Kerrang Front Cover Aalysis

I have to analysis a front cover, contents page and a double page spread of a music magazine. This is the front cover analysis.

Magazine front cover analysis:

Q Magazine Voki Analysis

Newsletter Contents Page

This is the newsletter contents page for the newsletter i have created, i have tried to keep the "house style" the same as i have with the front cover i have done this by using the same layout as well as similar colours.

Newsletter Contents Page Progress

This is the progress so far that i have made with my newsletter contents page. I don't have much left to do, all i have to add in is mostly text such as the school website link at the bottom and i have to put in some boxs to make the information stand out against the picture in the background.

Newsletter 1 Completed

Here is my completed newsletter. There are some things id like to go back over such as the white spaces in the logos (in between the letters) to remove them to make it look better among other things I would like to change. But I think its alright for the first thing I have made in Photoshop.

Newsletter Progress

This is the progress so far on my newsletter, still got to finish it and edit a few things on it and the final version should be uploaded in a little while.

Photoshop: Susan Boyle/50 Cent

I have been tasked with producing a piece of Photoshop work where I have to combine Susan Boyle and 50 Cent together in one image. I have not used Photoshop before however, to create the image i just used the "Lasso Tool" to crop out bits of both images and then just placed the second image in the place of the cropped area of the first image. I have not tested out many other tools within Photoshop but hopefully the more I use it the better I will get.

Ideology

Ideology

Ideology is the ideas and beliefs we have, these opinions can be consciously or unconsciously displayed through the media. These ideas/beliefs shape our perception, if we look at a rock magazine you would expect it to be darker and more serious. These can be show through the house style, background colour of the image, clothing being worn and other things.

Some of these stereotypical views can be both negative and positive even then some artists or bands take on stereotype given to them and act on it.




From this cover, a rock band is portrayed as dangerous/aggressive. this is due to them holding bats and chains and wearing dark clothes. Their facial expressions also show anger. You can get a good idea of what genre of music Avenged Sevenfold create based on the stereotypes used on this cover.

Impacts of Photoshop

Impacts of Photoshop

Photoshop is a very useful tool used in the media world to create or edit pictures or a design of some kind to be used.

Positive:

• It can be used to get rid of a blemish on someone such as a mole.
• Magazines can have a more attractive cover that can appeal more to the eye. Which means the magazine will sell more.
• Make people look more attractive who are on the cover. Meaning the magazine will sell more.

Negatives:

• People are given a false idea of what someone actually looks like before Photoshop is done. 
• Can lead to problems like anorexia, girls trying to look like a model as that's what deemed as being attractive.
• Can lead to a negative perception of someone, the general public will have a expectation of what someone looks like when in reality they are completely different.

There is also a gif of Jennifer Lawrence before and after on a magazine cover.  You can see the differences and what has been edited.

Comparison of Magazines

Music Magazine Comparison:

If you compare these two magazines from different genres of music you can see differences looking at the cover of magazines that appeal to people who like those genres.

Based on the house colours used by these two magazines we see the pop magazine (left) being a lot more vibrant and colourful using pink and white in the headline and the background, whereas in the Kerrang magazine we see darker colours those being  red, black and the black background make's it look more gritty and will appeal more to people who like rock, metal style of music. The colours can represent the genre of the music. The Kerrang magazine seems to appeal to an older age group with the darker colours and the Pop magazine seems to appeal to a younger generation with the bright colours used on the cover.

Another comparison is the amount of buzzwords used on the Pop magazine is higher showing what looks like most of the stories in the magazine itself and the Kerrang magazine contains fewer buzzwords which seem to focus on the artists featured in the magazine. This could be due to people who would buy Kerrang would want more focus on their favourite band/artist and want more information about them.

Music Magazine Analysis 2

Preliminary Task

As part of my coursework I am told I must produce a college magazine front cover and analyse it. This is to get a better understanding of what we should and shouldn't put in our College magazine.
I have already found out the image on the cover has to be a medium shot, now I just have to find a suitable image that looks professional.

