Media Coursework:Comparing Kerrang and Top of the Pops magazine

Media Coursework:

Comparing ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Top of the Pops’ magazine

The two magazine articles that I am comparing are from two different styles of music magazine. The 'Paramore' review is taken from February 16th 2008 issue of ‘Kerrang’ whereas the Kelly Rowland interview is taken from the February 26th 2008 issue of ‘Top of the Pops’. 'Kerrang' is a music magazine aimed at people in their high teens or early twenties. However the readers of 'Top of the Pops' are most likely to be aged at young teenagers. You can identify this because of the simple language. Music magazines are important to teenagers because teens nowadays like a wide variety of music from pop to rock, so they like to know specific things about their liking of music mainly from magazines.

In the two articles there are similar choices on colour. For example they have both chose the colour black and white. In the Kelly Rowland article you can clearly count how many colours have been used. There is black, white, blue and pinky-red. I have also noticed that these colours are what Kelly Rowland is wearing. Her hair is black. Her clothes are white. Her eyeshadow is blue. Her lips are pinky-red. This is why that without doubt the magazine designer would have picked up on these effects and included them. By using colour the magazines can easily attract their chosen audience. For example, the 'Top of the Pops' article attracts young teenagers as the bright vibrant blue and red draws the eye in. Also, some teens could state that their favourite colour is black, red, white or blue. The heading in the Kelly Rowland article is called “miss-behaving”. It’s in a glowing blue colour. It draws you in and brings ideas to your head as you look at the title. As for the subheadings, they are coloured pink and blue alternately. The rest of the text in front of it is in white. As for the Paramore article, the main heading doesn’t stand out as much as the previous article. There are quite a few sub headings and they are very large in size so it’s hard to distinguish between them and the main title, but the colour theme of the article is black and white. This would attract Paramore’s audience as it’s not specifically aimed at boys or girls. The colours are unisex therefore it would attract more readers colourwise than the Kelly article as hers’ is particularly aimed at girls.

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Both articles use a picture of a female singer placed on the right hand side of the page. Both the Paramore and Kelly article have very large pictures compared to the text. By using pictures of this size suggests that the pictures are the main focus of the two articles. I think the Kelly Rowland article focuses more on the picture as the writing is quite brief, yet the picture has been carefully designed to draw you in to the article. Kelly is stood with her arm up looking straight at you. This entices the reader. It’s personal, as if she’s inviting you in. Also, girls reading the article and seeing Kelly would aspire to be like her. They would want to have the beautiful clothes, glittery jewellery, and bright white teeth and so on. However compared to this article, Paramore definitely focuses more on the writing than on the picture. This could be a divisive issue though as people could argue that it focuses on language more on language when it could be said that it focuses more on the picture because it takes up half the page. I think that it focuses more on the language as however big the picture is the writing overrules it in detail. Also, the target audience is older so they would want to read about the issue more than decipher a picture. In the Kelly Rowland article, they have used a female singer because not all people can imagine Kelly when they read the article. There are lots of celebrities like Kelly so seeing her in front of you is easier.

In the two articles graphics have been used. In the Kelly Rowland article the only graphics we can see is the “miss-behaving” title. It is on a slant and is in a glowing blue colour. This presentational technique draws the eye in, so this means that it is important to the article/page. I think that it has been used in this way as it makes the article stand out and it makes the article more informal. The colour and style of this title matches the two other text boxes which has text in them. Similarly, in the Paramore article graphics have been used too. It’s in a baby blue colour with a black background. The title is not the only graphics on the page because all the subheadings are in graphics too. In comparison to the Kelly Rowland article it doesn’t have any glowing ‘alien’ colours. Both of the articles have large text boxes in the bottom left hand corner. They have been used in that way as so it can add extra information to the articles but without changing the subject completely. In the Kelly Rowland article there is a repeated use of font throughout. This adds a sense of tidiness. I think that this has been done as so not to confuse the reader. Also, I realised that if you have lots of different fonts on one page then it gets a bit childish and it brings down the age group of the audience. In the Paramore article it uses two different fonts, but as there is a lot of writing it changes the font as so not to bore the reader.

In the Kelly Rowland article the vocabulary is very simplistic with no complex sentences, unlike the Paramore article where there are no simple sentences. With having the language and sentence structure this way it attracts their chosen audience. After analysing the pictures and presentational devices of the Kelly Rowland article I would say that the target audience is early teens. However the language used in the Paramore article suggests that the target audience is older teens to early twenties. Some language that implies this could be: “…friends over you, still remains their most memorable moment, they bring a sense of irreverent fun to proceedings...”

I think that language has been used in this way because it’s an older writer writing the article. This can also be seen in the Kelly Rowland article where it says: “‘fess up!”

This is the older writer trying to write as how a younger audience speaks. However, in this article the writer has made a slip-up by using the word ‘façade’. It does not fit in with the rest of the article. She has also put the word ‘yeah’. I have made this point, as using formal and colloquial language together is improper. Additionally the writer has used alliteration many times. For example: “pain in the posterior”. The language used is quite posh. Another alliterative phrase is: “temper tantrum chick”

Throughout this article the tone is conversational; unlike the Paramore article where the tone is quite formal except with the odd input of subtle humour for example: “…of the academy that there’s not only plenty of room to swing several cats but, if your…”

Colloquial language has also been used in the article where it says ‘emo’ and ‘tees’.

In both of these articles puns have been used. Firstly, in the Kelly Rowland article the title says: “miss-behaving”. This is a pun as misbehaving means being badly behaved but miss (with a double s) means as in ‘Miss. Kelly Rowland’. So it says missbehaving but it means that she is behaving. This pun has been used cleverly as to make the reader ponder and consequently read the article. Similarly the Paramore article says: “though she’s barely taller than her audience it’s strange to think how fast Paramore have grown”

In Kelly Rowland article there is a textbox which has information about three artists in the charts, and their horrid habits. It says ‘dirty Avril’, ‘upset Lily’ and ‘bad Britney’, this is triple cluster. These four people (including Kelly) are all competing in the charts so the writer is making them look shameless. This is improving Kelly’s reputation. However, the Paramore article shows a textbox that has a miniture interview with a member of the band. He is giving his point of view of the gig.

My views on the two articles are below. Firstly, I didn’t enjoy reading the Paramore article as the colour scheme was very dull and the subject didn’t interest me at all. Also, the language used was very complex and dreary. However, the Kelly Rowland article was more attention-grabbing with the bright colours, simple sentences and exclamation marks. Having exclamation marks brings the excitement to you and includes you in the fun. Nevertheless, both of the articles succeed in getting the information across by using colours, pictures, presentational devices, and their choice of language. Overall, out of the two articles my favourite was the Kelly Rowland article as its simple, colourful and attractive and the writing is in brief chunks which make reading easier.