Article Analysis
The magazine in which I am analysing an article from is ‘Uncut’. The artist chosen is best known as a former band member from Elastica, Justine Frischmann. Elastica was at its highest in the mid 1990’s in which they produced an album including many singles that had charted in the UK and US. Prior to this however, she was in a band called Suede which was well known for starting the ‘Britpop’ movement, as she is still known for to this day and it is mentioned frequently in the article, being said to reinvigorate British rock in the early 1990’s. If you take in all of these into account, you will see why this artist has been chosen and how it appeals to the target audience.
There are two types of text used throughout this article in order to portray a message to the reader. The text that is used the most would be the use of Serif the font. It is used for the main textual font as it is easy to look at and very calming. The other font that is used when describing a quote from Justine is the San-Serif font. This is suitable as it is more bold and hard hitting which is perfect for the quote as it reads, "I need to be doing something creative or the energy overwhelms me..." and it is the first think that is seen when reading the article. This reflects the target audience by saying that the majority of articles that they feature in this magazine are not violent or completely newsworthy stories, but none-the-less very specific to what the audience want, which is stories of musicians that have contributed to the history of rock music.
Even though stories like this that are featured in the magazine are relatively mundane, they still use the most interesting quote and use hard hitting font to express it as if it were a completely newsworty story. The text is arranged throughout the article by having text all around and small images in the middle of the text, with larger images to the side or above the text. The interview is layed out by starting from the beginning of Justine's life, and telling the story of how she got to where she is now, within this expressing to the audience how she has contributed to the concept of rock music that we see today which is vital in this specific magazine.
The page is laid out by having a quarter of the first page text in the bottom-left hand corner, then the rest is taken up by the article's title and part of the huge image taking up the next page. To contradict this, the page after this, the final page of the article, has one medium sized image at the top but lots of text below this with 3 very small images of her artwork in the center of the page. This reflects the target audience as they are slightly older and more aware of the history of British rock music so therefore are more mature and would like to know more information about the person specified in the article, hence why there is more text
This is because they value the contributions to British pop culture and rock music so would like to know deeply how this specific person contributed to that. The tone that the magazine is using to address the reader is more suitable to an informed fan that knows the woman's life throughout and is rather intelligent and insightful. This can be told by the beginning of the article in which they begin to describe the woman's life, "Fifteen years ago, the prospect of Frischmann living in a rural Californian town, talking about Buddhist meditation and abstract art, would have seemed absurd.
In this specific article, they feature a very large image inbetween the two pages of text of Justine holding a can of spray paint, in very messy clothes and surrounded by art in a very messy and colourful room. The anchor for this image reads, "Justine Frischmann in her Petaluma Studio. California, August 2010." This image presents Justine as a very wild and vibrant artist that is now expressing her creativity through art, which can be told by the mess that is in the image, rather than through music which is what she is know famously for.They want the audience to believe that she still has this creativity she has when she was in her band, but now she is just expressing it through abstract art instead.
The use of language appeals to the target audience as the magazine talks about music that contributed to what we see as rock today instead of just rock bands that are out now. This makes the target audience seem slightly older and informed of how British pop culture has changed over the years. A specific phrase that shows this would be, "Frischmann seemed the ultimate personification of Britpop, more even than her partner Damon Albarn. She was sharp, cynical, embedded in a grand British tradition of popular culture, sexually frank, and not a little hedonistic." Words such as cynical and hedonistic are words that some people may not be able to understand, therefor signifying the educational values of this magazine's target audience.
The language that is used in the article is relatively formal, as the article uses meaningful words to emphasize and try and make it more vivid of how this former musician contributed to British pop culture and the history of rock music.She has been chosen specifically as this magazine focuses less on he contemporary or modern/recent rock music at the moment, but more at the history of rock music and what has made and contributed to it. She is the pinnacle of what this magazine represents as she is no longer contemporary and current, but is being made out as if, throughout the 1990’s with her two bands, she contributed to rock music and made it what it is. Therefore she comes across as if she was significant to British culture, adding to the history of rock music and popular British culture of the 1990’s which is exactly what this magazine is all about. This therefore suggests that the target audience are well-informed of old British pop culture that have added or were significant to the history of rock music which is exactly what she is made out to be.
