Magazine Genre

My music magazine genre will be rock based like NME, Kerrang!, and Classic Rock.
To show my genre I will use text (LIIAR) and images.

L- The language of my magazine will be informal so it will appeal to my audience and connect with them. The language will be easy to read and easy to understand. The language will also include the text I use and graphics for that text as the text graphics can also represent the genre of my magazine.

I- The ideology of my magazine is to 'advertise' bands of the same genre as my magazine to a wide audience of consumers and to promote the "consumption" of new and old bands in the genre of my magazine. It will also inform the target audience of new upcoming bands in the form of reviews and interviews.

I- The institution of my magazine will be ICP Media who also publish NME. This is because they publish to a wide range of audiences and have a range of magazines that are aimed at different target audiences.

A- The audience of my magazine will be young to middle aged men and women who enjoy rock and indie music. The audience will appreciate a level headed approach to the music industry and enjoy the articles contained which will be informative of the music genre.
They will buy CD's frequently based on reviews they have read. The magazine will be targeted at ABC1 and 2 part of the market aged 25-45. This market contains a range of people who are classed as professional, skilled, and semi-skilled meaning they'll be able to spend more on a magazine.

R- What will be represented in my magazine to the consumer is the rock genre and bands and artists of that genre. Also, reviews of movies and CD's will be used to represent bands and artists as well as interviews.

Magazine Analysis

The main forms of conventions used in music magazines are;

• Genre of audience (whether demographic or lifestyle)
• Publisher
• Title/Masthead of magazine
• Suitable headings and subheadings
• Main image
• Any additional smaller images

Classic Rock Magazine Analysis

As part of my research for my music magazine I brought the music magazine "Classic Rock" to analyse.
I will use the key concept pairs to analyse the textual content of the magazine including contents, frontpage and articles.

General Information

Launch Year
1998
Circulation [more]
66,632 (ABC Jan 08 - Jun 08)
UK Cover Price
£4.50
Readership [more]
128,058 (Readership survey 2007)
Frequency
13 issues per year

Genre
"Classic Rock" is a magazine that is dedicated to the radio format classic rock. The magazine focuses on key bands from the 1960's through to the 1990's such as Guns N' Roses, Queen, Iron Maiden, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Bon Jovi, AC/DC and Thin Lizzy.
It also contains articles and reviews of contemporary artists or upcoming artists such as Wolfmother, Muse and The Answer.
Other similar magazines to "Classic Rock" are Q.
The musical genres represented in Classic Rock are rock, metal and grunge.
The title Classic Rock tells the audience the basis of the magazine is on rock classics such as Queen and The Rolling Stones.
"Classic Rock is the definitive voice in rock journalism going behind the scenes to bring, for the very first time, the real stories behind rock legends from Led Zeppelin to Metallica to Marilyn Manson and beyond. Focusing on hard rock, heavy metal and the older generation of rockers, Classic Rock offers interviews, news overviews, tour dates, retrospective articles and a hefty reviews section. This adds up to Classic Rock being a trusted and influential information tool."

Media Language
The language used in 'Classic Rock' magazine is informal, appealing more to the targetted audience.

Representation
The bands that are represented in 'Classic Rock' are mainly bands and musicians from the 70's and 80's with some articles featuring 90's bands and some newer bands like Wolfmother for example.

Ideology
"Classic Rock is the definitive voice in rock journalism going behind the scenes to bring, for the very first time, the real stories behind rock legends from Led Zeppelin to Metallica to Marilyn Manson and beyond.Focusing on hard rock, heavy metal and the older generation of rockers, Classic Rock offers interviews, news overviews, tour dates, retrospective articles and a hefty reviews section. This adds up to Classic Rock being a trusted and influential information tool."

The ideology of the magazine is to inform and advertise the audience of the "older generation" of artists.

