The Source magazine content analysis

The Source magazine content analysis

The Source magazine is a Hip Hop music, politics and cultural magazine, meaning it is a hybrid magazine, which was founded in 1988, worlds second longest running rap periodical, and published by the John Lewis Partnership. The primary target audience of the magazine is teen boys and young adult men, your able to identify this because there is only males in the images, so that the target audience is able to relate to them, and because in the magazine they only talk able male artists and not female. The layout of the magazines contents page is very different compared to other music magazines, the main major difference is that the contents page is on two different pages, there is a page for the features, and a page for all the other things that are in the magazine. The list of all the different things that are on the page are in one column down the page. The headline of the content page is ‘Master plan’ which is in bold white writing on the first page and bold and black on the second page, this is because the colour of the backgrounds on the pages are both different colours, this makes the headline stand out more from the rest of the text on the pages. The title of the contents page is to the right on the first page and to the left on the second page, this is because on the first page when the reader flicks through the magazine they will see the headline of the magazine first, and on the second page its not as important because the reader has already seen the title, and will see that its still the contents page. 

The contents pages have different images, on the first page the whole image takes up the whole page, this would attract the reader to the contents page because they would see this image and would want to know more on why it is on the contents page. On the other contents page there is two images, but both images are of the same man popping a balloon, the first one with him about to pop the balloon and the second image of him after he popped the balloon, which has a number underneath the image telling the reader what page the image is on, the reader will want to know why there is someone popping a balloon and will go to that page to find out more on the image. With theses images they conform to typical representations for this genre of music, the representations that they have are that they dress in the way that the genre of music has, and they pose in the way that the genre of music would suggest.

The colour scheme of the contents page is only black and white, this is to keep the contents simple for the reader, so they don’t get confused with lots of different colours that the magazine can use for the contents page. The colour scheme is also to show that the contents pages are linked together, they are linked together by having on one page white text and on the other black text, with this you can the editor of the magazine is trying to make the magazine interesting to the reader instead of keeping it the same colour and very boring. 

The Source contents pages are very unconventional to many magazines, the layout is very simple and not confusing, making the contents pages easy to understand. Using an image as the background attracts the viewers to the contents page and will want to know more of why the image is used for the whole page. I like how The Source has two contents pages, this helps with the simplicity of finding out everything in the magazine, rather than the chaotic, confusing contents page of rock magazines such as Kerrang.