Magazine Analysis

Preliminary Task

Magazine Terminology

1/Masthead: The name and logo of the magazine

2/The Lead: The introduction to a text, usually bold or in capitals to catch the eye

3/Body Copy: the main article of text (usually grammatically correct) (Usually in Columns)

4/Serif Font: Font which has small bars (serifs) at the end of each letter (Like This Text)

5/Sans Serif Font: Font which does not have serifs present (Like This Text)

6/Drop Capitals: A significantly larger letter at the start of a text  (Like This)

7/Cross Head: small sub-heading to divide two bodies of text (Usually a quote from the text)

8/White Space: Any blank parts of the page

9/Mode Of Address: How the magazine talks to the audience

10/Sell Lines: Like a motto for the magazine (Kerrang- Life Is Loud)

11/Banners: Text made to stand out due to the contrasting background colour (Like This)

12/House Style: the overall, trademark like layout of the magazine, almost like the identity of the mag

13/Boarders: The gaps at the ends of pages

14;Gutters: Where the two pages meet in the middle and there is no text

15/Leading: The gaps between the lines of text in the mag

16/Kerning: The space between letters in the mag

17/Strapline: A secondary headline just below the main headline

18/Bylines: Credits to the people who produced each article including photo credits and data sources

19/Anchorage: When text and images go hand in hand and are relevant to eachother, supporting eachother

Ideology

The use of ideology is almost semiotic-like in the sense that photos are taken in a specific way to subliminally promote certain themes about a place.


For example the photo above was taken by a school clearly trying to promote the technological side of education and showing that their computer facilitates are of a high standard and superior to other schools, you can see this from the photo, it does not have to say it what so ever, you can quite simply see the ideological influence of the image.

On the contrary, the image above was taken to promote a more traditional approach to education which would appeal to parents wanting to chose a successful school for their child(ren). But once again, you need not read this, you get it all from the image.

Font Choices

My choices of font are "Vqb khonda" for my Masthead font and "Paramore Album Font" for the other features. both of these fonts appear to have edge which epitomises my Rock theme as the rock lifestyle is rough and edgy, the star in the "Rush" masthead is also implicit of the "Rock Star" lifestyle

"MASTHEAD"

 

"FEATURES"

 

Name Choice For Magazine

I chose 3 potential names for my magazine they are as follows;

"Garland"
"Rush"
"Typo"

Below is a table of why i chose each name, why each name was good, why each name was bad, and which i chose;

NAME:	Why did I chose this name?	What was good about that name?	What was bad about that name?	Did I chose this name?
Garland	Many Rock performers wear odd clothes like headbands if they have long hair, for this reason many Rock performers wear Garlands, this name obviously bared some resemblance to the topic of the magazine.	The name was synonymous with Rock N Roll and is unusual, so therefore stands out from the rest and makes for a memorable and effective title for a magazine	In order to really understand the name of the magazine, some explanation may be needed in order to shed light on the significance of the title to the magazine, for this reason the title to those who are unfamiliar or have a different level of associability skill to myself would not understand the name of the magazine and therefore not get the benefit of the name	No.
Typo	Has a primitive suggestion about the topic being “Edgy” and “Not neat and tidy” like Rock music is, this made for a clever title association	The name is slang-like so makes for a great demographic effect, as younger 16-30 year olds are likely to recognise the abbreviation and feel instantly attracted to the similarity of the title to modern day society	The title itself mildly applies the magazine may be illiterate, which may discourage potential buyers from purchase as the magazine may come across as “Incorrect” or “Effortless” if the theme of error is the first thing the customer sees.	No.
Rush	Has a naturally stimulating sound and meaning which is attractive the mind	The word is synonymous with the lifestyle of Rockers playing fast-paced music and living fast-paced lives with drugs and sex being intensifiers of life, the name also implies movement, as if the magazine would always be moving along with the latest news and will give the reader the feeling of a “Rush”	I couldn't find many negatives about this name other than the name comes across as a more superior verb which may not fit the rough image of the magazine	Yes.

Target Audience

My target audience will be for mainly the male sex as, in most circumstances, it was mostly boys and men that performed Rock music back in the 1950's and i will obviously want to aim my magazine to the correct demographic in order to achieve the best response from the mag and what better way to do this than to derive my information from the source of the music, the age span is fairly lenient, however for specificity i would put a 16-30 age bracket on the demographic age range, this is because the magazine will encounter all forms of the Rock N Roll lifestyle including expletive content which would be inappropriate to under 16's and most likely be uninteresting for anyone over the age of 30.

The magazine will have it's main focus on rock bands, not only music-wise, but lifestyle-wise also, so bands such as The Rolling Stones will fit the cast perfectly as characters such as Keith Richards and Mick Jagger have walked the many roads of the rock and road lifestyle (Sex, Drugs, Rock N Roll so to speak).

I intend to make the magazine aesthetically superior to other magazines in order to catch the eye of the potential buyers, this will be through interesting photos using the rule of thirds to capture the professional essence of published magazines as well as a consistent colour scheme and interesting style.

To sum up my Target Audience as specifically as possible, the magazine will be aimed at an 18 year old male who is into classic rock more so than modern music, who doesn't usually buy music magazines and only requires a basic music knowledge to understand and feel appropriately addressed by the magazine.

