UNIT 14 LEARNING AIM A
- 1. UNIT 14 DIGITAL MAGZINE PRODUCTION Understanding the codes and conventions of the particular genre of magazine and evaluating and analyzing the purpose of the magazine and the effectiveness of its target audience relationship and whether it follows or challenges the codes and conventions
- 2. digital front cover masthead Dominant image main sell line Sell line Sub heading This is the digital cover of the magazine ‘rolling stone’. Rolling stone is a magazine that is a monthly magazine that focuses on western pop culture. Best known for its rock music and for political reporting in the 1990’s however the brand broadened its focus to a younger audience focusing on television shows, film actors and popular culture. On the magazine provided it focuses on Jordan Peele who is a famous director. Just focused on the look of the magazine itself, it does not follow the codes and conventions of a typical magazine it doesn't feature a lot to draw the reader in what it does feature though are as follows; the dominant image is Peele in a close up shot of him looking straight into the camera this is meant to draw the person in because it is like Peele is looking at the reader, the way peele has expressed himself is he is looking very serious and still into the camera. This is intentional to show the reader an insight into what Peele's work and life is like: very serious – the image is also black and white which contrasts against the ‘rolling stone’ masthead which is in a strong red colour , the colours suggest a horror type of theme due to its lack of colour this could interest a reader who may not know who Peele is but interested in the horror genre, on top of the on Peele's face is an intentional rip that was made in post production on the magazine this could subjectively perceived as that peele is tearing apart the expectations of film or what he does because a reader who would know what peele does is known for his controversial political commentary films inspired by the likes of spike lee. It also features the main sell line which reads ”the terrifying vision and unlikely triumph of Jordan peele’ or a reader just skimming through the magazine could be interested because of the use of adjectives the writer used to describe Peele’s vision. just based on what peele does and how he looks and pairs with the other considerations on the cover you could say he would follow the codes and conventions
- 3. Also the magazine uses another sell line which reads ’’2019 Grammy preview’’ this could bring an audience in because even if they do not know who Jordan Peele is they will know about the Grammy and be interested in picking it up anyway specially if it a preview because other magazines may not have this specific preview also under that is a subheading which features big names such as Dua Lipa, Greta Van Fleet and Brandi Carlile so for the same reason as before Incase a reader wasn't interested about Jordan peele a reader may still want to read even if they have no interest in him so the magazine is appealing to multiple audiences because they have a young audience so they are trying to keep that relationship with the audience talking about multiple topics but however because they are not following the codes and conventions so I effect they are not broadening their audience because they are making it less appealing to bring more people in, only fans of rolling stone or less likely fans of film would pick up this magazine purpose From what codes and conventions this magazine follows it does very effectively with the posture of peele and the choice of doing black and white it does look very appealing but as a whole compared to a typical pop culture magazine it fails to follow all the codes and conventions therefore you could assume that the magazine is at a state of max growth and has reached a point of commercial success where it could be compared to the likes of vogue magazine which is known globally as an iconic magazine for it’s features of A-list celebrities and doesn't’t need to expand and grow its follower base because its so well known Rolling stone Rolling Stone isn't regarded as a high end magazine yet it is very popular, the relationship with its audience is a very strong bond. The audience in particular is arguably mainly middle class due to its focus on pop culture which wouldn’t appeal to a higher class audience but yet it is sold higher end in supermarkets like: Asda , marks and spencer's and etc. Whereas if it was truly middle class it would be sold in local shops and newsagents where the more middle class people (c2 – E) would go for magazines but in them type of shops that sell magazines such as 'ok!' Magazine and others similar which are classed as 'middle class' magazines but compared to the likes of rolling stone it would seem very high classed it is also priced very highly ($15) as well compared to other pop culture magazines which are priced around ($5) The target audience that rolling stone strive for are middle classed people aged 15-30 they want to capitalize on the young people all around the world mainly because they have such a strong impact and are the easiest to capitalize on with their feature of celebrities and talks on current world issues e.g climate change, social issues
- 4. Double page spread Drop cap Sell lineMast head Sub heading Column/ main text Dominant image
