Preliminary: Contents Page

Preliminary: Magazine Cover

Preliminary: Magazine Textual analysis and conventions diagram

The masthead, titled ‘Mixmag’ could already be suggesting its target audience is of about 16-17+ as it sounds quite informal. Another example of a suggestion of magazines teenage target audience is the selling line, printed above the masthead: “the world’s biggest dance music and clubbing magazine”. It’s mainly those of teen years and young adults who enjoy clubbing and who listen to dance music (initially played in clubs). What attracts its readers is that it calls itself ‘the world’s biggest dance music and clubbing magazine’, showing that there is so much to get from the magazine.
The main cover line reads:
“Move over Tongy!
ANNIE MAC
Is she ready for the biggest job in dance music?”
Tongy is, supposedly, a music Dj who is quite popular in the dance music world, and Annie Mac is a well known Dj for BBC Radio 1. The cover line is asking a rhetorical question, leading the readers inside the book to find the answer. Listeners of the genre would be ever more attracted to this article as it is implying that she is taking Tongy’s place. The reader is further attracted by the bolding of font and the colour change of the words “biggest job in dance music” because it emphasizes the drama to the reader.

In the image (medium close up), she is wearing a black top, a gold chain, and a single ring. The black contrasts with the white background and the fluorescent light she is holding in her hand. The chain around her neck has two different colours to it. Where the chain nears the light she is holding, the colour is gold, but as it draws more away from the light, it is black. This compliments the general colour and tone scheme of the image: black and white, or light and dark. For some reason, the colour brings out her facial features revealing her sharp beauty, which is piercing to most male readers, not to mention some female.
Her non-verbal communication suggests she is calm and cool, as she is gently gripping the light and slightly leaning on it. She has no worry of face, and she almost appears to be smirking, which in this case could connote confidence.

Preliminary: Magazine Analyisis

Denotation + Connotation
The masthead is in bold, is block capital, bright red. This could be used to suggest a power and strength Empire - it stands out against the blue, and it complements the magazine’s selling line: The World’s biggest movie magazine. As the selling line can only be bigger than the website link, I can only imagine the title is there to suggest to the readers that they really are bigger than the other magazines of its genre - aiding its competition. This idea also seems to be the same with the main coverline: INCEPTION (the masthead). But where the 'spiky font' of the masthead could represent Empire’s visual sharpness, and that they are able to strike the readers, the main cover line remains bold and strong, possibly representing the films power.
The Main image seems to be the centre of attention here. Di-Caprio (who is the main character in Inception) is in a suit, and holding a gun, probably representing a mix of formality and danger, and can relate to formal and dangerous people.
The suit (his costume) could be used to represent a class of people who have to work in a suit i.e Businessmen, federal guards etc. Many men can relate to this (appealing to the power complex men have - one of media's stereotypes on men), and the gun (a prop) could be used to represent a sense of power, bravery, but if you link the colour of the text with Di-Caprio’s prop, you could link it more with danger.

Preliminary: Magazine recreation