This is the music magazine powerpoint I created for Media Studies. I analysed the music magazine Vibe.

1. Music Magazine
JOE JACKSON

2. Masthead
As seen on the front cover of the magazine, the masthead stands out above
anything else. It is big, bold and written in capital letters to emphasise its
superiority. It is located right at the top of the magazine to ensure that it is
one of the first things the consumer sees to ensure they know who made the
magazine. To add effect for the reader, part of the artist’s heads cover a part
of the masthead; this is a famous selling point to the public. Also the fact
that the artist’s heads cover the front of the magazine also portrays that
they have a very dominant role in the magazine. The publisher also assumes
that the consumer knows what the magazine is due to its assumed
popularity that they are actually willing to cover a majority of the front
cover. In most Vibe magazines I have previously analysed, the masthead is
usually in red, which represents domination and potential danger. However
in this masthead it is represented in yellow; yellow is considered the
complete opposite to red, it is associated with joy, happiness and intellect.
This potentially portrayed in the magazine by stating that the reader must be
intellectual to read this type of magazine and joy and happiness will be given
when read. It also states that the colour yellow stimulates mental activity
and generates muscle energy; this magazine may be just intending to this
due to its colour.

3. Text, Style and Content
On the front cover of this magazine there is six cover stories for the
reader to view. Some are bolder than others and written in bigger fonts
to emphasise that it is the more important story. Some of the stories
are written in lower case but some are written in capital letters. If the
headline is big then it is written in lower caps, however if it is written
smaller then it’ll be written in capital letters to emphasise it despite its
size. Most writing is all written in the same font with often different
colours, mainly just yellow and white. The size of the text varies
depending on the importance of the story. For example the main story
which reads ‘Soul Brothers; Mick Wilds, August Alsina, Ed Sheeran’ is
one of the main stories on the cover as the pictures of the artists are
represented at the front, the text of the story is the biggest and
emphasised the most as it is considered the most interesting and
important story.

4. Cover Price
On the front of this magazine it doesn’t actually clearly portray that
there is a fixed price. However on the proper magazine sold in shops
there will assumable have a barcode and a fixed price. Baring in my
mind it looks as though it is an a sort of average magazine, I am
assuming the price will average around £3-£5 as this is the average
price for a type of music magazine such as this. However, due to my
research I have discovered that the Vibe magazine averages from the
price of around £6; this may be because of the general thickness and
the content of the magazine or maybe due to the free gifts included.

5. Cover Stories
The cover stories are slightly different to some you may expect but
many are normal for a music magazine. For example there is no
rhetorical question on the front cover. However they state many
different stories about many musical artists such as Mack Wilds, August
Alsina, Ed Sheeran, Michael Jackson, Nick young, T-pain, Shepard,
Fairey, Chadwick and Boseman. So as you can see they emphasise a lot
of famous musical names to entice the reader to purchase the
magazine. There is a banner at the top of the cover stating ‘Exclusive:
Michael Jackson’s sneaker obsession’ written to entice the reader to
read more about the story. The stories involved in the front cover is
also portrayed as very male dominant due to the headline ‘Soul
Brothers’, this implies that the reader may feel integrated into the
artist’s lifestyles as they are considered brothers. Also due to the fact it
says ‘is cooler that your girl’, this is intended for a male audience as it
argues that this specific artist is ‘cooler that your girlfriend’, aimed
completely at the male gender.

6. Exclusives
As stated before there is only one main exclusive story that is
emphasised on the front cover and that is a story about pop artist
Michael Jackson. This story is written in bold written, fully with capital
letters. Also reads ‘EXCLUSIVE’ to ensure that it is a one off story.
Despite the fact that the main exclusive story is emphasised at the top,
it may be portrayed that most of the stories portrayed at the front
cover may be exclusive due to the fact the story will be unique to that
specific issue of magazine; for example stories about the soul brothers,
Micky Wilds, August Alsina and Ed Sheeran.