Moral Panic

Moral Panic is an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society. for example after the events of September 11th, a fear of middle-eastern people developed known informally as "Islamaphobia". this resulted in may middle-eastern people being discriminated against due to their ethnicity and religious preference, on the basis that is was a middle-eastern organisation (Al-Qaeda) who orchestrated, governed, and conducted the attacks. This resulted in the moral constituency being damaged severely, some may say the damage done will never heal. Another example of Moral Panic is the supposed affiliation between homosexuals and HIV/AIDS where there is a terrible stigmatism that all gay people have the disease and it was "A curse sent from god for being gay" and the "Gay Plague" which of course is completely incorrect and an outrageous allegation, including asylum seekers the list of stigmatisms towards certain groups of people which causes a public distress grows by the day. This process can also be referred to as "Folk Devil".

Stanley Cohen (Sociologist) actually observed that the media's impact upon events through their "Folk Devil" approach to events only ever intensified them and often the media would lie in attempts to sell more papers, however they would indirectly influence the events to follow, often negatively. For example in  1972 found that minor fights between Mods and Rockers in beach-side resorts were very much sensationalised by the media. One headline was “Wild ones invade seaside town – 97 arrests”.  In fact there were only 24 arrests. Cohen found that the media reporting led to increased policing which actually intensified the problem. More recently moral panics and consequent amplification have occurred about raves, football hooligans, girl gangs and terrorist threats.

Mood Board

This is a mood board portraying all of the conventional themes and stereotypical ideologies about the life of a Rock artist, deriving from the origins of Rock N Roll in the 1950's and 1960's all the way through to present day musicians showing how Rock music has evolved throughout the decades and has kept some of the same traits, whilst gaining a few along the way.

The board gives the viewer a brief insight into the basics of primitive rock and its motivations, as well as the key equipment needed for most conventional rock groups.

Photoshop Task

Today I was require to use image editing software (Photoshop) to remove some blemishes from a models' face. I fell I have performed the process well whilst maintaining the realism of the image.

 

Before

 

After

Then I was asked to Photoshop some bottles from a wall leaving only one on the wall, whilst maintaining the background in the image. My result is as follows;

 

Before

 

                                                                              After

Music Mag Questionnaire

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1xO2wh3xnG3pdVZvCaBF5AhiYg2FeqDlh4keG6MWuOpU/viewform

Semiotics

Semiotics is the concept that everything used (in a magazine for example) has a reason for being that specific way (for example a Female based magazine being Pink or a cookery book having a kitchen background). These are used in all magazines to subliminally attract the potential buyer of the magazine to actually purchase the mag... one way semiotics is demonstrated is with the "Male Gaze" theory produced by Laura Mulvey. The Male Gaze is the theory that women are very effective at maintaining the concentration and focus of heterosexual men due to the sexual desire of the men acting upon the women, thus subliminally attracting the men to the films the women played in. This theory is detailed below...

InDesign

InDesign is a professional program which allows you to create a series of professionally tailored documents for a variety of scenarios (ours being a magazine). the excellent features of the program would allow us to create a professional-standard magazine for our studies by boasting such features as Gutters, Orphans and Widows, Wide Varieties of Text Formats and many other incredible features.

The above is an example of a magazines bare skeleton features with a title, tagline, picture and text with the use of all the features mentioned above.

Photoshop

Photoshop is a program which allows the user to alter images in any way possible, for better or for worse. Photoshop is often used to correct photos which have flaws in them (Red Eye, Spots, Etc) by removing the infringing elements of the photos in very advanced and effective ways, photos often maintain their natural character and you can very rarely notice Photoshop as it's ability to alter images whilst maintaining realism is second to none.

We used Photoshop to edit anything from people faces who needed spots removing with the Spot Removal tool, to completely removing bottles from a wall whilst trying to maintain the background of the picture.

Feminism

Over time, views of women in the media have dramatically changed as in this day and age we see respected female musicians get the gratitude they deserve, however going back 50 years and women were often indirectly scrutinised by male publishers of music magazines, whereas musicians like Adele are commended on their vocal ability and lyrical genius, 50 years ago in comparative to Adele, Marianne Faithful was often compared to cute animals and not given any graduation as a musician in her own right. This is just one of many examples of how feminism has altered the view society has on women and how women have used this to their advantage to gain their rightful honour musically.

Site I Like

http://www.apple.com/uk/

I chose the Apple website as I like the use of simplicity in every aspect of the site, I feel it portrays a professional image of the company and thus would make me more likely to purchase an Apple product, as i have purchased Apple Earphones and an Apple Ipod.

28 Weeks Later. Trailer, Film Trailer

An apt use of music and camera angles+effects helps create the overall feel of the film "28 Weeks Later" by using fast, intense and jumpy camera angles along with eerie, depressing music to characterise the scenario. these are the key features of a successful advertisement for almost every horror film in existence.

Beatles Rock Band. Trailer. Game Trailer

As a massive Beatles fan, I was rather please when this game was released and i like the use of cut-out animation to advertise the game, as well as the advanced chronology of the game trailer both aesthetically and Audio-wise, as this makes for an effective and apt trailer, which then of course means people are more likely to buy the game  

Foo Fighters. Walk. Music Video

Like most Foo Fighters music videos, the music videos produced by the band are often an outlet for the humour of the band, and "Walk" is no exception, as a parody of the film "Falling Down", the video includes many humerus scenes and is a very good video overall, as humour is often a very safe and generic route to follow when selling your products to the world.

Introduction

 My name is Sam, I'm 16 and I'm from Liverpool, I am a big fan of music and can play the Guitar, Drums, Piano, Bass, Harmonica and i sing a little too.

I chose Media Studies because in order to further progress my musical aspirations it is important for me to familiarize myself with "The Media" , its aspects and understanding how to produce different forms of media related articles, (Videos, Fliers, Papers, Etc).

Hopefully after I have finished the course i can use my qualification to benefit my progression in the music industry to a certain degree.