Audience
Audience Profile
Rock Enthusiasts
91% go and see live bands every year
Readers spend on average 3 hours 48 minutes reading each issue
96% buy CDs every month, spending on average £32
93% are asked for, or offer, advice about music

Institution
Classic Rock is published monthly by Future Publishing who also publish SFX, Total Film, PC Format, Metal Hammer, Guitarist, Fast Cars and Gamesmaster which are stereotypically, magazines that are aimed at men with some exceptions like You Can Craft and Simply Knitting.

Front Cover




On the front cover is a dominate photo of Keith Richards who is also a main feature of the magazine. There is an article about Keith Richards in the magazine. The front page is basic. It has a blank background which makes the image of Keith Richards strumming a guitar stand out. The picture is iconic as Keith Richards ia best known as the guitarist of the Rolling Stones. Above the barcode which is a magzine convention is the logo of the publisher. In some magazines the publisher website rather than the logo is featured. The front cover defies some typical magazine conventions. For example, there are no headings or subheadings featured on the actual cover, however they were featured on the plastic packaging covering the magazine.

The plug featured is that there is a free cd and calender offered. This is to advertise the magazine to a wider audience as some people may only buy the magazine as they contain freebies. The headings are bolder than the subheadings so they stand out more. They also feature less writing.

Contents Page


The contents pages of the magazine are sepreated by groups. Main articles and regularly featured articles. The red sticker on the second contents page is bold and stands out from the rest of the text. This is probably to "advertise" the article to the reader. This technique maybe used to show an exclusive article.
The magazine defys the usual conventions of a contents page as usually the contents page is only one page, however in Classic Rock magazine it contains two pages; the first page containing a large medium shot of the musician and the second containing smaller images that are in medium close-ups or medium shots.

Other conventions such as headline and subheadlines are in the magazine and the issue number is featured on both pages.

Double Page Spread

The images in the above article look as if they've been taken backstage and during a gig by the band. This can represent the article as exclusive or a behind the scenes look at the band. There is little text shown in the double page spread; a brief article, heading, subheading and taglines for the photos.

The colours used in the Jimi Hendrix article above are iconic of the artist and the time time in which his music was released. The black and white photo can also be seen to represent the past or retelling of Jimi Hendrix's life.

The Stereophonics article has a slightly different use of conventions. The image only takes up half of the double page spread. The image is also blurred, showing the artist is playing the instrument. There is also motifs used at the bottom and top of the image.

Publishers

Publisher: IPC Media

IPC Media is a leading UK consumer media publisher.

Two in three women and 45% of men read an IPC Media published magazine.

IPC Media publishes over 80 magazines that include; Now, Look, NME, Golf Monthly, Marie Claire, Super Bike and Nuts.

Magazines: NME

NME is a weekly magazine since November, 14 1952 and is the longest published music magazine. Its coverage is of contemporary music.

The magazine has a circulation of 56,284.

Publishers

Publisher: EMAP
EMAP is a British media publisher that now specialises in the production and publication of business-to-business magazines such as MEED, Architects' Journal, Drapers, Health Service Journal and Nursing Times. However, in its past, EMAP has published othe magazines aimed at the consumer such as Smash Hits, SPORT, The One, Nintendo Official Magazine and Sega Saturn Magazine.
Magazine: Smash Hits

Smash Hits was a pop-based magazine that was aimed at children and young teenagers. Since its first published issue in 1978 the magazine had been published fortnightly.
However, due to falling sales it ceased publishing in 2006.

Institution Research - Publishers

Publisher : Bauer Consumer Media
Bauer Consumer Media is a large German publishing company that brought the consumer magazine division from EMAP in January 2008.
It publishes a wide range of magazines of different genres that include Kerrang!, Q and Mojo.
"Bauer Media owns more than eighty influential media brands spanning a wide range of interests, including heat, GRAZIA, Closer, MCN, FHM, Parker's, MATCH, Magic 105.4, Kiss 100, Kerrang!, all-new Q Radio and the Big City Network, our group of twenty local radio stations." http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/
Magazines: Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a weekly music magazine that has based over the years on the rock, emo, thrash, grunge, numeta, glam metal and metalcore music genre. Music acts such as Prince, Bon Jovi, Metallica, My Chemical Romance, and Nirvana have appeared on the frontcover of the magazine since its first issue was published on June 6, 1981.

