‘Genre is not simply given by the culture: rather, it is in the constant process of negotiation and change’ (David Buckingham 1983)
Common conventions of magazines:
- All magazines are rectangle in shape and are mostly A4 but sometimes can be A5. They are no bigger than A4 because they are printed on glossy paper which is expensive, more expensive than normal paper that newspapers are printed on. They are also this size because they are made to be taken anywhere you would want to read it so they can not be too big or too heavy because this means they will not be portable. Also if they were too big (for example if they contained 900 pages) they would be too expensive to buy on a regular basis, or ever.
- All magazines are laid out so that they read from left to right from front cover to back cover so that it is the easiest it can be to read them and does not confuse any readers.
- All magazines start with a main image on the front cover and then proceed into an editors note or a contents page.
- The language is friendly so that it has a more personal tone so that the reader can relate to it more and so that they feel like it is talking to them, as if they were talking to a friend.
- More and more magazines are becoming downloadable which means less and less people are going out and buying a paper magazine. Downloadable magazines are also cheaper than paper versions.
- Magazines always have a masthead which is usually at the top of the front cover. This is so that people know which magazine it is straight away when seeing it. The masthead also hints to what the magazine is about, for instance, Glamour magazine suggests that the magazine is for glamorous people and includes glamorous things in the magazine. The masthead also suggests what the target audience is as Glamorous is not usually a word used to describe straight males and is always a word to describe females and gay males which means that this is highly likely to be the target audience of the magazine.
Conventions of a fashion magazine:
- The people in the main images on the front of fashion magazines are always females, unless they are males who have been sexualised for the enjoyment of women. They are also highly likely to be models or celebrities because if they had a normal, every-day woman on the front readers would not feel the need to buy the magazine because they would not feel any need to become the woman on the front
- Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze suggests that even though fashion magazines are generally aimed at women and gay males, the model will still need to have a certain 'gaze' because the readers will look at the model on the cover and aspire to be like her because this gaze is very likely to attract males. This applies to the clothes she is wearing as well because it will aspire readers to want to wear the same clothes so that they will look like the model.
- A common convention of mise-en-scene on a fashion magazine main image is that the model will be wearing designer clothes so that even if the words are in a different language, the audience will still be able to know what the genre of the magazine is because of what she is wearing. If the model wasn't wearing designer clothes she would not be as likely to be seen as stylish and fashionable, even if what she was wearing was in fashion. This also includes clothes that are not necessarily designer but are a bit unusual and unconventional because this means that the model has put thought into what she is wearing and is fashion conscious.
- A general convention of a fashion magazine is that there is text either side of the model in the main image. The masthead sometimes covers a slight part of the models head and the masthead also sometimes goes behind the model so that none of the model is covered up.
‘the ‘ideal reader’ and attitudes about class,race,age and gender’. (Kress 1988)
How does your text genre choice encourage/attract its ideal reader?
- The ideal reader of fashion magazines are fairly wealthy females with a higher than middle class social status. People who are able to buy the designer clothes, handbags and make up that are featured in fashion magazines
- Fashion magazines attract the ideal reader fairly easily because there are a lot of conventions that can be attractive to the ideal reader. These include the high price, the model on the front cover, the clothes she is wearing, the prestigious title that certain fashion magazines have (for example people will buy Vogue just because it is Vogue, not entirely because of what is advertised on the front cover).
