SECTION A – INITIAL INTRODUCTORY TASK 1

General questions about music magazines (Questions 1-4)

1. What is a music magazine?

A music magazine is a magazine about music which contains different types of music and genres for example, rock, pop classic and hip-hop.

2. What content (text/copy/writing/articles/stories) would you expect to find in a music magazine?

In a music magazine you would expect to find interviews with music related people. Also any competitions and draws with music concert ticket prizes. Other things you would expect to find are tour dates, new albums out, charts and also reviews. Many magazines contain a story about an artist that just happened which the audience will find interesting.

3. What images would you expect to find in a music magazine?

You would expect to find pictures of music related props such as headphones and music instruments. Also pictures of pop artists and bands. Music magazines vary between them but rarely do you find a high angle or low angle shot on the front cover of the magazine. Many of the magazines have a mid shot or close shot of a pop star; so that the audience can easily spot the emotions the characters have which will emphasize on the story or article in the magazine.

4. Identify general characteristics/features that you would expect to find in all music magazines.

There are many characteristics or features that are expected to be found in all music magazines for example specific/consistent colour schemes. Most magazines always use three or four colours maximum on the magazine to keep the look professional and neat looking.

Also editing or pictures depending on the genre of the music in the music magazine. On most if not all magazines you would find a famous known music artist on the front cover with a story about his recent music life or anything the audience would find interesting. Bold writing and colourful fonts that stand out are a must on all music magazines so that they would stand out from other magazines on the shelf.

Questions about music magazine front covers.

1. Identify the features/ characteristics they all have

All magazine covers should contain a main image in the front of the magazine cover of a known pop artist that would attract people to read it.

Cover lines are also a must on magazine cover as they are the lines that would attract someone into buying the magazine. They should contain little phrases and also important quotes from the magazine that are the most interesting which would persuade the person to buy the magazine.

Consistent colour schemes are a really important feature that most magazines tend to have. By choosing two or three colours to use throughout the magazine, you can create a huge difference on the looks of your magazine. Consistent colour schemes help to make the magazine look more professional and appeal more to the audience depending on the colours used. For example if the colours were bright colourful colours they would appeal to rock music and dull black, white grey etc colours would appeal to classical music magazines.

Headers and footers are another convention that the magazines contain. For example on this magazine the header contains a tour special which would appeal to people who are interested in the artist and would like to know more about him and if he’s doing any tours.

Barcodes are a convention that every single magazine has and without it the magazine can’t be identified therefore can’t be sold. The pattern of light and dark lines on a barcode represent digits which are the product code of an item, the scanners uses reflected light to read the pattern of lines. The code generated can be looked up in a database to find the price and description of an item. Therefore without the barcode the magazine can’t be indentified for the price and can’t be sold.

Most magazines tend to have colourful bold writing in nearly every page of the magazine. No one would buy a dull magazine in a shelf when it’s next to all the other colourful and appealing magazines. Bold writing along with the cover lines attracts the audience and grabs their attention to buy the magazine.

2. Why are these features present on all of the magazines? Why are they important?

A main image is in a magazine is really important because that is the main convention that would hint to the audience what the magazine is about and the genre of the magazine. For example if you see a hip-hop artist on the main cover image you would know straight away that the magazine is most likely to be about hip-hop.

Cover lines are one of the features of a magazine that would make the reader want to read on and buy the magazine, therefore they are also a really important convention of a magazine article.

Consistent colour schemes make the magazine look more attractive and appealing to the audience. If the colours of a certain magazine are consistent it would give the magazine a professional look and therefore it is important to keep the colours of a magazine consistent. In this magazine the consistent colours has a great effect on the final look of the magazine to make it stand out from magazines with lots of different colours throughout

Headers and footers are on most magazines so that key points can be put into them to make them easier to read and spot. For example in this magazine the header is a line that would grab most women’s attention and make them want to read on more about the ‘ 50 flirting tips’ that is on the header.

Also on this magazine colourful bold writing has a huge impact in this magazine. The bright pink writing with different fonts and sizes makes the magazine look really attractive and bright.

3. List 5 differences between the magazines and account explain the reasons for these differences.

Different colour schemes are one major difference that all magazine covers have because if all magazines used the same colours none of them will stand out from each other and therefore they will appeal less to the audience.

The layout is also another major difference which is just as important as the colour schemes and likewise if all magazines had the same layout they will all be less appealing to the audience and wouldn’t stand out from one another.

Fonts, font sizes and colours are different from each magazine because they are used for setting the magazine companies house style. Some magazines always use the same type of font for their masthead and logo so that it is recognisable to everyone. For example the nme magazine below has the same logo type as the first magazine cover, because the magazine copy is known to a lot of people.

The camera shots of the main image tend to differ slightly from each other however most of them are either close shots or medium shots of a known person. How ever they differ depending on the genre of the magazine because if the genre was rap you would see maybe a medium close up instead of a long shot so that the emotions of the artist are shown. Also they differ depending on the selling line, for example if the selling line is about the artist s new album, a long shot of the artist in a concert or during his tour would be appropriate.

Not all magazines contain headers and footers for example these two haven’t got any headers or footers where as some magazines only contain headers or just footer. There is no real reason for why headers and footers aren’t used in all magazines, it just depends if there is any key points that are needed to be put on so that they are easier to spot. 

4. Take one of the magazine covers and say what type (GENRE) of music magazine it is. Provide at least 4 specific examples from the magazine that supports your claim that it belongs to this particular genre.

The genre for this magazine is mainstream popular music. You can see this by the names of the bands on the top right hand side, for example muse is electro rock, kasabian is rock and Maximo Park is indie. Also Dizze rascal (hip hop) is in the front cover which is another example supporting the claim that this magazine caters for different types of genres.Also on the bottom of the magazine there is a list of artists for example jay-z who sings hip hop and the big pink which is an English electro rock duo. The quote at the bottom of the magazine contains words like ‘man’ which also suggests that this is a hip hop slang language quote from dizzee rascal who is a hip hop artist.

4. For the same magazine, say who you think the target audience is. Give Reasons for your answers.

I think the target audience are people who are interested in different types of music and are not fans of just one type of music. This is because the magazine contains lots of different sub genres for example, rock, indie and hip hop.