The magazine has a circulation of 70,000.

Q

Q is published monthly and is aimed at older or middle-aged music buyers with music acts such as Paul Weller, U2, Level 42, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and recent acts like the Kaiser Cheifs featuring on the front cover since its first publish in 1986.

It seperated itself from other magazines when first published by having a monthly production with higher standards of photography and printing.

The magazine has a circulation of over 130,000.

Music Magazine Research

Language- The language of my music magazine must appeal to my readers. So if my magazine is aimed at readers who are upper class the language may be formal.
Many music magazines like NME, Q and Rolling Stone are written informally and address the reader.

Institution- The institution of my music magazine will be the publisher.

Ideology- The ideology of my magazine will be like most music magazines. To entertain and inform the audience.

Audience- The audience of my magazine will be music fans of the particular genre that I choose. (for example Kerrang! is aimed at people who are in to rock music)

Representation- The music artists and bands of the particular genre I select will be represented in my music magazine.

Main Task

The main task is to produce a music magazine consisting of a front page, contents page and a double page spread of an article.
So far I have researched how published magazines are layed out and I have also practised designing a magazine.

My magazine analysis of NME magazine can help me to work out how I'm going to design my music magazine.

Other music magazines that can help me with my task are;

• NME


• Kerrang


• Q


• Rolling Stone


• Mojo


• Top of the Pops


• Smash Hits!

Task Evaluation

· In what ways does your Media product use,
develop or challenge forms and conventions of
real media products?
My front page has an eye catching masthead that is distinguishable from the other fonts on the front page and so will stand out and be recognisable.
The headlines and sub headlines are all in the same font with eye catching colours. These both show the ideology of my magazine which is aimed at college students and shows representation of college students.
· How does your Media product represent
particular social groups?

· What kind of Media institution might distribute
your media product and why?
A college or learning established Media institution may distribute my media product as the ideology of my media product is to inform college students.
· Who would be the audience for your Media
product?
The audience of my media product is college students.
· How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted/addressed my audience by using bright coloured fonts and subjects in my headlines and sub headlines that I think will attract them.
· What have you learnt about technologies from
the process of constructing this product?
I've learnt how to use the layout of my magazine effectively to attract my target audience. I have also learnt to use Photoshop to design my front page.
· Looking back at the preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression
from it to the full product?
I have learnt more about magazine ideology and how they attract their audiences through research.

Final

Front Page - Draft

Accidentally, the images I had taken for the frontcover were deleted so I had to find images from the Internet. However, the headlines, subheadlines and masthead were all going to be on the frontcover with my photos.

The final draft of my frontcover was created on Photoshop.
The background of the photo is blurred so the person stands out more. The photo is of a student who is smiling and holding study books. This suggests she is happy.

The masthead "enlighten" is bright and bold so it is eye catching and recognisable like many magazines that are published.

The subheadlines are also in colours that stand out from the cover image so they don't blend in and become unreadable. They are written to give the reader a taste of what is in the magazine and to make them want to read the articles inside.

I placed the bar code at the bottom of the magazine as this is usually where they are.

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Actual Front Page

Because I had deleted the original photos I had to take some new ones with the ideology of a college. This meant that the layout and colour scheme in the front cover above were rearranged to fit in with the new image.

The conventions of magazine front pages can be seen on my own magazine, for example, the masthead, barcode, main image and headlines and subheadlines are all conventions of magazine front pages. The colour of the text was chosen to stand out against the photo. This is the reason why I chose the pink umbrella as darker and lighter colours would be able to show up over it.

Contents Page
The design for my contents page was based on "heat" magazines design. Simplistic. It also follows many of the standard conventions of a contents page that I discovered whilst researching magazines.

The colours yellow and blue were chosen because they are contrasting colours.

The subheadlines for the contents information has page numbers relevant to the article which is a convention I found in my research. The images are also relevant to the articles listed in the contents which is another convention of contents pages.

