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Magazines: Changing Representations

Magazine media language: codes, conventions and design

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 3

Overview

Five conventional elements of a magazine front cover, mode of address in relation to a magazine and magazine's house style.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Name five conventional elements of a magazine front cover.

Key term

Give three design conventions specific to an online magazine.

Key term

Apply Barthes's idea of myth to a magazine cover.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Name five conventional elements of a magazine front cover.

    Model answer

    The masthead, a dominant cover image, cover lines, a puff or flash, and the barcode with the issue date and price.

  2. 2

    Why does a magazine keep the design of its title unchanged for decades?

    Model answer

    It is how a reader finds the title on a crowded shelf, so recognition is worth more than any improvement a redesign could bring.

  3. 3

    Explain why a masthead is often partly covered by the cover image.

    Model answer

    Allowing the image to overlap the title signals that the magazine is so well known it does not need to be read in full, which connotes confidence and established status.

  4. 4

    How do a magazine's cover lines tell a reader whether it is for them?

    Model answer

    The subjects promised, the way they are worded and what they assume the reader worries about together state who the issue is addressed to.

  5. 5

    Define mode of address in relation to a magazine.

    Model answer

    Mode of address is the way a magazine speaks to its reader through pronouns, tone and assumed knowledge, and it constructs the reader it wants by taking that relationship for granted.

  6. 6

    How does direct address on a cover work on a reader?

    Model answer

    The use of you and of the imperative speaks to each reader individually and positions the magazine as an adviser or friend whose instructions are worth following.

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Contexts of Media
Media Language
Media Representations
Media Industries

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Submarine is set in .
SwanseaCardiffAberystwyth

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Rapid timed gap-fills on the terms and numbers you need to recall without thinking.

AQuantitative data counts how many.
BQualitative data explains why.
CA production usually needs both.

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Assemble a full-mark answer from its marking points, in the order an examiner wants them.

An audience receives what is offered.
TrueFalse

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Spot the fault in a statement. The traps are the mistakes students actually make.

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