Along with the cover, I am also tasked to make a mock of a contents page and need to find a good layout of the magazine so that it looks good and professional. All this had to be done on Publisher and using Photoshop so I will have to improve my skills with it.

 

Analysing A College Magazine

College Magazine:


This is the school magazine i will be analysing and i'm going to analyse the magazine and critique it and then say what i would do to improve the magazine.

The first thing, that i see when i look at the magazine is the name of the magazine 'The Cardinal bulletin', there is snow on the title showing that this is a Christmas issue and it mentions about a  'Christmas Concert' at the bottom which has the ideology that this is a Catholic school. The less obvious elements that show this is a Christmas issue is the colour scheme which is red and white which are colours associated with Christmas (candy canes etc).

The one thing that does attract my attention is the title 'Soul Food' which takes up a lot of space and is bold to be eye catching and its the main point of the magazine

By looking at the multiple pictures of students you can see that the school focuses heavily on students enjoyment at the school and extra curricular activities they provide for the students.

However this magazine is not visually appealing due to the heavy text and over powers the rest of the page, the audience the magazine is aimed at is 11-16 year olds and they would be unlikely to sit down and read this for 10 minutes. It should be short, quick paragraphs to appeal more to them and appeal to them more, this could be improved by including more colourful features to liven the page up a little and make it more appealing to eye.

Music Magazine Analysis 1

Feminism

The basic belief of what feminism means is the hatred of men or that woman have been 'second' class citizens when compared to a man. However some feminists disagree with this generalisation of this belief.


The history of feminism:

Feminism originally came from France in the !800's but the struggle for equality has been around since America in the 1900's but become best known during the 60's or 70's. Woman traditionally have been regarded as second class citizens when compared to males in society, they were deemed inferior to men on an intellectual scale and a physical one. In the past woman could not own property in their own names however over time woman have evolved to have more freedom and have equal rights as men do. 


Famous Feminists:

Some famous modern day feminists include Beyonce, Ellen Page,  Amy Poehler and Zooey Deschanel who have similar views on sexism and different ideas of what parts of sexism are still in modern times.



Laura Mulvey's Theory:
In 1975, Laura Mulvey wrote an essay called "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" she about her theory of the 'male gaze'. The theory is that the male gaze comes into play when the camera puts the audience in the perspective of a heterosexual male, so the camera may focus on a woman to show her best assets and it will show the woman more as an object rather than a person.


Representation of woman in a music magazine:

Megan Fox is presented on this magazine cover of the rolling stones and could be seen as being objectified as being attractive. She has been presented in this way to catch the 'male gaze' and encourage men to buy the magazine. This supports the Laura Mulvey theory. Megan Fox also has nothing to do with music showing Rolling Stones are trying to market to men more.

Magazine Terminology

In this post i have made a list of different features used in magazines along with their definition.

Masthead: Name of the magazine

Headline: Title of the main story featured within the magazine

House style: The main colour scheme used in the magazine

Main Image: Image of an artist or band who are the main feature within the magazine.

Pug: A promotional free item

Buzzwords: Words like "exclusive" and "wow" used  to catch the readers eye. 

Banner: Colourful banner across the page with text that promotes a feature.

Barcode: Code and convention that is on every front page and tells us the price of the magazine.

Puff: Graphic feature on the front cover of a magazine to make something stand out.

Caption: Text describing the image

Cover line: Advertising the other topics inside the magazine.

What is Semiotic Theory?

Semiotic Theory focuses on the social and cultural meaning of codes and conventions,  the signs consist of an image/word/object or practice. Signs used can be presented in many different ways: image, word, video. We identify and respond to these signs by two terms which are Denotation and Connotation.


Denotation: 

Denotation is the literal or primary meaning behind a word, image or sign. 

 

Connotation:

Connotation is the idea that a word or a sign portrays for a person. It can set a tone or an emotional association that a word can have. It can be both negative and positive. A stop sign would be a connotation of danger.