Magazine Articles/Topic Ideas

I need to have some basic ideas for headlines and subheadlines on my front page and contents page.
Each idea needs to be something to do with college and/or students as they are my target audience.

Masthead:
I have decided on the name Enlighten. I thought it was a suitable name for my magazine as it suggests that it will tell the reader all the latest news at the college.
The masthead will be a light colour and bright against a darker background.


Main Headline:
Because I haven't chosen my photograph for my front page yet I'm still not sure what this is going to be. Obviously it will be relevent to the photo

Subheadline:
I decided that I would have simple subheadlines like exam information and revision tips.


To attract my audiences eye I'm going to have a plug on my front page. The plug will be relevant to the ideology of the magazine. It will be about how the reader can win a laptop computer by entering a writing competition.

Magazine Name Ideas

I started to think of ideas of what my masthead will say and look like. In many magazines the masthead is either the dominant feature on the front cover or it is cropped behind the photo. I think my masthead will be slightly hidden by my photo.
I've been thinking of what my magazine should be called. I've been researching other school magazines but decided that if I named mine "Wyke" or something like that it would be too obvious.
I used an online thesaurus to get some ideas for names.
First, I typed in college and got institution. This gave me the idea of calling my magazine institute but the disadvantage of this is that it sounds too formal.
I then typed in the word knowledge. Attitude seemed like a good idea but it didn't show the ideology of my magazine.
With the word teach I came across a few other words that may be suitable. The word enlighten or enlightened seemed suitable as it gives the impression that the magazine is informative.

I also toyed with the idea of having an abbreviated name similar to NME which is an abbreviation of New Musical Express. For example I could call my magazine Knowledge Express but abbreviate to KE.

Mastheads should be instantly recognisable and so mine should have a defining feature.

Plans

Last lesson, I drew up a basic plan for my front cover and contents page to give me some ideas on what to put on it and how to fill out the initial layout.

Front Page

This draft is just representing a basic layout plan for my front page so I can wor out what images need to be taken and how much text space I can use. It is also a plan for the different conventions that I need to use in my magazine.
It is a general idea of where I want to place all the content so I have an idea of what I want on my front cover.
I have followed the basic conventions of a magazine front cover which I found out with the research on magazine front covers conducted in an earlier post to use as a baseline for my own front cover.
The basic layout will probably change depending on the images and text I use for the front cover and contents page. The colours I use will also depend on the image and text.

Contents Page

This, again, is a basic layout plan but for my contents page so I know which conventions to feature and where. It also gives me an idea of how much space I have on the contents page.

Foundation Portfolio Perliminary Task - College Magazine

The task is to create a college or school magazine front cover and contents page. The photograph for the front page must be of a student in medium closeup. I will use Microsoft Publisher, Word and Photoshop to create the front page and contents page.
To start the task I will begin to think of a design and name for the magazine. I have to think of the target audience and what would apply to them.
I will also produce a mock-up of my final ideas before further production of the final front cover. Also, I will produce blogs to present my research, planning and evaluation. The posts below contain some of the research I have conducted so far.

Analysis of Teen Vogue

Teen Vogue is aimed at an audience of teenagers girls between 16- 19 years of age. I know this because of the masthead which has the word "teen" in. The image on the front cover is also a well-known teenage actress who is seen as a role model to young girls.

Teen Vogue is a fashion magazine and the ideology is to show the new fashion trends. The magazine is published monthly and the first issue was published in 2003 as a version of Vogue suitable for a younger audience. As well as fashion, the magazine contains celebrity information, feature stories, stories on current issues and events, and the latest information in entertainment such as music and movie news. The magazine also contains tips on life such as stress reliefs which is advertised on this front cover.

The colours pink and yellow can be seen as a representative of the target audience as pinks are stereotypically associated with girls. The stories featured on the front page are also representative of females as the main focus of the stories are beauty and fashion.

NME Magazine Analysis

NME also has a target audience of 16 to 19 years olds. The magazine is published weekily and its in the price range of students. Its ideology is based on music and bands past and present.

