Main Task: Textual analysis of a music magazine front cover

Textual analysis of a music magazine front cover

Denotation

The denotation of this image consists of a famous singer: Kelly Rowland with a direct contact with the camera, hugging herself in front of a greyish, faded green like background. She’s wearing a black see through top and greyish trousers. At the top left hand side of the magazine is the title of the magazine.

Connotation

The main image of this JET magazine is of a Midshot of a famous singer Kelly Rowland which takes up most of the magazine front cover. This could suggest this music magazine is mainly an R&B magazine as she mainly produces music from that genre. As she’s from a black background it could also suggest that it mainly features stories on more black artists than white as many magazines produced in America are like this usually depending on who the publisher is and what type of magazine genres they publish. Her NVC shows she looks serious and fierce. Her arms could be wrapped around her as to symbolise her passion for music and just how closely she keeps it to her. The background could suggest that R&B genre of music is quite calm as the colour seems peaceful. As Kelly Rowland is a global well known artist, this is good as it could help the magazine attract readers; it could help attract fans of Kelly Rowland but also help to attract more fans for her. As she is directly looking at the camera, we get a sense of interaction between her and the person reading the magazine.

Masthead

The masthead – ‘JET’ is pasted on the top left hand corner and is in a sans serif, white text. It stands out because it is bold and has a background which does not clash with its colours.

Main Coverline

The main cover line anchors the main image as it is about Kelly Rowland. It is written in a sans serif text and is on top of the main image and says ‘Kelly Rowland, IN charge’. It is written in white and pink and also blends in with the rest of the colours used in the magazine. The pink arrow anchoring the text in pink just below the main coverline saying ‘On record Label Drama, New Music & Creating Her Own DESTINY’ could symbolise because she now going solo from her group destiny’s child she is now in charge of her own music and is looking towards making her way to the top as the arrow is pointing in an upwards direction.

Coverlines

The first coverline at the top right hand corner says ‘Is Obama losing with independents?’ this could represent that the music magazine also focuses on issues going on in America not just focuses on the music industry. The second coverline below that says ‘what’s in this fall: 3 Beauty tips Just For You’, this text is also sans serif but is written in 3 different colour shades: green, light green and white. This coverline could also represent that the music magazine features articles on health and beauty as well as other articles relating to the lifestyles of celebrities. The colours used for this font could symbolise the glamour in which this magazine portrays in each articles about the people it features.

Dateline

This feature of the ‘jet’ magazine has a dateline under the masthead; it is white and written in sans serif text. As this magazine is a music magazine and is purchased in stores it has a dateline of ‘Sept 6/13 2010’. This shows that this is the 6^th of 13 issues to be published. Like many magazines in which are sold in stores datelines are mainly there so the readers can keep up to date with the articles as well as stories involving the music industry in which are released at that particular time of the year.

On the bottom left hand corner of the magazine there is also a bar code in which has the price of the magazine on top of it. As many music magazines are sold we notice that this magazine cost $1.99.

Selling line

Unlike most music magazines, ‘JET’ has no selling line, which is quite unusual for magazines, this could be because the magazine is already up in the market and doesn’t really need to sell out it’s editorial philosophy in order to target it’s main audience.

Conclusion

Overall I think that the magazine front cover is very effective as the colours that are used for the front cover all go well with each other and the main image used is very good at attracting readers. Also that it not only shows that the magazine is for the readers entertainment but also suggests that it’s target audience if roughly from those of the age of 16 to people in their late 20’s. I would also say this music magazine cover is simple but yet looks professional as it has a consistent style in which is kept; using 2 types of fonts and not looking too busy.



Main Task

For the main task of my coursework I am going to create a magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread.

Preliminary Task: AS Coursework - College Magazine and Front Cover And Analysis

This is the college magazine front cover that i designed using Adobe photoshop CS3. 

Strengths:

• The colours i used blend in with each other and look well prsented on the page. As the front cover is colourful this is good as it means that it can attract the reader's attention and hopefully make them wnat to read it. 
• My photoshoping skills helped as the main image is in focus and looks well presented. Also the front cover looks well structured with a consistant style not too busy.
• The mise-en-scene on the front cover image all relates to college life, therefore showing that i thouroughly thought about what type of magazine i was making and who my target audience were.

