Textual Analysis - Contents Page 1

Kerrang! Contents Page

This is a Kerrang contents page. This particular contents page doesn’t intently give away what type of music magazine it is. It has three images. One is of a bright city which is the biggest picture at the top of the page. The second is also of a city which has a building with Chinese writing on it, this could indicate that this magazine is distributed all over the world. It talks about this on page 66, “The Shanghai syndrome”. The last picture shown is in the bottom right hand corner which features loads of people which is called “Frequent flier face lift”. The masthead is shown in white on a black background so that it stands out and the reader can see it. It also has two sub-titles “features” and “regulars”. The regulars could mean that this is some of the things that are usually in the magazine which the audience can read and relate to. The features could be something that the magazine has put in special for this particular edition.


Vibe Contents Page

This particular contents page for Vibe indicates that is is a certain type of music magazine. Another indication of this is that Ciara is the main feature of the page. The magazine has made the contents pages more interesting by the images and mixes of fasion statements used on the page. They have used a heading for ‘features’ and a heading for ‘fasion’ This could be done to tell the reader to expect a bit more than just music and celebrities.

The masthead stands out to the reader because it is in capital letters and is white on almost a black background, therefore contrasting it and making it stand out to the rest of the page. The contents title almost uses enjambment, this also has no meaning as the word ‘contents’ is not broken up into syllables.

Ciara is the main image that people will look at when they look at the contents page, this is natural instinct, they look at pictures before words. It is normally the pictures and the headlines that make the audience want to read further. The fact that Ciara is wearing nearly the same colour as the background shows that she is a huge part of the magazine; this also however could add to her sexual image as the main thing standing out is Ciara’s bare legs. The reader knows she is meant to be a sexual image as she is laying down with her legs in the air, this could be seen as overly sexual for a contents page.