- 5. In this double spread, rolling stone have chosen to focus on Adele who is a world-renowned musician and who at the time, in 2012, had just won a Grammy. the magazine at the time had a feature titled "women who rock" in which she was the main part of the feature. In the the mast head it says ” the triumph of Adele ” the writer has purposefully made it bold and black to stand out against the gray toned background. It takes up a large portion of space in the top left hand side of the screen to be bold, this does follow the codes and conventions of a double spread because it brings an audiene and as wel this is also a typical thing that rolling stone does on their double spreads by doing so ithelps srengthen the brand because its giving itself a style which also helps boos popularity because it helps people recognise it. The article also uses a monochramtic theme using black whtes and greys this gives it a very formal and serious theme to the way it looks suggesting to the seriousness of Adele and who she is as an artist, another interpretable way Is that the lack of colour also shows what kind off music Adele writes suggesting her music style is very sad and melancholic The article features a drop cap which is very typical, ts the first letter of the first word in the paragraph and is enlarged it uses a capital 'I' in bold and black text this follows the codes and conventions and a lot of other publications use the drop text cap because it helps bring attention to the column and provides variation and make it interesting and the main body of text strays away from conventions because it does not feature columns and is just 1 paragraph but the reason may be because the main image of Adele takes up a lot of room on the double page which I very conventional for magazines to do The dominant image takes up a large portion of the double page spread and is the focus of the article therefore leaving little room for columns and the main body of text. It is a close up shot of Adele looking away from the camera to create a natural look this does not follow the codes and conventions because Adele is looking away and not engaging the reader to want to read it and her face is very airbrushed to enhance the natural look and also helps give her this 'classy' look. The subheading is a short summary of what is to be expected in the article I this subheading it says about adeles newly releases record '21' and the making of it and features the writers name aswell. It writes "the voice, the passion and the making of '21': Inside the biggest pop music of our time" the writer uses a list like technique to exaggerate and make it more interesting. The sell line which reads 'women who rock 2012' was a series of articles done by rolling stone and this sell line was used throughout many of articles during 2012 purpose Overall for this double spread it does not follow a lot of codes and conventions however the ones it does , it does successfully, the double spread is very appealing to the reader and does what rolling stone do very well in that they create something simplistic while still maintaining a lot to look at. They still do a great job of
- 6. Psychographics, demographics and social grade. Both subjects of these magazines have very similar audiences in terms of psychographics, demographics and social grade Psychographics The people who would buy these magazines are people who particularly come from an arts background (theatre, musical , film) wethers it's in their family, school or even just a hobby people who have specilised in the field of that because both adele and peele are artists but what differs is that peele is known for his acting and filmaking and adele is known for her music so the audience may differentiate when it comes to what magazine they read. Aswell as that a reader may pick it up because of their interest in that type of each of the subject's respective field. Even if they didn’t have experience in that type of field, they may be a fan of the person of interest Demographic A person who made read the Adele article would be typically a white heterosexual female aged 25-45 they would probably be in a relationship / have children and would have an income of aimed around 10k – 35k , they would be presumably middle or lower class because Adele appeals to women because of her music and especially mothers because Adele herself is a mother However a person who would read the Peele article would typically be African-American heterosexual male aged 15-35 they probably would be living by themselves and have an income of 20k – 40kand would be middle class because Peele appeals to audiences who care about his controversial films that have underlying themes that represent the political tension regarding racism in America right now. Social grade A person's social grade who would read this magazine ranged from B(middle class) - E (lower class)
- 7. Mast head Dominant image Sell line Sub header This rolling stone issue is on Harry Styles , a very talented and popular musician, ex-one direction member who focused on his solo career after the groups extended hiatus from music in 2015. Even after releasing is very successful self titled record in 2017 and touring throughout 2018, harry still manages to grace the cover of rolling stone magazine. The most eye-catching part of the magazine is the dominant image featured Is a medium close up shot of Harry, topless, smiling and looking directly into the camera this follows codes and conventions because harry is engaging the reader by looking into the camera as if he were looking directly at the reader. The image has a selective view of harry with emphasis of his face because that is what the magazine wants to focus on and by doing this they are challenging their own codes and conventions because normally pop culture magazines have a lot of sell lines on it but they have made a conscious decision to not feature them because they know Harry himself is such a big star that they will sell just with Harry. The mast-head is the same as it always has been, rolling stones instantaneously recognisable logo , the deep red hue which contrasts against the neutral tones of the dominant image this follows codes and conventions because it helps the magazine stand out and be recognisable to people Click to add text Print front cover