Weaknesses:

• The masthead goes over the head of the person in my main image. This is a weakness as it could across as a magazine that doesnt really consider the importance of the students that attend the college. It would've been much better if the masthead was behind her head, however due to my photoshoping skills i did not know how to edit my piece of work to that exent.
• Another weakness is the person i photographed for the front cover is wearing a multicoloured top. This limited the amount of colours i could use as most colours clashed with the coulours on her top.
• The fact some of the colours on the top of the girl i photographed clash with alot of the font colours, some of the words cannot be clearly seen, especially with the coverline that says 'Advice and Support'.

Strengths

• The contents page is quite colourful which is good as it can capture the reader's attention.
• The main image i used is good as it in focus and appears to be edited quite well.

Weaknesses

• As it has a simple layout, the reader's may not be as excited to keep reading it as it's quite straightforward and not as busy
• As some of the colours i used for my contents blend in with the background, it would have been better if they were a diffrernt colour or even if i used a a different text style so the colours do not appear to clash.

Preliminary Task: Photographs

These are some of the images i took for the college magazine i was going to make. I made sure that i took images of students as my magazine is a college magazine.

Preliminary Task: College magazine draft layouts

These are the images that i drafted out for the front cover of my College magazine

These are the images that i drafted out for the contents for my College magazine.

Preliminary Task: Audience Research Graphs Evaluation

Question 1

This is my first question in my questionnaire. I randomly selected 20 people to fill out my questionnaire and found out that I handed out the questionnaires to 10 females and 10 males. I did this randomly so that my results would not be dominated by any factors. The main reason why I asked this question was because i wanted the questionnaire to be representative of college students of both sexes. 

The graph shows that I gave out my questionnaire to 10 males and 10 females. This is quite good as it assures that me answers will not be biased or one sided due to the gender of the people. Instead there is a sense of equality, therefore meaning my results are going to be neutral as they are from both sexes.

Question 2

I asked this question because I wanted to know the age of most of the people that filled out my questionnaire. Even though the ages ranged between 16 and 19, I wanted to see whether their answer s would be influenced by their age. The reason why my age groups vary between 16 and 19 is because my questionnaire is based on college students.

Even though I randomly selected people to fill out my questionnaire, the graph shows that out of 20 people most of the people that completed the questionnaire were 16 year olds. This is quite good as most college students are 16 and 17, therefore when closely examining their answers I know who my target audience are and how they feel about certain things being featured in the college magazines.

 Question 3

I asked this question because I was interested in knowing whether most college students like reading magazines. This is a useful question to ask as it means if most of my participants do not enjoy reading magazines, then I have to research why they don’t and try to make the issue I publish make them interested in reading them.

From the results I got back from the questionnaire, the pie chart shows that all of the participants that done this questionnaire enjoy reading magazines. This is good as it gives me the confidence that the students will recognise the fact the college has a magazine and may just pick it up and read it.

Question 4

I asked this question because I wanted to know what type of magazines my participants were interested in reading. This would have helped me because then I can compare the different types of magazines and if for instance many of the participants enjoy reading music and fashion magazines then it could help me decide what music and fashion based features I could include in my college magazine.

The graph shows that many of my participants enjoy reading sports and college magazines. It also shows only 6 of the participants enjoy reading music magazines while 1 enjoys fashion magazines. These results are good because 8 participants said they enjoyed reading college magazines therefore this can be generalised to say quite a lot more of the college students might actually read the college magazine. 

Question 5

I asked this question because as a researcher I wanted to know how many of my participants would be interested in buying the magazine. The results I gather from this question will help me decide whether I am going to make my college magazine free or whether I will charge students for it. 

The results I got back show that 65% of my participants would buy the college magazine if I decided to sell it.  These results suggests that students would not mind paying for the magazine, which also ensures me as a researcher that those who will actually buy it have a higher chance of reading it as they would have spent their money on it.

 Question 6

This question is a follow up of the previous question and I asked it because out of my participants I wanted to see how much they would prefer the magazine to be if it was to be sold instead of handed out for free. The results also give me an overview of roughly how much participants would be willing to buy the magazine for. 

The graph shows that many of the participants said they think a suitable price for the magazine is 20p. The graph shows that many students would prefer to pay a low price for the magazine. A couple of people wouldn’t mind if the magazine was 80p (highest price choice).  These results can help me decide on what price to make the magazine because my aim is to make college students want to read the magazine, therefore in order to ensure this happens I have to make sure I sell the magazine for a reasonable price.

 Question 7

I asked this question because I wanted to see whether the majority of my participants thought that college magazines are useful. This is because the results from this question will help me decide whether to carry on with the college magazine as the main reason for making it would be because I think it’s useful for students. 

