Analysis of a music magazine double page spread

To get an idea of common conventions of feature articles of music magazines I am going to analyse a feature article on Blink-182 in Kerrang magazine. The target audience for this magazine are fans of rock music aged between 14 and 20, and would be mostly aimed at straight males. This target audience would be people of middle or lower class (grades C1-E).

The text is laid out in small columns which makes it easy to read as the audience are not trying to read around images or getting confused by the layout of the words. The target audience will stereotypically not want to read a lot of text, and this article features only a small amount of text, enough that it will give the readers all the information they really want without getting bored by having to read too much. The title of the article takes up most of the double page spread and the main image takes up about half a page as well. The text is placed in random places around the page, connoting that the target audience would prefer to read lots of small sections of text than a single large chunk. The title of this article is ‘My Dinosaur Life’. Dinosaurs are usually seen as quite a childish thing to be interested in, which connotes that the magazine is for a younger target audience as they are more likely to find dinosaurs exciting.

The colours used in this article are red and black. These colours give the impression of youth, which could be saying that he has not really grown up yet and is still a child on the inside. It also connotes anger and depression, which could show that he is not coping very well with his lifestyle and his fame.

The main image in this article is of the feature artist. This image is quite large and takes up about half of a page. This connotes that the target audience do not want to do much reading and would prefer to look at pictures instead of a lot of text.

The language used in this article uses an informal mode of address that represents the needs of the target audience. Language uses words from the semantic field of rock and uses everyday language that the target audience themselves would use in conversation.

The person in the article has a hairstyle that it is stereotypically more what a youth would have their hair like. His clothing is also of a style that youths would often wear. This connotes that the magazine is for a younger audience as the mise-en-scene would suit a younger audience.