- 8. The front cover features 2 subheadings this in fact does not follow codes and conventions because the point of sub headings is to earn more readers even if they are not a fan of harry styles so by not adding lots of subheadings they are relying on harry to sell the magazine but rolling stone is at a point where they can get a-level celebrities where as other pop culture magazines may not be able to get such features. The sell line reads " sex psychedelics and the secrets of stardom '' they have done this purposefully to sell the magazine this follows the codes and conventions because they are being persuasive by using words such as ''secrets of stardom'' they're trying to give an insight into Harry's life because his level of famous might seem unattainable to the target audience of rolling stone Purpose The front cover of this magazine fails to follow the codes and conventions, rolling stone has relied on harry as the selling point of the magazine which goes against the codes and conventions compared to a typical pop culture magazine which will have lots of sub headings and sell lines to help sell it but still overall rolling stone as a magazine is very successful and the reason for that may be its feature of popular celebrities and its use of techniques still manages to convey a reader to buy the magazines
- 9. Mast head Dominant image Sub heading Drop cap column Print double page spread
- 10. The double page spread compared to the front cover follows many more codes and conventions to start off with; the masthead is bold and in large italics this follows the conventions of a typical pop culture magazine because they want to have the title large and bold to pull the reader in as well as that they manage to follow the overall colour scheme of the double page spread because it matches with the dominant image of Harry to the left it primarily takes a lot of the room in the right side of the image leaving little room for the columns which goes against the codes and conventions The dominant image featured is a full body shot of harry standing in a field of flowers, they have did the same as they did on the front cover where they have selective views harry but this time they have just focused om his upper torso instead of just his face, what they ghave done here is help blend the colour scheme so it overall has a theme, it takes up the left portion of the page which follows the typical codes and conventions of a pop culture magazine however what it does being large leaves no room for the column The column not being large and being a single small paragraph does not follow the codes and conventions because what a magazine would try and do is create a column so the text is organized however it can be presumed that the interview is spanned across a multiple of pages and this is merely an introduction the column however has a drop cap which does follow codes and conventions of a typical magazine because it helps start a point and organises the text to make it look neat The double spread does feature a subheading that reads ''riding shotgun with the former boy-band hero as he opens up about sex, psychedelics and becoming a 21st century rock-star'' this follows the codes and conventions because before an interview the writer will set up for what the reader will expect and the writer has kept it informative and well written for what is to be expected Purpose The purpose of this magazine does is create in entertaining format for the reader and however this magazine does not follow the typical conventions of a pop culture magazine and from what It does follow it does well however the main reason why rolling stone may sell is of their unique interview style where they send out a writer to be with the subject for a day and no other magazine does this so it maybe gives a unique insight into how a celebrity lives their hectic life
- 11. Psychographics, demographics and social grade. Psychographics the type of person to pick up this magazine will probably come from one direction fans and/or will be a fan of his more alternative work so they will like a lot of alternative music. They will probably the type that enjoy going to concerts and feel strongly towards social issues due to one directions positive and polished message. They will most likely be atheist. The subject of this magazine is harry styles and harry styles once a member of one direction will obviously have a lot of young fans which effects his demographics a lot compared to the likes of adele Who has a lot of older fans. Demographics A person who may read this magazine would be aged very young aged 10 – 25 and they would be white heterosexual females who wld still be living with their parent or guardian and have an income of about 0k - 20k Social grade A persons social grade who would read this magazine would be C2 – E because most of styles' fans are very young and they would have a very small low payed job/ part time education to hep the get through uni/ school or still be In full time education e.g college , secondary school
- 12. Technical considerations of a digital and print magazine Pros of digital • Digital magazines are much easier to distribute and produce whereas they do not need to pay shipping fees and send them to shops all over the world • Greater exposure to target audience • Very good for advertising brands • Very eco friendly does not add to carbon emissions and very waste aware • Full artistic control and good quality images • Can make it more interactive by adding more sounds e.g. adding YouTube videos ,hyperlinks etc. Pros of print • Its portable with and without internet connection • Can be viewed as easier to buy and read • Has more value than something digital because its real • Target audience may have more access to it digital • Print is distributed to new agents and supermarkets which values the magazine itself and also helps local vendors Cons of digital – •Cant access without any service or an internet connection. •Can be hard to read, might require to zoom in and out •If there is thing such as YouTube links, sound links, the readers server may not accept it and that takes away the full digital experience. Cons of print– •Not very eco- friendly and can contribute greatly to pollution. •A lot more expensive to print and distribute around the world.