Semiotic Theory in Music Magazines

 Analysing the front cover of this Kerrang Music Magazine, the denotation reveals that this Music Magazine has a rock artist focus. 

 

On the  cover is a picture of Paramore singer Hayley  Williams with two fingers up to the camera to help aid with the sub heading "Young rebels". House style colours are red, black and white. The expression on her face shows that she just doesn't care and has an attitude  and makes it look like the artist has direct control over the magazine especially with a  large image of the artist with a black background to give off an impression of power and this is further  done by the large image of the artist with a black background to make her stand out then the large bold text is placed on top.

Applying the male gaze to a scene:








In this short clip it highlights a scene with Mercedes (Jennifer Metcalfe) where a drink gets spilled on her top and she has to take her top off, she does this in a seductive way showing she is enjoying the male attention and this attracts more attention to her body then the scene itself.

The Male Gaze theory is supported in this clip by Hollyoaks using a attractive female to attract the male audience.  There is a medium shot throughout so the audience can see her chest despite there being another person in the scene. Edits used are High Key Lighting to connote that she is the main person to look at in the clip.

Please take the time to complete my questionnaire about music magazines so i can use the results to help get a better idea of the music magazine demographic and why or why not people buy them.

Questionnaire

Audience Research Methods

In order to have a good music magazine different types of research must be done first, this is so you know what people like and don't like or find interesting. There are two main types of research: Qualitative  Research and Quantitive Research.

Qualitative Research: This research is done to a focus group, 

Quantitive Research: This research is done to a large number of people to get various views/opinions or a general sample from the public. Its job is to quantify the data and generalise the results from people.  This type of research is normally done through a survey or a questionnaire.


Different types of data collected through research carried out and there are two main types of data.

Primary Data: collected through first hand experience through an interview when a person sits face to face with someone to collect the data.

Secondary Data: is data referring to data collected in the past or obtained from another party. It can be obtained from past surveys and questionnaires. 

Music Magazine

What is a 'Music Magazine'?

The definition of a music magazine is a magazine specifically dedicated to music culture, most music magazines include news about artists, new song/album releases as well as tour dates etc.

The history of music magazines:

The first magazine was Billboard was printed in 1894 but didn' gain popularity until 1936, eventually as more and more genre's of music were introduced then more magazines dedicated to these different genres such as rock, indie, pop, hip-hop, classical etc.

Popular Music Magazines:

One of the best and well known magazines is 'NME', other popular UK magazines include Kerrang, Q and MOJO. Popular U.S music magazine are: Rolling Stones and Vibe.


Future of music magazines:

The future for music magazines doesn't look good due to new technology and people being able to read the magazines on their phone, tablet or just online. People can still see the article and any interviews as well as find out any news that would be in that magazine for free just simply Googling a bands name. Some magazine's now have apps for people to get the magazine on their phone or tablet and this is done through a subscription model by you paying monthly to get the magazine monthly electronically however you can still just look up the magazine and get the same information that would be in the magazine and it would be free. However the most popular magazines would stick around longer as they still have an audience and continue to make a profit.

Introduction to my Blog

Hello,

              

        My name is Anthony Black, i am a student at Cardinal Heenan Sixth Form and i have to keep this blog as part of my Media Studies AS course. I will post numerous stuff throughout my time with this blog including:

• My Planning throughout the course
• My evaluation
• My research, planning and evaluation throughout the year. 
• Charlie said i have to include my final product

To support my planning i will regularly post images and videos of my choice. I will further my understanding of music magazines by purchasing them and using them to help my coursework.

About me:
I am currently attending Cardinal Heenan Sixth Form and will be taking 3 A-Levels, those being:

• Media Studies
• I.C.T
• Sociology

Some things i like to do in my spare time are watching a lot of TV, playing video games and listening to music, i enjoy a wide range of music and will listen to most genres but my preferred genre is rock/metal, my favourite song at the moment would be 'Knights of Cydonia' by Muse.