Magazine Article Analysis 2

Article Analysis 2

      

        

The choice of artist in this article is Cheryl Cole. Cheryl Cole is best known for being a part of the group Girl's Aloud, but recently as she has become a worldwide success from the hit talent show X Factor where she features as one of the judges, she has decided to go solo for the time being and created her own album. This suggest that the target audience is extremely vast due to Cheryl Cole's appeal to many areas of British culture. It ranges from girls that want to be her, to men that want to have her, which opens the target audience range of this particular magazine wide open when normally 'Q' focuses on more rock-related artists. 

The type of language that is used in this article is very informal. This straight away appeals to the target audience of the magazine as the majority of Cheryl's fans are working class as she had come from a working class background herself, which means that they are likely to be less educated. This reflects in the type of language as it is less formal and more easy to understand for somebody that is not so educated. An example of this would be the opening sentence of the article which reads, "Cheryl Cole is sick to death of looking at herself. it's Wednesday afternoon, and she is sat in a make-up chair wearing a pink leopard print dressing gown and Ugg boots, having extensions woven into her hair..." This image of Cheryl makes her seem like a normal girl with normal problems and wears very normal clothes, which can be related to the working class reader therefore making them feel as if they are similar to this world-renown popstar.

The tone that the magazine has to address the reader is as an extremely informed and intelligent fan. This can be told by the way the magazine is constantly tell the reader interesting and supportive facts about Cheryl which makes it seem as if it is an informed fan talking. An example of this is, "At one point she has the UK's Number 1 single, album and TV show. She is the only person who has topped FHM magazine's Worlds Sexiest Women poll and a list of Britain's "most requested teeth" from cosmetic dentists." This shows how the magazine sounds like an informed fan as they are constantly giving the reader positive facts about Cheryl to make them like her even more. 

The style of text that is used for the majority, if not all, of the article would be a Serif font. This use of font is very easy to look at and read, making the words seem soothing and smooth. This makes the reader feel easy and comfortable when reading the magazine. This tells us about the image of the magazine and its audience as we know it is a magazine that likes to make their readers feel very comfortable when reading, and the audience enjoy reading this specific style of text so are not into music such as hard-rock and heavy metal despite what the magazine 'Q' may make a reader think. The textual interview is arranged by starting off telling the audience where the interview is being set (i.e. in a dressing room while she is having her make-up done). Then it goes on into extreme detail of Cheryl's highlights and downfalls since she rose to fame, while having quote from her inbetween this.

The pages are arranged very similarly in this article as in each page there is only one  but very large image followed by lots of text beside that image. This means that only just over half of the pages are taken up by text. However in one of the article pages as can be seen above, one of the pages is taken up more by an image rather than text where as the others show the majority of text, not to mention the page in between which is taken up fully by an image. This reflects the target audience as the amount of text to image of each page is very similar, with the amount of text for most pages only just taking the edge. Also there is a page in which there is only image and no text, and also one in which the image is larger than the amount of text. Therefore telling us about the audience that they prefer to see large images than just text alone, reflecting Cheryl's working class audience as they are less educated so prefer less text. 

Cheryl Cole is presented to the audience through these images as almost a superhero. This can be told as all of the images are taken in the rain, and Cheryl is standing there with her back straight and dressed all in black with buildings in the background like she is a hero. This reflects the target audience as she is being presented as a superhero, yet her working class fans know she is very normal just like them and does normal things and is a normal girl which makes them feel like if she is normal yet can be a superhero, so can they. It makes them feel like Cheryl may be a normal girl, or portrayed as such, but can do great things like be a superhero standing in the rain and protecting the city in the background, then they can too, giving them hope that they can be like her. One of the images anchors read, "'Wa-hey, I shoulda brought me brolly pet', etc, etc..." This shows a contrast between the sophistication and seduction of a superhero standing tall in the rain to a normal girl from Newcastle, making the audience believe further that if a normal girl like Cheryl can make it big, they can to. 

This article hardly requires any prior knowledge. The only prior knowledge that you require for this specific article would be whether you knew who Cheryl Cole was or not, which is pretty unlikely as she is one of the, if not thee most famous people in Britain right now and featured in Britain's newspapers on a daily basis. The reason that no prior knowledge, other than whether you know who Cheryl Cole is or not, is required because the article gives lots of information and facts about Cheryl and what her life has been like for the past year or so both positive and negative. Therefore if you know of Cheryl Cole but are unaware of her life from when she started to really appear in the public eye then this magazine is so detailed that it provides all of this information for you including more that is maybe less newsworthy but none the less still interesting. This shows that all you need to know is who Cheryl is in order to understand this article making it appeal to a wider audience and allowing them to put the article down knowing who Cheryl is and what her life has been like since she rose to fame. 

By Harry Luke Mulvany