Denotation:
The magazine cover above has a colour photograph of a man looking directly at the camera. The picture is a mid shot, showing his head, arms and waist. He has tattoos all over his arms, a silver watch on his right wrist and a silver cross chain around his neck. The background of the photograph is a grey-white colour and the main picture covers pretty much the whole of the magazine. Behind the character is the masthead of the name of the magazine ‘VIBE’ and there are also 5 different cover lines behind the character in red and back. The characters name is in a big bold red writing behind the photograph with a two line story with it.
Masthead:
The ‘VIBE’ masthead is very attractive: A faded black colour on the top half of the writing with red at the bottom. The font used is a sans serif font, and all the letters are separated from each other. The font used is a basic font with no related cultures behind it. The title vibe gives the impression that the magazine is modern and in a funky sort of style. The word vibe portrays rap, hip hop and pop artists which obviously makes it a modern magazine.
Character:
The cover photograph is of the successful American rapper ‘Eminem’ or previously known as ‘Slim Shady’
Costume:
Eminem’s clothing is just a plain black tank top vest. This allows the picture to reveal his tattoos around his arms and his muscles are quite visible as the tank vest is tight and allows the audience to see it. This has been used to attract the target audience which will be people who are fans of rap and in the age of between 12 and 45.
NVC: His non verbal communication is very stable. It’s just a very still; stable kind of image who is looking directly at the camera.
Lighting: The lighting is a very dull colour and represents the gangster type.
Setting: There is no specific background. It is obviously an indoor picture, with a dark colour which suggests the stereotype of gangsters in dark alleyways.
Cover lines:
The main cover-line that relates to his photograph says:” ‘I literally almost died’ Eminem comes clean” This is suggesting that Eminem has moved on from his previous life and songs as he made some rude and dirty songs in the past and has become clean. His previous songs contained violent words, dirty images and him cussing a few well known people. This compared to his most recent hits and albums e.g.: ‘Not afraid’, ‘Love the way you lie’ and ‘Things get worse’ (all released in 2011) shows that Eminem has really changed and his recent music shows more of the right than the wrong compared to his past songs. This didn’t really have any impact on the charts list as Eminem has always been a top artists with almost all of his albums and songs hitting number 1. The different cover-lines tell us that the magazine is not focused on just Eminem and one genre of music. The likes of ‘lil Wayne’, ‘Kanye West’, ‘Jay Z’ and ‘T.I’ (shows that magazine is focused on American artists. There are also other headings such as “are the roots too black for Jimmy Fallon” who is an American actor. So the magazine is not just music related but on current affairs as well but it is strongly linked with celebrities only.
Target Audience:
Considering all these points of the magazine, there is no specific target audience, it can be male or female but preferably male because male’s tend to listen to rap music more often, and it’s probably aimed at the age group between 12 and 45. The target audience will have a good taste in the latest music. They are likely to be really outgoing with a good knowledge of the American culture.
Composition:
He is posed in a very suggestive ‘who cares’ kind of way. His pose, body language and clothing are very stereotypical towards the rap fans.
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