving’, laughing and back slapping, male stereotypes
• Costumes are often dark coloured and can also be baggy and casual (male and female)
• Use of black and white (monochrome) creates an enigmatic, stylised representation
• Close ups of soulful singing into a microphone or playing to the camera, playing of guitars
• The juxtaposition of binaries of dark versus light – contrast engages the target audience
• Use of tracking, panning, crabbing shots , fast paced editing, slow motion (moving image music videos only but can be represented on a front cover by use of shot and camera angles)
• Montage shots of industrial, urban landscapes – industry has masculine connotations
• Close up shots of vocalist during emotional moments – emotion is a genre stereotype
• Close up shots of instrumentalist’s hands playing instruments – emotional cradling
• The use of shadow and use of backlighting (enigmatic, mysterious, aspirational – appeal)
• Heavy use of visual symbolism (often sexual as in the Black Panthers on Q magazine cover)
• Wide shots of the band together symbolising unity, a tightly knit group (good publicity)
