How to Take a Good Photo

Music Magazine Drafts

Improvements

• Mid close-up 
• No bag strap
• Thicker masthead
• Different colour masthead
• Better font

Draft 2

Task 6 - Preliminary Task

Initial ideas

Flat plan - Magazine cover

Flat plan - Magazine contents

Magazine cover

Magazine contents page

Drafts and proposal to be uploaded. 

Task 5: IPC Case Study

Task 4 - Essay

To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer? 

Teenage girls nowadays are more conscious about their looks and sexually aware than ever. You could say they are a generation that are growing up too fast. But who is to blame? Most people would say it's the fault of teen magazines and this is what I shall be discussing in this essay.

The above screenshots are five examples of magazines aimed at teenagers, but some of them have readers as young as 11. A recurring theme in the majority of the magazines is looking beautiful and improving how you look. This is apparent from cover lines such as "Look prettier today!" and "181 ways to look hot every day!" Even the jobs they promote could be seen as encouraging girls to try and make themselves look more beautiful as these include beauticians ("Career advice from Amy Childs"), actresses ("Does [Emma Watson] have the best job in the world?") and models ("Model comp alert"). Another contributing factor to young girls' obsession with improving their looks is the representation of the female celebrities on the front of these magazines. They give young girls a supposed idea of what they should look like which may mean drastic changes for some girls. As well as this they are often very 'smiley', sweet and bright (similar to the colour scheme) suggesting that all girls should be like this. 

This is supported by that fact that, according to one study, "70% of teen girls agreed that magazines strongly influenced what they thought was the ideal body type (1)."

They aren't just asking girls to change just for themselves either but also for boys. One cover line on 'Bliss' magazine advertises an article about things that "boys hate" so girls know what to change about themselves in order to make a boy like them. In fact, most of them are very focused on boys. Mizz even includes the word in their tagline: "You Style Gossip Boys". This is teaching girls to be interested in boys much too soon. Magazines could also be to blame for girls with the unrealistic expectation of having a relationship with a celebrity as one of the 'Top of the Pops' cover lines states "Union J and District 3, both want your love. Who'll win?" 

Growing up too fast is also a big issue with young people and magazines don't help with that either. 'Bliss' magazine is aimed at girls aged 13-17 and yet has the cover line "Gossip, gold-diggers and getting wasted. What really happens at celeb parties". Most of their readers are too young to drink but look up to celebrities and want to be like them, so after seeing this cover line may be more likely to not only drink, but get drunk. 

However, as you have probably noticed, not all magazines are like this. In fact, although Teen Vogue talks about watching weight and self-improvement it seems to consider such subject matter in a more critical light than the other magazines. One cover line "Calorie obsessed. Can healthy eating go too far?" seems to go against the grain of what most other magazines may promote. It also uses the mocking cover line of "Attack of the clones" referring to plastic surgery, which could be seen as encouraging teenagers to be unique and individual. 

While many of these magazines may be promoting harmful goals for young girls they are not the only form of media to do so. Television (both programme content and advertisements) also bombards the viewer with unrealistic role models and music channels often feature promotional videos that are totally unsuitable to a younger audience and appear to go largely unchallenged and unregulated.

(1) http://www.education.com/reference/article/how-magazines-affect-body-image/

Task 3: Magazines & Audiences (Part 2)

From this cover of Cosmopolitan magazine it is clear that the target audience is women who are likely to be aged between 20 and 40 and of working class. This is apparent due to a number of different codes and conventions displayed on the front of the magazine.
First and foremost, the eye catching pinks of the front cover's colour scheme are a clear indicator that this magazine is intended for woman. The shade of the pinks as well suggest that it isn't for older women as they're light and 'girly'. This is also the case for the swirly fonts used. This magazine, however, is not intended for young girls which is obvious from the second biggest cover line advertising "Explosive sex secrets!" This then leads us to believe it must be for young adults as they are less likely to have settled down and will be more concerned with improving their love life.
The main image as well is helpful in us understanding the target audience. For any magazine, more often than not, the main image would be of a celebrity of a similar age to the target audience and Kimberly Walsh would have been 29 when this was published in 2011, again leading us to the conclusion of 'Cosmopolitan''s target audience. She is also not overly sexualised and is portrayed as a happy confident woman, which would appeal to women over men. Though, the fact that she is in a rather short dress does add to the idea that this magazine is for younger women as anyone older than 40 is not likely to wear an outfit like this.
The puffs on the cover are also very feminine and the plugs inside these puffs would mainly concern young women. The large numbers of the plugs catch the reader's attention, drawing their eye to what they're advertising: fashion. The fashion they're uncovering in one of their articles is to do with outfits for evening events, for example parties and clubbing, as the cover line "Buy-now-wear-tonight steals" proposes. These sort of outfits are probably not much desired for most women older than 40 and so, again, the assumption is that the magazine is for younger women.
If this wasn't enough to make the age of the audience clear the gossipy cover line "Exclusive! 'My name is Kate Middleton... and I'm a transsexual'" yet again enforces it. Women of a slightly older age will be more sensible and quicker to disregard gossip like this classing it as ridiculous but those of a younger age will have more of an interest in scandals such as this one.
In terms of audience's class, the cover lines are good indicators of this. One uses the phrase "OMG" which is very colloquial and is not associated with high class citizens. Another cover line is "Climb your career ladder" which tells us the audience are intended to be of a working class. As well as this the price is £3.50 which is quite dear and so the magazine is not likely to be purchased by anyone out of a job as it is more of a luxury item than a necessity.
Therefore, all these codes and conventions are what lead me to my original conclusion that 'Cosmopolitan' magazine is a magazine aimed at young women between the ages of 20 and 40 that are of a working class.

Task 3: Magazines & Audiences (Part 1)

Glossary 

• Code - A system of signs which can be decoded to make meaning. 
• Colour scheme - A planned combination of colours used to appeal to a target audience.
• Convention - The widely recognised way of doing something. 
• Cover line - The brief announcements or blurbs displayed on the front of a magazine. 
• Genre - The classification of any media texts into types of categories. 
• Ideology - Powerful ideas about how things should be. 
• Left third - The left-hand vertical side of the magazine where most of the important information (big articles, competitions etc.) is placed in case of a horizontal shelving system. 
• Main image - Typically showing the person/ object associated with the main feature/ article.
• Masthead - The title of a magazine at the head of the magazine cover.
• Plug - Information about the contents of a magazine or newspaper given on the front cover.
• Puff - A piece of graphic design on the front of a magazine used to boost status and attract the reader. 
• Pull quote - a brief, attention-catching quotation taken from an article and shown in speech marks to entice the reader.
• Representation - The way that people, ideas and events are presented to us.  
• Strapline - An introductory headline below the masthead describing the magazine. 
• Target audience - A specific group of people the magazine is aimed at.