Textual Analysis Of Contents Pages

This contents page is part of the magazine NME. It is very busy and colourful, which makes it stand out.
The NME logo is shown at the top left hand corner of the page, to refer to the front cover of the magazine, which is a constant reminder to the audience what magazine they are reading. The colour scheme on this page is very different, the background of the page is white, were as the texts are different colours, for example red, black, pink and purple texts. This creates a mood for the magazine and also shows the genre of music it features. The contents is separated into different sections on the page. There is a bigger, longer list running down the left hand side of the page, which makes searching for an article alot easier than if it was dotted around the page. The main stories in the magazine are highlighted and are made much more colourful and bigger than the rest of the contents, by doing this it catches the readers eye, so they go directly to the article to read it. By using the different sections in the contents, it creates a the effect of alot more contents, therefore much more in the magazine, which will make the audience think that they are getting much more for there money and from the magazine. A subscription advertisement, in the left hand bottom of the page which reads 'Subscribe today and save over £45' . This is used in yellow text which stands out from the rest of the page because that colour has not been used on it more than once. It gives the magazine an opportunity to get more costumers to make sales. There is not one main image on this contents page, which is unusaly however there are three small images that relate to what is being mentioned in the contents listings and features.






This contents page is part of the magazine 'Rolling Stone'. We know this because the logo is shown in the top left hand cover which reads 'RS' this stands for Rolling Stone. This contents page consists of one main image which is placed at the left hand side of the page, and runs into the middle of the page, leaving a small place for the contents of the magazine to be, running down the right hand side of the page. The main image refers to the main article of the magazine which feautres the singer Kanye West. The image of him is performing at a concert, and it reads 'Kanye's Big Return' this tells us about what the article is about. The colour of the background is white, which contrast the colour of the picture, which is mainly dark colour such as red.
It also allows the text to be seen on the white background with black text.

Textual Analysis Of Double Page Spreads

This is a double page spread featured in the NME music magazine, along side of the NME front cover i analysed. The main focus of this double page spread is the image of Lilly Allen' and the quote, which has been pulled out of the interview which she has featured in underneathe the quote and image. The colours used on this double page spread,
The colours used, are plain and simple. However it gives an good aspect on the double page spread because it is bright and eyecatching, grabbing the readers attention. The background of the double page spread is all white. The pull out quote is much more eye catching, because the quote is placed on a black background with white font presented. The interted colours are used to catch the readers attention, make the page stand out, and the quote that has been pulled out of the interview, giving it it's importance. The main image, of Lily Allen is in colour which also makes a big contrast on the page, wearing red, it makes her stand out from the page, however makeup that is used on Lily makes her pale, making her face almost white. Lily's hair colour also appears much darker than it would be in natural lighting. By using her face and hair contrasting in black and white, it contines the colour scheme used on the page, making it much more matched therefore presented well.
The main image of Lily, is placed at the right hand side of the double page spread. The shot used of her is a medium shot, which shows Lily from her waist up. The way Lily is posing also suggests the attitude of the article, which in this case is her dominating the page, by Lily leaning forward towards the reader, shows she doesnt care about people think or the opions they have on her.
The costume Lily is wearing can also represent her attitude and personality. By using a red shirt, this could reflect her firery personality and her the fact that she wants to stand out from any other artist. Editing the image also makes it stand out from the page, therefore attracting the audiences attention to her and the quote beside her. The quote that is used 'People think I'm an attention seeker, but I'm just honest' dominates at least three quaters of the page which goes from the left hand side to the image of Lily at the right hand side. This quote has been picked out of the interview for a particular reason, in which it could represent and reflect Lily's attitude towards people who critsise her, and also shows her personality through this, therefore catching the readers attention so that they want to read more of the interview. The letters and font used varies in sizes. Some of the lettering are in upper case and some are in lower case, however not the the correct way they are supposed to be used. The upper case letters are dotted in each word randomly giving the quote an edge creating vartiety. It could also reflects Lily herself as a person, making her unique and different to other artists. By doing this it attracts the audience, they will want to see her other opionions and feelings on the media and the subject beein represented through the interview. All the features used are to make the magazine alot more sucessful by catching the audiences attention. The quote and picture bring the two pages together, by carring the quote on to the other page joins them together to make a well presented double page spread.
























This is a double page spread from the magazine 'Rolling Stone' which features the band, The Killers.
This double page spread is mainly, one big image, of all 4 members of the band. The image is in black and white which makes the band's faces whiter and makes them stick out from the page, it also does this with their hands, this is important because they are all making the same shame with their hands abit like a claw, this could symbolise there attitudes and feelings about music and the hand action could symbolise that they want to get out of the page, therefore could mean that they want to explore music. All the members of the band are looking in different directions however the singer of the band (3rd from the left) is looking diredctly into the camera, and is more towards the camera than the others behind him. This tells the audience who the singer is and also the eye contact would catch the eyes of the audience therefore bringing them to there attention so that they would read the article.
They is very little text on this page, the main headline reads 'The Killers' and 'Inside' below in smaller text. The headline 'The Killers' is the name of the band, which informs the reader about what and who the article is going to be about. It is in big blocked lettering, and is the biggest text on the page, and the most important.

