Magazine article analysis

Hip-Hop Weekly

The person featured in the article is Terry Kennedy. He is a pro skateboarder but is also establishing rap group and new clothing line. This makes me think that the target audience is teenagers and people who are in their early 20’s who enjoy rap music or skateboarding. The language used is very informal and a lot of slang and colloquial language is used. The language appeals to the audience because they can relate to it, in other words they usually use the same type of language, and because it is informal it makes the interview more relaxed and enjoyable to read.

The tone used by this magazine for this particular article is an informed intelligent fan. For example it says “Pro skateboard aficionado Terry Kennedy has made his mark on the industry, but he’s taking the sport to a new level on his upcoming BET reality series.” Because the magazine is telling us information we don’t know, it is as if they are an informed friend telling us this new information we want to know.

In this interview the style of the text for the question is San serif and the style for the answer is serif. This is similar to other interviews in the text because they all use two different font styles for the questions and answers. The way the interview is laid out makes it easy to understand and more enjoyable to read because after every question and answer there is a gap so you know the next question is separate. Also the question is in yellow font and the answer is in white font, making it easier to understand the interview which makes it more enjoyable and less of a hassle to read.

Most of the pages in this magazine use images that outnumber and overshadow the small amount of text used on each page. This shows that they believe that their audience prefers to look at the different images they produce than the text that would go with. They value their images over their text, probably because they think their audience prefers their images compared to their text.

The image used to present the artist makes him look happy with life, powerful and a confident person. They have done this by using a low angle shot, to make him look like he is looking down on the reader so we get a sense that he is a strong and powerful person. Also, the fact he has a big beaming smile and he has his thumbs up shows his happiness and that life must be going well for him at the moment. The caption used below the image is “Being Terry Kennedy” and his name is in bright yellow text. This makes the reader think that the following article is going to give us a competent insight into the artists life making the reader know more about the artist. Also the fact that his name is in bright yellow text could represent the sun and show that his life at the moment is bright and happy, which is often associated with the sun.

The style of the front cover matches the style of the article because they both use bright yellow text and they both have a main central image. A house style is used across the whole magazine as every page has a similar format and uses the same font style and colour. I don't think the article really needs the reader to have any prior knowledge because the content of the interview gives the reader a lot of information about Terry Kennedy and also the caption before it tells us a little bit about him. I do think it helps though if you have know a little bit about him beforehand though so you can enjoy reading about him more.

           

NME

      The artist in this article is a very popular musician called Hayley Williams. Her genre's are alternative rock, emo and pop punk. This suggests to me that the target audience for this magazine is people who enjoy these different genre's of music. I also think that the target audience would be mid teens to late 30's, because this is the age group that mostly enjoy these different genre's of music.

     The language used in this article is standard English and no slang is used. This language would appeal to the audience because it makes the magazine look more academic and if the magazine just used magazine and slang all the time it would make the magazine look ridiculous and discourage their target audience from buying the magazine. An example of standard English they used is " While her time in the spotlight has served to fortify her belief in herself..."

      The tone of the magazine is an informed intelligent fan because it informs the reader about facts, quotes and opinions about Hayley Williams which they are likely to enjoy. For example the articles tells us she was born in Meridian, Mississippi and it also tells us that Hayley Williams says "We're worth listening to. There is no one else like us." This type of information would be well received by Hayley William fans and NME readers.

      The style of text used throughout the text is San serif. This same text style is used throughout the whole magazine. This shows the magazine is very consistent and there isn't much variety. It also shows that the readers prefer a more consistent style throughout the whole magazine. The way the article is layed out is a mixture of facts opinions and quotes from Hayley Williams.The pages in this magazine are all very similar. The posters in the magazine all have a similar colour scheme.