Textual Analysis 4

DENOTATION

The magazine cover consists of a colour photograph of a man looking directly at the camera. The camera shot used is a medium close up as you can see his body from his chest and upwards. The photo looks as if he is standing straight but you can never be too sure as we ca only see the photo from his chest and above. The background of the photograph is grey, and the photograph covers the whole of the magazine cover. There is nothing behind him but in front of him is the ‘Q’ masthead and several cover-lines. The masthead ‘Q’ has a white letter and a red square background. The cover-lines are in different fonts and sizes. Some of the cover lines contain a non-serif font while the others contain a serif font. The photographed man’s name is in white capital letters in a serif font. A bar code is visible in the bottom right corner of the magazine.

MASTHEAD

The ‘Q’ masthead is very unique because it only contains one letter and it is surrounded by a red square to help it stand out. The font used on the letter ‘Q’ is a serif font as it has a flick up on the end of the letter. The font used on the letter is the type of font used on the famous ‘coca cola’ writing and connotes American culture; the music magazine is from the UK but also talks about American artists such as Michael Jackson.

CHARACTER

The cover photograph is of the successful king of pop, American singer ‘Michael Jackson’

COMPOSITION

He is posed in a very cool and superior manner as he is smiling at the camera with sunglasses on. His body language shows that he is posing for the camera to look presentable.

COSTUME

You can clearly see from the chest that he is wearing a shirt with no colour and a blazer. The costume has been chosen carefully to appeal to the target audience of the magazine, who are most likely to be everyone because he is seen as an idol and king of pop. The sun glasses on his face complete the look.

NVC

His non verbal communication is calm and the sun glasses on his face show that he is cool and the sunglasses stand out on his face. He is also looking directly at the camera with a smirk on his face.

LIGHTING

The lighting is slightly high key as there is a bit of darkness but there is still a bit of brightness in the photograph.

SETTING

There isn’t any setting visible in the photo as the camera shows a medium close up from the top of his chest and above, however the grey background connotes the fact that Jackson’s mad and bad world is revealed.

COVERLINES

The main cover-line that relates to his photograph says: “MICHAEL JACKSON UNMASKED: inside his mad, bad world”.  This is making reference to the lifestyle that Michael Jackson was living before and during his music career and how it has affected him over the years e.g. when he had many operations on his nose, the changing of skin colour from black to white and so on. The different cover-lines tell us that the magazine doesn’t concentrate on just music itself  but also reveals that the magazine focuses on current news events as well- e.g. “No more cramps – the Neil young endurance test’. Some of the cover lines us e serif font and the rest use non-serif fonts.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Considering all these points, the likely target audience would be universal as all people admire Michael Jackson’s music and he had been around for a long time promoting his music and performing music for children and adults of all ages. All the fans would have a good knowledge of popular culture and a wide range of musical styles and the music industry generally. They are likely to be well educated/well read, and have an interest in American popular culture.