7. Audience
Due to the fact that the artists emphasised on the front cover create music
for a more younger generation the target audience will automatically be
assumed for the ages of around 14-28 roughly. The teenage fan base would
certainly favour this type of music magazine. I know this because it has Ed
Sheeran on the front cover who is very famous and popular towards the
teenage generation. However perhaps the older generation may consider
purchasing this magazine as it contains a story about Michael Jackson, who
was a very famous singer in the 60’s onwards. They type of genre intended
is mainly rap, and rap, stereotyped in today’s society is most certainly
specified for the younger, teenage generation of music lovers. Rap has
always been considered a very sexist genre of music and is usually targeted
for the male audience. The headlines portrayed emulate a male audience
due to the picture which is shown, portraying three male artists; with the
headline reading ‘Soul Brothers’, implying it is a completely aimed at males.
The picture at the front of the magazine depicts three male musical artists
looking chilled out and cool. The caption reads ‘Soul Brothers’ which
implies it is aimed at a male audience as the headlines portray male
dominance.

8. Language
The article I am analysing as part of this music magazine in an article referring to
rappers coming from the United Kingdom. It opens the article with an instant
rhetorical question in order to entice the reader to read the article further. It
constantly refers to the title of the article, mentioning the influence in which UK
artists have upon the music industry. There is no slang or abbreviated words
included, it is all perfect grammar and punctuation. The article, after mentioning
many of Britain’s most successful artists such as The Beatles, Ed Sheeran, Pink
Floyd… etc. They eventually get to their point in the third paragraph where they
begin to speculate whether there is an unknown artist ready to encapsulate the
world of music. In this article they tend to use a lot of punctuation to link
sentences, they don’t use full stops as frequently as necessary; they use semi
colons, hyphens, colons and ellipsis's, all of these are portrayed together in
merely one paragraph. A they did on the first line, they use many rhetorical
questions ‘would Iggy be enjoying the same commercial success if she were
rapping with her native Australian accent?’. They also often use connectives in
order to encourage the reader to read on as they wish to know what happens
next. Also the article is written to its audience assuming that they know a great
deal about music; they mention a lot about musicians and very rarely explain
about musical content which implies they are assuming that the consumer has a
brief knowledge of the genre.

9. Writing Style
I will be analysing the same story as I previously analysed when
talking about the language. As I previously discussed the writing style
contains no grammar or punctuation errors (no intentional ones
either) and also have no abbreviated words. They use many
connective words in each sentence; these they tend to include are
colons, semi colons, hyphens and ellipsis’s. They writing style is good,
easy to read and very informative. It applies many rhetorical
questions and informs the reader about the topic very well. The style
of writing they use easily informs the reader what the topic is and
what the topic is about; it mentions many musical artist that have
succeeded in the United Kingdom and that they also succeed in the
United States.

10. Planning of my Music Magazine
Style and tone: The style of my magazine will be concentrating on a sort of rap and R&B type of
music magazine. I believe these two genres of music will assimilate well together and portray a
sufficient music magazine. I will integrate some ideas from the ‘VIBE’ magazine I have previously
analysed to ensure my magazine is at the highest standard.
How will it fit alongside existing publications?: As I have discussed before, I will be integrating
my ideas of the type of magazine I wish to create with the magazine ‘VIBE’ as this is a good
example of the type of magazine genre I wish to portray.
Who is in your target audience/market?: I believe the target audience for my magazine is
definitely teenagers and perhaps people in their 20’s. My type if music will fit in well with the
type of music teenagers like.

11. Planning of my Music Magazine
How will you appeal to your target audience?: Portraying musicians that my type of target
audience will like will automatically appeal to them. Showing stories that would appeal to my
audience will also encourage them to purchase my magazine.
Which magazine has the most relevance to your own?: As I have analysed the music magazine
‘VIBE’, I believe this magazine emulates my magazine best as it targets the same genres and
audience as I intend.

12. My typical audience