Links between production of magazines and other media

Task 1:

Research the following publishers:

Bauer -http://www.bauer.co.uk/

Mainstream publisher; produce mainstream magazines that cater to the working class audience. Largest privately owned publisher in Europe, owned by private individuals trying to make money. Lifestyle and TV magazines are normally aimed at working class as it is mostly about working class people.

IPC Media- http://www.ipcmedia.com/

IPC Media produces over 85 iconic media brands which produce classic types of magazines that have a specific style, which produces mainstream magazines such as now which are reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men –almost 27 million UK adults, they are a massive magazine company so they do mostly sport, hobbies and lifestyle magazines. They don’t have a specific reader as they are so diverse.

BBC magazines- http://www.bbcmagazines.com/

The BBC produces mainstream magazines as they produce and own magazines that are popular such as ‘Top gear’ and ‘top of the pops’. And caters to both men and women which makes there target audience everyone as it has no specifics and caters for all tastes and interests not just for one social group which makes is have mass readers. The trend or style of these magazines are that they all are very colourful and are all different which shows they stand out. BBC has its own Radio station to also cater and vary to its audiences as the radio station plays various music. BBC also has many channels which show many Soap Operas about Working Class people but also other TV shows what are suitable for other viewers.

Development Hell- http://developmenthell.co.uk/

This magazine company is a Niche company as they aim and cater to an underground audience not mainstream so not many shops sell them, specialist shops sell them such as in Soho who cater to people who work in media would buy the magazine. There target audience would be working men and women. They have a trend for using black, bold font.

Analysis of Cheryl Cole Contents Page

The purose of this essay is to identify how a singer is represented in a music magaine and how they also present themselves in there costume.

The magazine uses images of Cheryl Cole in a long shot, to show her body positioning, costume, and the colour she wears, this mise-en-scene constructs an image for the reader to think of what kind of artist they are and if they like them or dislike them.

      The same 4 colours are used to create a sense of professional theme; the colours are red, black, grey and white but the main colour that stands out is red, when we view Cheryl Cole in one of her music videos we always see her in red and always has red lipstick this colour could represent the singer and show her passion for music. It does support the style of the front cover as it also has a repetition of the colour red which is the same reoccurrence in the whole magazine. It does has a kind of house style as they constantly use these colours, and they use the same layout on all the4 articles and the are always at least two images on the page.

 

The paradigmatic of the layout of text is put this way as it is easier for the reader to access more information on Cheryl Cole just by clicking on the left hand side of the page which has the features contents and Cheryl Cole is one of the main headings so the layout of the article helps the reader find specific information very quickly. The different sections are on different pages which are useful as it tells you what page to go to instead of having to search for it yourself, which takes a lot of time to do, on page 12. The feature is 50 Cent, on page 38. A feature on Them Crooked Vultures, on page 46 the feature is Cheryl Cole and on page 72 there is a feature on John Lennon. It tells us that the magazine is about the music industry as all the features are music artists of a wide range, not just in one genre as we would associate 50 Cent with Cheryl Cole as they are both in the R’n’B genre but there is also a feature on The Beatles star John Lennon which is of a different decade of music and genre.

The magazine promotes all the artists it features like Cheryl Cole as they talk about her upcoming music and when it’s out etc, which is promoting her. Where she is a known artist every time she has an interview or an article is being wrote about her they mention her music otherwise you would only have gossip on her no truth, so it is almost constant that they talk about her music.

No the logo is placed on the top left hand corner of every page which gives a sense of repetition and reliability that the audience will know where it is constantly which also gives the magazine a sense of professionalism also. It is not very dominant but it stands out among the title of the page, which it is meant to do and the logo always stays the same size, font and colour. The promotional text on the article are topics like ‘ new to Q special’ which promotes new artists and there music and also ‘Q50’ promotes music that are the most requested and helps endorse the artist and its music.

Analysis Of Cheryl Cole Article

The purpose of this essay is to show how a pop star respresents themselves in music magazines and how they are shown by the media.

          The chosen artist is pop sensation Cheryl Cole; the audience could be identified as working class people of all ages and could arguably presume that upper class men would also be apart of her audience as Cheryl Cole is a big sexual attraction  among the young men of this modern day society. however the magazines usual kind of reader is rock and indie fans as the magazine normally promotes these kinds of artists but in attempting to promote the R'n'B princess to widen there audiance and attract different artists as they want to promote the magazine.

 

The layout of sign and semiotics is informal language as the journalist begins his article by concluding the young singers feelings by her own words ‘Cheryl Cole is sick to death of looking herself’ this statement said by the journalist is very personal and can be assumed that he is trying to give the reader a since of what she is like, this helps the magazine construct itself as no reader would buy a magazine that they didn’t believe, its like an observer as she is a new kind of artist and many people will be interested to see her in this kind of magazine.The semiotics is like an observer as we get direct information such as ‘ Cheryl Cole is sick to death of looking herself ’ this can be proved to be right as he gives direct notions of Cheryl Cole’s movement and what she says exactly. ‘I don’t know what I look like anymore’ this quote  backs up the journalist as many readers could argue that he was presuming this statement but he got her to actually say it.

The style of text used is constant throughout the article which is sans serif text as the words are in bold and have no flicks this represents the kind of singer Cheryl Cole is and how serious she is about her image in the music industry and how dedicated she is to her music. But as the interviewer claimed that the singer said ' i dont know what i look like anymore, im sick of looking at myself' tis is kind of hypocritical as for the reader we love looking at Cheryl Cole as she is a good looking singer and half of her fan base is men as they are attracted to her, so for her to mention her looks is interesting as many of her fans love looking at her.

The article is laid out in 3 pages, the first page is taken over by text about the Fight For This Love singer with a small image of her looking professional in one of her new music videos, this image helps the reader get to know the singer as many say that a picture is worth a 1000 words, and the type of picture helps tell the reader what kind of artist she is all down to the Mise-en-scene which is also covered by semiotics. The second page is jus a image of her in the size of the whole page with a few small comments on it do describe what the singer is about, finally the 3^rd page is similar to the first but the image is bigger and the text is in balance with the image.

The magazine is addressing the reader as a friend as this genre of singer is laid back and young celebrity which tries to appeal to her fan base by being like everyone else, so the interviewer makes the article not so uptight with advanced vocabulary but lenient , although it still gives a professional approach.

The images of Cheryl Cole in this article are very professional as you can tell they have been taken by a professional photographer and in a related backdrop, so the images create a personality which is commonly known to the audience and her fans which are attributes such as dedicated , passionate, good looking and down to earth. As the mise-en-scene used in these images are done to create an idea, for example the first page image of the young singer is of her wearing a top hat covering her face expect for her red lips which could signify she is mysterious and the red lips to show she has passion for music, while her backdrop is at night and in a city, which could imply she has a busy life .

The article relates to the magazine cover as it both uses the same mise-en-scene with its colour choice and layout , however the main difference is the body positioning as usually in a magazine cover about an artist the editor would rather have just a close up shot of the artists face not the whole body and in this case it is correct as we the audiance only preview her head and facial expression which is the key aspect in promoting the magazine for readers to buy it.
No, the information all about the aritst is in the article and just does a quick summery of her life and her music, this article is very wellwritten as it opens doors to new audiances as they would not need to know anything about the artist to read the article , this makes the article look attractive to a new reader.