Magazine Attitudes

The first example of a magazines attitudes in terms of a style is Kerrang! magazine. This magazine has a certain style that is used for every issue they produce. The second magazine is one that completely contrasts the attitudes of Kerrang! magazine, this is the Top of the Pops magazine, again featuring it's own style that is repeated with each issue.

The sell lines for Kerrang! include things like "sex. drugs. violence" and "The world's most dangerous band" giving off the idea that Kerrang! is a hardcore/rock magazine that will appeal to a more manly, aggressive demographic.

Then we can see what I would consider as the complete opposite in Top of the Pops magazine, with sell lines including "Who's the fittest?" and "Gaga at school" with lines like these it gives off the impression that their target demographic are mainly interested in pop culture and things related to the appearance of their favourite artists.

Another noticeable difference in the attitudes of the magazines in the pictures used. For Kerrang! all of the images used seem to be professionally taken, specifically for this issue, potentially because they have an interview with this artist and used this opportunity to have a photo shoot. Whereas the images used for Top of the Pops seem to be second hand, as in they are either images taken by the paparazzi or have been collected from online sources. The only exception to this is that the image of Jessie J appears to have been taken in a photo shoot which I assume is because they are including an interview with her. The other images that have not been taken by the magazine's own photographers are used because they do not have exclusive interviews with these people, instead they have stories relating to these artists. This again show that the readers of Top of the Pops are more interested in the everyday live of the artists rather than what they have to say about their own work.

Overall it is clear to see that specific attitudes towards marketing and design, are a key feature in creating a magazine appropriate for your target demographic. Clearly magazines such as Kerrang! would not have such a loyal market share if they designed their covers in a way like Top of the Pops magazine. Their magazine is more focused on the passion that the artists put in to their work, therefore if they advertised childhood photographs of a certain artist, this would not really interest their existing fan base. The same can be said for Top of the Pops magazine however, if their front cover suddenly featured "The worlds most dangerous band" or stories such as "How to survive Rock 'N Roll" their readers would not be likely to buy the magazine, or be interested in the story.

This analysis shows that whilst there are many existing attitudes that you can have concerning the design of your magazine and it's content. A specific attitude must be used that relates to the genre of the magazine, or else it is unlikely that the magazine will develop much of an audience.