Textual analysis of Vibe music magazine

Vibes music magazine

Denotation : The magazine cover consists of a colour photograph of American R’n’B superstar Chris Brown who is looking direclty at the camera. The photo is a medium long shot showing his head, arms and waist. He is standing, leaning on a concerete wall with one hand in his left pocket while the other hand is half in his other pocket. The background illsutrates a dull effect as we cant really see the background other then a dull red, durberry colour which makes Chris Browns red shirt stand out in this front cover. There are seven cover lines in red, white , black and green with very little space between them. A bar code is visible in the left bottom corner.

Masthead: Vibes masthead is bold, with the masthead being white. The font used is a sons serif, with the lettering being all in capitals with large gaps between the lettering. The bold masthead suggest that the magazine is trying to create some sort of energy between the readers and all the musicians that use or read vibe are associated with R’n’B or Hip Hop.

Character: The cover photograph is of a huge R’n’B star who goes by the name as Chris Brown.

Composition: He is situated in a very slugish way possibly indicating that he doesn’t care. However with his hands in his pockets and two fingers sticking out this shows a gangster life style as his right hand shows this, as this could be meant as a gun sign.

Costume: His clothing is very plain and simple with dark jeans and a red t-shirt, along with all the bling such as the watch, the bracelet and the gold necklace, Along with the black baseball hat. The costume is to appeal to the target audience who are  most likely to be teenagers. The costume also represents the way some people dress in todays society.

NVC: His Non verbal communication is very gangster like, as his hat is titled at an angle on his head with him looking direclty at the camera. However from this, this could indicate that this is how people who like this sort of genre dress.

Lighting: The lighting is high key as the photograph is meant to show daytime but also to put the focus on Chris Brown as he is a leading aritsit in the world of Hip Hop and R’n’B.

Setting: There is very little setting and its hard to tell what the setting is of.

Cover-lines: The main cover-lines thast relate to the photograph says “IS THAT CHRIS BROWN”. This  is making reference to the music industry, as the industry along with his fans may have forgot about him as there was a controversial case against him last year as it was allegated that he beat up Rihanna, which he was found guilty of, which in a way runied his career as the outside world turned against him for the sickening things he did to Rihanna who is now one of the worlds leading artist.  The other artists mentioned on the cover-lines are usher, WILL.I.AM, Swizz Beatz and Young Joc, all arist that have the same taste in music and produce the same sort of music that Chris Brown produces. The way the cover-lines are written shows that the this magazine is focusing on the future of the music industry in America, and this indicates that the American music industry will be dominate for many year to come.

Target Audience: This magazine clearly targets young people and teenagers of both genders. However it could also target anyone who has a taste in R’n’B and likes this sort of American culture.