Textual Analysis Front Covers

This magazine i am analysing is called NME, it is a indie, rock magazine. It is a British magazine that is published and released every week. The language used on this front cover, and throughout the magazine, is very informal and the layout on the front cover is very compact. There is a big headline that reads 'LILY ALLEN TAKES ON THE WORLD' this is done in bigger bolder fonts that the other headline and plugs on the page. The colour of this main headline is black and white. A white font on a black background, this helps the headline stand out even more because of the contrast of colours. Red and yellow are also used on the front cover, again these colours are bright, and eye catching which encourages the audience to buy the magazine because they are able to see clearly what is going on in the magazine and who they are talking about. Representation of colours are also used, red, black and white, represent the genre of rock because they are stereotypically related to rock. These 3 colours help give the magazine a more dramatic edge to the stories, and help it stand out.
The audience of this magazine is:
Male = 69%
Female = 31%
Average age = 24
Working full time = 52%
Working part time = 7%
Students = 29%
abc1 = 65%
http://www.ipcmedia.com/mediainfo/nme.pdf

These statistics show that both men and women buy the magazine, however the percentages how that men are more likely to buy it. Lily Allen is also used to attract males, but can also take interest of females, who like her music, which shows that the magazine has no particular target gender. The average age of the people who by the magazine is 24, again this shows us a target audience of quite younger people.
The title of the magazine has been abbreviated to NME from new musical express. By doing this it gives the magazine a much shorter, catcher and noticeable name for the magazine. It also allows the audience to remember the magazine name, because it is short. This magazine features different types of music genres, however focuses on a rock and indie genre more than others. On the front cover, the picture of Lily Allen represents the rock genre by the costume and lighting used.Her hair is darker and the costume used is red which is also a stereotypical colour for the rock genre. The lighting used makes Lily's face much lighter than it would be, which makes the dark makeup around her eyes stand out allot more than it would of done if the lighting wasn't so bright, again this gives the magazine a much more rock image, even though the songs Lily Allen sings are not the rock genre. It helps establish to the audience what type of magazine this is, and what is featured inside it.



This second magazine i am analysing is Rolling Stone. This magazine features all different music genres. It originates from America, and normally features American artists, and actors/actress's, politics and popular culture and is published every 2 weeks. The magazine colours, are much more suttle than the ones used on the NME cover, They include a grey/blue coloured background and, the colours for the headlines are either, red, black, white and a light blue. It is also less crowed with headlines than NME. The main picture is of Angelina Jolie, she is an actress from America. By using actors featured in the magazine it appeals to much larger audience, because if a customer wasn't much into music, but liked films, this magazine could appeal to them as well. The magazine has an advantage by doing this.
The main picture is covering part of the masthead, this gives the impression that the magazine is so well known it doesn't need to show all of the masthead, it establishes how popular the magazine is. The picture also establishes what gender this magazine is aimed for, by using an attractive female, male are more likely to buy the magazine therefore, the magazines main audience depends on who and what is on the front of the magazine. For this particular magazine, men are more likely to buy it because it has an women on it, however if it featured an attractive male on the front, women would be more likely to buy. Therefore the audience of this magazine varies on the features of each magazine published every 2 weeks. This also gives the magazine an advantage of gender audiences and the a variety of storeys, and features they can include in the magazine, making the magazine alot more interesting and popular.
The headline 'The HOT list 99' is the most eye catching of all the headlines included on the front cover. All the words in this headline are all different colours, 'The' is coloured black and is rather small font, were as the word 'HOT' is the biggest in the headline and is bright red, this is a stereotypical colour for the word Hot, as many things that are hot, go red, for example, fire ect. Also the colour red, is linked to romance and sex, and in this case the context the word 'hot' is referring to is on how attractive the people are, featured in a list.
The main picture, of Angelina Jolie is placed in the centre of the page, with headlines placed around here, along the sides of the page. By doing this, Angelina dominates the whole page in contrast with the headlines, therefore the feature of her which is included in the magazine is much more important than other, and is the main story. Also the 'THE HOT LIST '99' headline could be referring to Angelina Jolie, and may indicate that she is featured in the list. We could suggest this by the way she is posing, in a seductive way, and is also wearing very little, therefore men would see her as 'hot'