There are two types of text used throughout this article in order to portray a message to the reader. The text that is used the most would be the use of Serif the font. It is used for the main textual font as it is easy to look at and very calming. The other font that is used when describing a quote from Justine is the San-Serif font. This is suitable as it is more bold and hard hitting which is perfect for the quote as it reads, "I need to be doing something creative or the energy overwhelms me..." and it is the first think that is seen when reading the article. This reflects the target audience by saying that the majority of articles that they feature in this magazine are not violent or completely newsworthy stories, but none-the-less very specific to what the audience want, which is stories of musicians that have contributed to the history of rock music.
Even though stories like this that are featured in the magazine are relatively mundane, they still use the most interesting quote and use hard hitting font to express it as if it were a completely newsworty story. The text is arranged throughout the article by having text all around and small images in the middle of the text, with larger images to the side or above the text. The interview is layed out by starting from the beginning of Justine's life, and telling the story of how she got to where she is now, within this expressing to the audience how she has contributed to the concept of rock music that we see today which is vital in this specific magazine.
The page is laid out by having a quarter of the first page text in the bottom-left hand corner, then the rest is taken up by the article's title and part of the huge image taking up the next page. To contradict this, the page after this, the final page of the article, has one medium sized image at the top but lots of text below this with 3 very small images of her artwork in the center of the page. This reflects the target audience as they are slightly older and more aware of the history of British rock music so therefore are more mature and would like to know more information about the person specified in the article, hence why there is more text
This is because they value the contributions to British pop culture and rock music so would like to know deeply how this specific person contributed to that. The tone that the magazine is using to address the reader is more suitable to an informed fan that knows the woman's life throughout and is rather intelligent and insightful. This can be told by the beginning of the article in which they begin to describe the woman's life, "Fifteen years ago, the prospect of Frischmann living in a rural Californian town, talking about Buddhist meditation and abstract art, would have seemed absurd.
In this specific article, they feature a very large image inbetween the two pages of text of Justine holding a can of spray paint, in very messy clothes and surrounded by art in a very messy and colourful room. The anchor for this image reads, "Justine Frischmann in her Petaluma Studio. California, August 2010." This image presents Justine as a very wild and vibrant artist that is now expressing her creativity through art, which can be told by the mess that is in the image, rather than through music which is what she is know famously for.They want the audience to believe that she still has this creativity she has when she was in her band, but now she is just expressing it through abstract art instead.
The use of language appeals to the target audience as the magazine talks about music that contributed to what we see as rock today instead of just rock bands that are out now. This makes the target audience seem slightly older and informed of how British pop culture has changed over the years. A specific phrase that shows this would be, "Frischmann seemed the ultimate personification of Britpop, more even than her partner Damon Albarn. She was sharp, cynical, embedded in a grand British tradition of popular culture, sexually frank, and not a little hedonistic." Words such as cynical and hedonistic are words that some people may not be able to understand, therefor signifying the educational values of this magazine's target audience.
The language that is used in the article is relatively formal, as the article uses meaningful words to emphasize and try and make it more vivid of how this former musician contributed to British pop culture and the history of rock music.She has been chosen specifically as this magazine focuses less on he contemporary or modern/recent rock music at the moment, but more at the history of rock music and what has made and contributed to it. She is the pinnacle of what this magazine represents as she is no longer contemporary and current, but is being made out as if, throughout the 1990’s with her two bands, she contributed to rock music and made it what it is. Therefore she comes across as if she was significant to British culture, adding to the history of rock music and popular British culture of the 1990’s which is exactly what this magazine is all about. This therefore suggests that the target audience are well-informed of old British pop culture that have added or were significant to the history of rock music which is exactly what she is made out to be.
This article does require a frequent amount of pror knowledge. This is because this magazine's whole purpose is to target people that enjoy rock music not only from the present time but mainly from previous years, and how the concept of rock music that we see now was formed. This means that the knowledge of previous rock musicians that may not be in the public eye any longer and they contribution to rock music. If this prior knowledge if not known then this magazine will be hard to understand and relate to as they talk frequently of former musicicans and their music that they produced which formed British pop culture of the present time. A perfect example of this is my article in general as Justine Frischmann is not very popular worldwide or even within the UK, except only fans of rock music at the time she was popular. If you do not know any knowledge of former rock musicians then you are unlikely to know who Justine is and find no reason to read her article or any other aticle with a simular concept to this.
By Harry Luke Mulvany
The use of language appeals to the target audience as the magazine talks about music that contributed to what we see as rock today instead of just rock bands that are out now. This makes the target audience seem slightly older and informed of how British pop culture has changed over the years.
ReplyDeletethis is an important point about the article and you have explained it well. Well done.
Thanks.
ReplyDelete