Preliminary Project - Research

During our research I have found a few magazines that would appeal to college students. The common age for these magazines would be ages 16-20 with a mixed gender audience. These targeted audiences are most commonly ‘achievers’ as they are studying hard for their A levels. The range of people on the Jicnars scale would be completely undependable and impossible to base the content of our magazine on this. The audience we have selected are from different backgrounds and parental way of working.

Examples of a Magazine

This magazine is effective for a college audience because the stories inside the magazine are based on informational college students who are giving advice to the audience. The picture boost on the front cover is a female student as this appeal to the audience as they can relate to the girl in their current educational status. From this magazine front cover, we can use the masthead or running head that appears at the top of the magazine. The masthead uses the wob feature by having white writing on a coloured back ground. This is effective because it appeals to our target audience.

Denotations and connotation of image: The student is looking directly into the camera smiling, therefore it connotes that she is very happy and proud of what she’s doing. Confidence high, no sign of hesitation. She’s wearing a pink blouse which connotes that she’s quite calm, relaxed, free and confident.

There is also a lot of ideology on this front page as the girl is showing all her dominance by looking extremely confident and no hesitation of shyness. The residual side of ideology is that she is serious about her education and is encouraging the audience that going to college is a good idea. Emergent ideology connotes that woman can be more intelligent and appealing than men.