magazine analysis

1. ANALYSIS OF DAZED & CONFUSED MAGAZINE AND I-D
MAGAZINE

2. REPRESENTATION- Dazed &
Confused
Dazed experiments some what with
androgyny. Women are shown
figureless, using extremely thin
models to show a more masculine
frame. Female models also do not
wear make up to flatter feminine
features, but make up that makes
features much stronger, and more
masculine. Many women featured
have short hair. These models defy
what the classic standards of
beauty are, with unusual hair and
make up. This makes the models
seem more of an artifact than a
realistic representation of women.
Men and women on the cover of Dazed are
shown posing in similar positions, standing
tall, head on to make them appear stronger.
Often men featured on the front cover are
in black and white, perhaps conforming to
stereotypes as it makes them appear darker,
more mysterious or rebellious. Some men are
featured wearing make up, this it is not
used to make features more feminine, but
more to show defiance.
I think Dazed & Confused has broken a lot of
gender stereotypes. The magazine shows women
able to be masculine and men able to be
feminine. I think this may be meant as a
reflection on the audience. The audience for
Dazed may be a lot more open minded to new
ideas of beauty, and experimental with their
looks.

3. REPRESENTATION- i-D
The women featured in i-D appear much more flirtatious than in Dazed &
Confused. Women often posing with their shoulders facing the camera, touching
their lips or breasts. Make up is still bold, though has some feminine quality
to it. I-D magazine shows women and men of different ages, rather than just one
age. As the magazine is aimed at a fairly young trendy audience, it shows older
members of society as being trendy as well. The younger female models are shown
as being sexy and flirty, the older models however are not. The older female
model above is shown posing straight ahead, covered up with a coat with arms on
her hips. The men featured on the front cover are not shown to be sexy or
flirty. In the images to the right, both the men are shown with completely
straight faces.
I-D has more negative stereotypes than in Dazed. Gender stereotypes are a lot
more apparent in i-D. They conform to the idea that women are sexual objects,
and that men are emotionless. Though their representation of older generations
is perhaps a step forward, as it breaks the stereotype that old people are un
cool, unattractive and perhaps uninteresting.

5. CONTENT- DAZED & CONFUSED
Dazed & Confused Magazine covers topics such as fashion, music, art and culture
and photography.
The magazine takes a more artistic approach to fashion. It features articles on
high end designers, not clothes from the high street. It talks a lot about the
designers themselves rather than just the clothes. This could reflect the
audiences interest in fashion, they may take it more seriously. The fact they
feature more about the designers than the clothes, and they don’t feature much
about affordable clothing shows they are less about consumerism than other
fashion magazines such as LOOK.
Dazed talks about a variety of music genres, such as hip-hop, rap, house, techno,
electronic, jungle, k-pop etc.
It talks about new and interesting art, film visionaries and technology
innovations. Technology may be features in the art and culture section as it is
very much engrained in our society, especially amongst young people. Marc Prensky
came up with the “Digital native, digital immigrant” theory, which suggested
anyone born after the 1980/90s is a digital native, meaning it is engrained in
them as they have grown up with the technology, and anyone born before is a
digital immigrant, as they have had to learn it in later years. I think that the
audience are likely to be aged between 18-30, meaning they would have been born
anywhere between 1983-1995.

6. CONTENT- i-D
The content in i-D magazine is similar to Dazed & Confused. Its all about fashion
and lifestyle with a lot of music influence. Several of the artists featured in
Dazed have also been in i-D magazine. The photography and photographers are also
very important to the magazine. It features people from every creative field such
as fashion, music, art, clubs and film. I think i-D features many more people who
have already achieved fame, rather than with Dazed who focus of more upcoming
artists.

7. STYLE- DAZED & CONFUSED
Dazed & Confused style is quite minimalist. The front cover is never to crowded,
and the website is neat and tidy, with a white page and black writing and boxes
to enclose curtain articles. The font they use is quite square and straight
forward, and the font used rarely changes. The title is usually in white, though
on occasion it is not, depending on the content. Using minimalism means that the
images used are the boldest thing on the page, and turn into the focal point. I
think the audience would find the minimalist layout aesthetically pleasing, as it
looks modern.

8. STYLE- i-D
Similarly to Dazed, the front cover is never too over crowded. Infacti-D is
probably less crowded on the front cover, perhaps only featuring one or two
words. Although, the font changes more frequently, depending on the theme of the
issue. The colour of the title also changes more frequently.

9. SYMBOLISM & TECHNICAL CODES- DAZED & CONFUSED
On many covers of Dazed & Confused, the men are wearing
dark clothing, leather or chokers. These things all could
be seen to represent the punk subculture, usually
stereotyped as rebellious,
or different. The colour of the title is sometimes used
as symbolism. On the cover of this issue, the title is
black to reflect the word “darkside” used to give clues
to the theme.

10. SYMBOLISM & TECHNICAL CODES- i-D
i-D uses a lot of phallic symbolism with female
models on their front covers. As with the image
here, she is holding a red lipstick to her open
mouth. This reflects their over sexualized
representation of women. The colour red is
frequently used in the media to represent
sexuality.

11. CULTURAL COMPETANCE- DAZED & CONFUSED
The people featured on the front are more there to appeal to British youth, and
so British youth would need to have knowledge of them. People such as Grimes,
Chance the Rapper, M.I.A and Saoirse Ronan have been featured on the cover, and
as modern day stars would appeal to the younger audience.
In the August 2011 issue Dazed featured an article on hip-hop artist Snoop
Dogg. The article refers to Snoop as “smoked out”, if you didn’t know of Snoop
Dogg you wouldn’t know what they were talking about. This is an indication that
they are expecting their audience to know who he is. Referring to him as just
“Snoop” rather than Snoop Dogg is another indication the audience should know
who he is.
Due to cultural differences, in the Korean Dazed & Confused they feature people
that are well known amongst their audience, that we may not have necessarily
heard of. Some of the text is in Korean, and some is in English. This may be
because English is quite a worldwide language. They may understand English, but
if in the British version they wrote in Korean we probably wouldn’t understand
it. The events advertised in Korean Dazed & Confused would be different to the
events in the British version.

12. CULTURAL COMPETANCY- i-D
As with Dazed & Confused, i-D features people who the audience would know, such
as Raf Simons, FKA Twigs, Kreayshawn and Kate Moss.
Most of the black models featured are wearing their natural hair, rather than
weave, which could mean that they embrace many cultures fully, or reflecting a
multicultural audience.

13. CHANGES OVER TIME- DAZED &CONFUSED
The magazine began in 1992, as a black and white folded up poster, but developed
throughout the 90s. One of the first recognizable issued was published in June
2001, featuring Alicia Keys .
The title looks partly drawn in and the text is
nowhere near the neat and tide standards we see from
Dazed now. The colours used are also much brighter,
though the font of the title hasn’t changed.

14. CHANGES OVER TIME- i-D
I-D magazine started out as a fanzine (an unofficial publication made by fans)
created by former Vogue art director Terry Jones, first published in 1980. The
magazine has now been taken over by Vice. Some of the first issues in the 80s
looked like this. They have kept the winking cover
model theme. They also still keep the text on the
font cover to a minimum. Not much has changed, though
I guess the colours are toned down now, and some of
the font has changed. On this particular issue they
have the title the right way up, however in most
issues now they have it facing downwards to symbolise
a winking face.