NME has been published since 1952 and NME stands for the "New Music Express". The name was abbreviated to the NME. The full name of the magazine is featured in the masthead as well as abbreviated name.

The main image is of The Automatic. This is a representation of the ideology of the magazine which is music based.

The masthead is slightly covered by the main image which shows that the masthead is recognisable and iconic of the magazine.

The headlines and subheadlines also show representations of music as they are mainly band names or artists names.

The main conventions of magazines can be seen on this front page. The masthead can be seen in the right hand corner on this front page, it is slightly covered by the main image which is another convention of a magazine front page.

Magazines Aimed at 16-19 Year Olds - Heat Magazine

Heat magazine is one of the many magazines that are aimed at 16 to 19 year olds and older.

The magazine mainly focuses on celebrity gossip but has some focus on fashion and it's readers stories.

The title/masthead has been partially covered with "Charley"'s head which shows that the magazine is confident that most people know who they are.

Many of the articles in the magazine are based on situations happening at the time with celebrities.

Heat is mainly aimed at an audience of women

as the magazine contains fashion tips for women and gossip articles on celebrities.

The institution of Heat magazine is EMAP Consumer Media and Heat has been published since 1999.

The magazine is published in Great Britain which makes its audience British teens+.

Heat magazine was first published as a general interest entertainment magazine but it was proved that it wasn't very popular and so was revamped into a less serious magazine and more of a gossip orientated one aimed at women. High profile celebrity gossip (the yellow banner at the top of the front page saying "Brad still loves you!") fills most of the magazines pages as well as reality shows such as Big Brother (the Charley article shown above) and X Factor.

Heat also advertises the fact that it is a gossip orientated magazine with the sub headline "This week's hottest celebrity news".

Textual Analysis of "Secondary Teachers Magazine" Cover

The magazine "Secondary Teachers" is sent to Secondary schools around the country.

The front page is a wrap up. When you open the magazine and turn it around you can see that it is a joint front page.

On each side there is a student who looks presentable and smart. The boy has his hand up as if he is eager to answer a question and looking at the reader, drawing them in and involving the audience which is most likely targeted at secondary school teachers. the girl is looking at the boy which creates a connection between them on the cover.

The cover shows a battle of the sexes atmosphere. On the boys side of the magazine the sub headline "Do boys and girls learn differently?" is in blue and on the girls side of the cover the same sub headline "Do boys and girls learn differently?" is pink which is stereotypical of the genders. Girls are associated with the colour pink and boys are associated with the colour blue.

The background is white so the students are emphasized as the focus point. The text also stands out from the background. The white background also shows that the photo was taking in a studio rather than an actual classroom. This shows that the picture is slightly abstract as you wouldn't find a student posed like that in an actual classroom environment.

The sub headlines running across the top are also bright against the white background making them stand out.

The purpose of this magazine is to provide information on new styles of teaching and fun ideas to secondary teachers. The cover of the magazine shows this as it has photos of two students and the headlines and sub headlines are to do with teaching and new techniques of teaching.

Foundation Protfolio - Preliminary Task

To start the task we had to apply the media concept LIIAR - Language, Institution, Ideology, Audience and Representation, to the task of creating a college magazine front cover and contents page.

L - Language
The language refers to the text and images included in the layout and design of the magazine. It also refers to the language of the textand whether it is formal or informal depending on the audience the magazine is aimed at. This means that as my magazine is a college magazine aimed at students, the language will be informal to appeal to the audience

I - Institution
The institution of the magazine is the developer/producer of the magazine. The college will be the institution of the college magazine.

I - Ideology
The ideology is the ideas and aims shown in the magazine. The ideology of the college magazine will be positive connotations on the college who is producing the magazine. It will probably be aims and ideas of exams, revision, events and outstanding students from the college.

A - Audience
The audience is who the magazine isaimed at. The college magazine is aimed at students so they are the main audience of this magazine. The magazine will be adapted to suit the audience and so the magazine will appeal more to students.

R - Representation
The representaion of the magazine will be shown through text and images. The representation that will be shown will be based on the college who is producing the magazine.