Top of the pops is aimed at young teens aged 12 - 15 years old and has said to be the best top selling young teen gossip magazine.
The magazine includes a pop star interview and a picture on the front cover, gossip, fashion trends and beauty tips. It also includes a poster of a popular celebrity which is aimed so that readers will pin it to there walls. Top of the pops regularly use bright colours such as bold, pinks and yellows, colours which stand out. The colour pink is very frequently used on the front cover, which tells us about the gender of the audience the magazine is mainly aimed at young girls, we know this because the colour pink is a stereotypical colour which represents girls.
The use of bright, bold colours is also used so that the magazine is in contrast against other magazines, it draws the eyes of the audiences, attracting buyers. The poster included within the magazine acts as a entertaining, treat for the audience, this will also attract buyers. On the front of the magazine, the front cover establishes who the celebrity is this week by putting a main image of that celebrity directly in the middle of the front cover, which in this case is the newest winner of X Factor, Alexandra Burke and its main headline underneath the picture of Alexandra is 'HOW I BEAT MY BULLIES' This could be seen as giving advice to the audience by the use of a iconic celebrity. Also The X Factor was a very popular show, and the fact Alexandra won it means that she is popular, therefore buyers are more likely to buy the magazine.
As well as the main image, the front cover consists of other stories that are included in the magazine, informing of that other stuff is in the magazine which persuades buyers. They has also included The Jonas Brothers' and JLS (x factor finalist) Which are also very popular with the targeted audience, encouraging them more to buy the magazine. It Also includes a A-list looks to buy count down, which indicates fashion which is also very popular with the target audience.
Alexandra Burke image is covering part of the title 'Top of the pops' which also indicates, that the magazine is confident enough to do this, because the magazine is well known.

Key Concepts

Appling key concepts to my music magazine will help me to develop it further. I am using the acronym LIIAR: language, institution, ideology, audience and representation.

Language
The language used on a music magazine, or any other magazine needs to be advertising to its audience. This means it needs to be bold, bright, and have a short but snappy name for the magazine . Bold and bright so it stands out and catches the audience eye but short and snappy so the audience recognise and remember the name of the magazine, which may mean it will be come more popular to a regular audience. Colours of the main headlines may be used to theme the magazine for example if it was a pop magazine it would be bright and cheerful because pop music is generally happy music and also aimed for a younger audience, were as heavy music magazine such as kerrang tend to use more darker colours. this helps symbolise the type of music the magazine is representing and also its audience.

Institution
Well known magazines such as NME and Kerrang are published by companies such as future and IPC. It is my aim for my magazine is to tell the intrests of my audience what is going on in that particular music genre but also the music industry as a whole. I will also be concemplating new artist new to the genre and upcoming events that the audience may be interested in. I will also add other little details such as what other bands have been doing to keep the audience up to date and to keep them interested.

A really big company is EMAP which is the leading UK trade exhibition organiser and runs over 400 events across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. It operates major information businesses serving fashion, automotive, construction and media and has leading publications including Retail Week, Broadcast and Construction News.

Future which publishes "special interest" magazines, including Fast Car, PC Plus and Total Film which has a market cap of about £31m. The company now publishes 100 magazines, runs 70 websites and hosts 20 events.
Mixmag is a british dance and clubbing magazine with a circulation of 37,139 and a readership of 276,000 as of August 2008, it claims to be the biggest selling dance/clubbing magazine in the world.

Ideology
The idelology for music magazine such as NME, is to share the interest and inform its targetted audience of the issues and events that are happeneing in the music industry but also the sperficic music genre, it also promotes the music genre by advertising it in such magazines. Its aim is also to entertain readers whilst raising these issues, by doing so the magazine is to gain a regular audience. NME also promotes new artists in that music genre and also keeps the audience updated on artist that are more established in the music industry. Using this ideology i can apply it to my own magazine, even though i am using a different genre to NME the same ideology can be applied to it, helping promote and inform the audience of my own music magazine.


Audience
The audience that my magazine will be targetted for is children and teenagers ages 8 - 14. My magazine genre is pop and alot of young children and teenagers like the pop genre. This means that i will have to use the language and other aspects to suit children for example extravigant colours and bold writing so that it applys to them but also applies to there parents so that they recgonise that this magazine is suitable for them to look at.

Respresentation
The representation presented in a music magazine establishes the music genre it is about. Magazines such as 'HipHop Collection' use the type of music to appeal to a certain audience. However music magazine such as 'Rolling Stone' talks about a bigger vartiety of music genres presennted within it which means that it is going to have a bigger audience that all like different music genres. The magazine will also represent the artist or group on the front cover so that the audience can see what type of genre it is representing, and it will appeal to the right audience For example if the targetted audience is mainly young women, the magazine will place a picture of an artist or group which contain young women so that the audience can relate to them. If the magazine represents music groups they will place a group picture on the front of the magazine so it will appeal to an audience that like music groups.