These results show that 13 participants out of 20 think that college magazines are useful. This is good as it also gives me the impression that these 13 represent the number of students in the college that might buy the magazine as it would be useful to them throughout their college life.

Question 8

I also wanted to know what college students are attracted to when reading college magazines. I asked this question because I wanted to have a rough idea of the things I should include in my college magazine. This is because I wanted to include the most popular features as to make sure that my target audience are interested in the magazine as it will have what appeals to them the most.

The results I got back show that most of the participants are attracted by the main image and colour when they pick up a college magazine. This is good as I know that my target audience will definitely mainly look at these two as my questionnaire is representative for those that are the same age attending college.

Question 9

I asked my participants when they thought college magazines should be issued because I wanted to know what my target audience’s view was as the magazines are issued for them.

The graph shows that most of my participants think the college magazine should be issued monthly, while 7 think monthly and another 9 per-term. These results will help me determine when I am going to issue my magazine, depending on the most popular choice.

Question 10

The next question I asked in my questionnaire was what colour themes my participants preferred for the college magazine. I asked this question because I wanted to know what colour theme most of my participants would want their college magazine to be as they attend the college in which the magazine will be based on.

From the results I gathered, the graph shows that both the themes purple and white and purple and black were selected by 7 participants each.  These results will be helpful as they give me an idea of what theme my participants would prefer their magazine to be.

Question 11

 In my questionnaire I also asked whether my participants wanted the magazine to be entertaining or educational. This is because I wanted to see their opinion and keep it in mind when creating my college magazine. 

The pie chart above shows that 75% of the participants think the college should be entertaining while 25% think it should be educational. These results will help me as they will give me an idea as to what type of things my participants would like to be featured in the magazine.  By this I also know that my participants are going to be expecting to read columns on gossip, music, fashion and any latest college news that’s entertaining not just an educational magazine.

Question 12

The next question I asked my participants in the magazine was how long they wanted their college magazine to be. This is because I wanted to see if many of them agreed on the same number of pages or if their choices would vary. I am also going to use the most popular chosen number of pages as a rough guide of how many pages to make my college magazine. By asking them this question the readers also have a say so that they don’t feel as if the magazine is too long. 

The graph shows that most participants prefer the college magazine to be 10-15 pages. This is good as I know roughly how long to make my college magazine.

Question 13

I decided to ask my participants whether they thought including competitions in the magazine would attract readers to the magazine. This is because I want to attract many readers to buy the magazine, therefore if many of the students choose that competitions do attract reader to read the magazine then I am going to include competitions in the magazine.

The graph shows that on a scale of 1 to 5, 8 participants chose the rating of 3. In other words they think in some ways yes, probably depending on the prizes in which they being rewarded. This question is helpful for me as part of my research is to make sure I find what readers like or do not like about magazines as well as what would attract other college students to pick up the magazine and read it.

Question 14

I decided to ask this question because I wanted to know what types of prizes my participants would like to win from competitions that may be included in the magazine. I did this mainly because I know types of prizes grab reader’s attention therefore depending on what most of my participants choose I have an idea of the types of prizes I should include in the college magazine.

The graph above shows that 16 of my participants would rather have gift vouchers as prizes from the competitions.

Preliminary Task: Audience Research Questionnaire

                                                            Questionnaire

I am doing this questionnaire as part of my audience research for my media college magazine. I would be very grateful if you would complete this questionnaire to assist with my research.

1.                1.   What is your Gender?                                             Male         Female

2.             2.      How old are you?                                          16                 17

18                 19

3.      Do you enjoy reading magazines?                 Yes               No

4.                 4   .  If so what type?                                            Music           College                                  

                                                                     Sports              Fashion

5.      Would you buy a college magazine?             Yes               No

     

6.      If so for how much?                                       20p               40p                                                                                                   60p                80p

7.      Do you think college magazines are useful to students?        Yes                      No   

                 

8.      When reading college magazines what attracts you the most?          

Main image          Colour           Articles inside             Title

9.      Do you think college magazines should be issued      Per-weekly            Per-month 

      Per-term

10      10.   What colour themes would you prefer for the college magazine?
                                               Black and white                      Purple and white 
                                                Blue and purple                     Purple and black 

11      11. Do you prefer the college magazine to be           Educational                           Entertaining 

    12.   How long would you prefer the college magazine to be
                               5-10pages      10-15pages               15-20pages
    13.   On a scale of 1-5 do you think competitions would attract the readers to read the magazine? 

                   (1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree)

                                                       
                                                          1         ----------------- >        5      

Thank you for taking your time to complete this questionnaire.