Magazine analysis - Vibe

The typical cover picture of the hip hop magazine 'Vibe' is of male rappers, typically 50 cent, eminem or Jay Z. When a female is on the cover it is of a nature that will appeal to the male gender. The females that have a place on the cover include Keyshia Cole, Ciara Williams, Beyonce and Maria Carey. For my cover I plan to either have a black male rapper, as is the case with the majority of hip hop magazine covers, or story on the rise of the female DJ. I have picture candidates for both these positions, as well as a candidate for a white rapper I included in my flatplan. The problem that arises is that my magazine will focus on urban music as a whole (Hip hop, drum and bass, reggae and dubstep) as opposed to the primary focus of Vibe which is hip hop. Perhaps if I plan to appeal to this wider audience I should use more than one type of music for my cover. Maybe if I personify a person on the cover who mixes together two or more of these genres, but will still appeal to the hip hop audience of vibe. An MC for example, who sings hip hop lyrics over drum and bass or dubstep samples. As I am making up the artist, it will not be a problem to represent this in writing within my article.

The layout of Vibe is usually one picture of a person, as I plan my magazine to be. It usually consists of lots of text, rather than a simplistic layout as I am planning my magazine out as.

Target Audience

The target audience for my magazine is going to be a large number of people, as it spans 4 genres of music, but also a specific audience as Drum and bass, hip hop, reggae and dubstep music are enjoyed by similar kinds of people, and often if one of these genres is listened to by a person, they are also quite open to the other types of music included in my magazine. Though drum and bass and dubstep music may seem very similar, the audience in which they appeal to can be very different, as is the case with hip hop and reggae. Though hip hop magazines have been developed already, this is only one type of music my magazine spans, and because the other types of music may also appeal to hip hop fans, they are more likely to buy my magazine rather than a magazine that focusses mainly on hip hop alone. For example, the magazine 'Vibe' appeals to the target audience of the black rapper. 50 cent has been on the cover of the annual magazine 4 times. Perhaps if I plan to appeal to this audience myself, I should cover a black rapper in one of my stories, and include text or a picture of it on my cover.

As Media Task - Introduction

The task for my first assignment of Media Studies AS level is to create a music based magazine. The genre of music I plan to base my magazine on is Drum and bass, hip hop, reggae and dubstep music. I plan to call my magazine 'The Tune'. My main article and main picture on the front cover is going to be on the rise in the level of Female DJ's on the Drum and bass scene of today. As with my preliminary task I plan to use photoshop as the base program for designing my magazine, as I am much more fluent in it than in InDesign. The magazines I have done my research from are hip hop magazines Vibe and The Source, both of which are published on Blackboard. To view the front cover and contents page of my preliminary task, follow the link. http://brookthomas.blogspot.com/2009/10/media-as-task.html