Analysing a music magazine cover.

This is a screenshot of my analysis on the music magazine cover 'Metal Hammer' featuring the rock/metal band Slipknot.

Analysing a magazine cover.

In this short essay i will be analysing a college magazine cover in numerous ways.

Firstly, does the magazine aim towards its targeted audience?

In somewhat ways I would say that this magazine only reaches a few limits on attracting their targeted audience but on most cases it wont, the targeted audience for this magazine is aged 15+ for people who are interested in joining a college.

The reasons why I don't believe that this magazine cover will reach its limits on attracting the targeted audience for the college is the fact that there isn't much information on the front cover, if their were to be information on what the magazine contains it may be a lot more attractive to the targeted audience, such as if they had on the front an area that had text stating some subjects that they do, it may interest some of the targeted audience to read it, as they may do the subject they're hoping for.

Overall their isn't much text thats eye catching other than certain 'Buzz Words' which are : "Special Insert!" and "Global Learning".

Some of the information on the front cover of the magazine I will say is pretty impressive such as the 'Puff' in the bottom left corner, which promotes what is on one of the pages which states how a young man who went to Ridgewater College now has his 'Dream Job' and living in a state that he dreamed of, this may be interesting for the targeted audience since it will most likely contain on the inside of the magazine on how successful the college is.

The colour on the front cover I suppose in some ways is suitable for the targeted audience as they may be more interested on what the college looks like than just big bright colours with lots of 'Buzz Words', but for a magazine to be eye catching I would say they need more colour and maybe 1 or 2 bright 'Buzz Words' just to catch the eye of the audience.

The image they have used!

The image they have used I would say is almost perfect for a college magazine as it is an image of one of their students possibly sitting in one of the study areas they provide within the college, which shows that the college has good facilities and cares enough about their students grades to spend more and more money to make it so they have a quite area for them to do their subject work and/or revise for upcoming exams. The college has used a medium shot which shows us the student sat in a chair smiling and also shows us the mise-en-scene which I will talk about in the oncoming paragraph.

The mise-en-scene!?

The mise-en-scene is very good for a college magazine as it contains a lot of detail, such as the following : Their is a plant in the corner of the room that the student is sitting in and a plant behind her, plants in a room connote to me relaxation, comfort and peace and sort of looks like a nice place to be able to study, their also isn't any real big distractions in the room that could distract the students from doing their work such as their is high key lighting used which connotes to the audience that the area is a happy type of area which overall shows to me that the college yet again consider the students and care about their grades.

What does Ridgewater College consider important?

As iv stated in the previous paragraphs, the college is more concerned and considers all their students graded and they take everything into consideration and overall I would say this is a very good and slightly eye catching in some ways magazine and attracts its targeted audience pretty well.

Moral Panic

A moral panic is an intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. The media sometimes label celebrities as "Folk Devils", this is basically singling out certain people who have done something wrong and could make a huge impact on kids behaviour for the worse as they celebrities are supposed to be role models and set a standard and are someone for people to look up to. The statement 'Folk Devil' was made in 1972 by a great sociologist named Stanley Cohen.

Chris Brown is a very good example of a 'Folk Devil', after attacking the singer Rihanna, there was a big impact on his career and he made an impact on behaviour in some cases. This particular magazine on the inner pages it contains the interview where Chris Brown admits to it and tries to get people to forget about the incident and feel sorry for him, and it doesn't help since the magazine cover has "NO MORE APOLOGIES" Written on it.

These reasons make me disagree completely with what the media do with todays magazines, they don't care about the impact they have on children who look up to folk devils, yet they still put them on their magazines because alls they care about is gaining profit and making more and more money of all the wrong causes.

The following image is the image of the musical artist Rihanna, after she was attacked by Chris Brown, this is what he put her through, and publishing it on magazines makes it much worse as it will make young children think that its alright to do, which WILL make an impact on their lives, this is why the media need to stop posting pictures of folk devils on their magazines.

Questionnaire Results.

These are all of my results so far on my questionnaire.

This is the summary of my results in bullet points..

- The majority of my answers on my questionnaire so far were mainly male.

- The majority of people who answered my questionnaire are aged between 14-20.

- From my results so far, there are more people that don't read music magazines than do read them.

- From the multiple choice options that i gave for the question " Why do you read music magazines?",  the majority of people who do read them said they read them because they're interested in music.

- Out of the people who answered this questionnaire, most of them prefer rock music to any of the other options.

- There are more people who answered this that have ticked "Other" for there favourite music magazine.

- There are more votes for the option "No" for the question "Do you think this name for a rock magazine is suitable? "Snap, Crackle & Rock!".

- More people ticked the checkbox "Other" for why they don't read music magazines, the second highest was "Not interesting enough".

- More people who answered the questionnaire think that music magazines are overpriced.

Feminism

In this blog post I will be analysing a music magazine cover and referring to feminism through out the analysation.

This is the music magazine I will be analysing, the title of the magazine is "BLENDER", the star on the cover is Katy Perry who is a famous pop star.

Feminism started to evolve around the time that woman got the right to vote. This is when woman started to campaign for change. They wanted more equal rights, especially with the fact that woman got less pay than men, such as if there was a male teacher and a female teacher doing exactly the same job, the male teacher would get paid more. Woman started to campaign for this to change through protesting and taking part in marches. In 1975 the sex equality act was passed where women were equal in terms of pay and conditions.

After this feminism gradually grew and changed the way woman were represented in terms of their appearance started to change in the eye of the public view. 

Katy Perry, she's always got a different style of clothing on every photo shoot she does, whether that be a modelling photo or a magazine cover photo. This helps attract audiences to sell more copies of the product and to get more attention and probably make more money. In reference to Laura Mulvey's male gaze, in this photo of her she's showing a lot of skin and not wearing a lot of clothes. A lot of men will find her attractive and will view her as something to look at in reference to their own personal objectification. Women will buy the magazine to read about her, and to try and identify themselves to her, maybe to copy her style. Relating to feminist theory males will gaze at her in reference to her appearance. The fact that she is not wearing hardly any clothes can be seen as "fetishism" which is the media technological word for the slang term 'eye candy'.

NME Institutional Research

The following link will take you to the 'Inky Fingers - The NME Story' - Inky Fingers - The NME Story


The 'New Musical Express' is a famous music magazine which is known as 'NME', this was created by a man names Theodore Symthson and was first published in March 1952. It was originally a music newspaper but then after some time was changed to a magazine format  in the year 1980.

As the NME entered the 70s they found themselves no longer dominating the musical media market due to their rivals the Melody Maker overtaking them. This was because of the NME not being able to keep up with the pace of rock music. Alan Smith was made editor and was given a short period of time by IPC to turn things around quickly or face closure. It was changed around extremely fast as they started to develop a new type of music magazine that allows journalists and fans / readers to express their feelings honestly without any criticism towards themselves.

The start of 1990 made a change in the paper in the thick of the Manchester scene, and covering the new British indie bands and shoegazers.
By the end of 1990, the Manchester scene was dying off, and NME had started to report on new bands coming from the US, mainly from Seattle. These bands would form a new movement called Grunge and by far the most popular bands were Nirvana and Pearl Jam.