Contents Page Analysis

This is the contents page of Four Four Two magazine which is a football magazine. It's primary target audience would be social band C1-E because football is seen as a working man spots, although it is watched and played by people from other social class bands. The primary target audience gender would be male, with the secondary audience being females. The primary age would be 16 years old and on wards. As these are the main ages that buy these magazines. The secondary target audience would be any other football fans, of any age.

The masthead has not been put on this particular magazine. It is often a convention that companies will put the mast head on the contents page, however this magazine is very well known and doesn't need to have the masthead on the contents page to be recoqnised.

The magazine layout is fairly simplistic, as it has one large picture of the right hand side of the page and a large picture at the bottom of the page. This draws the reader into the main story as that it was the picture is linked too. On the bottom photo which takes up around 1/3 of the page it has a crowd of people with the words "season preview" this means it is telling the readers about the ideas and tactics the team will use to begin the new season. This would interest them as they could know what a certain team is doing and incise them into reading more. With the layout there is a block of writing positioned to the left of the pictures. That includes the articles that are included in the magazine and what pages they are on. That would interest a reader, as they would want to know what is included in the magazine they have just bought also to know their way around the magazine.

There is a 6 colour pallet (red, blue, yellow, pink, black and white). That is high for a magazine but is the right number for a magazine aimed at children as it attract them into it. Using the bright vibrant colours as well is a good choice. Using the black background on the main image with the white writing on it makes it stand out more to a reader as its using opposites.

The lexis choices are the right choice for their audience as there isn't a lot of words and the words are short. Perfect for children because they won't want to read alot and just look at pictures. The words that are on the contents page are names of clubs and players. That would then attract the fans of those player and clubs to turn to those pages and read about their teams. The word "Contents" isn't on the contents page, which is not following the conventions of a magazine, as the readers wont know what page they are on.

The main image is of Pep Guardiola, he is a manager of the club Barcelona that is why the Barcelona badge has been put on the picture. In that year he won the league and was a well-distinguished manager in that year. Most people would recognise him that is why he is the main image. There is a quote by him that reads "My pride and ambition are enormous" this is key for a manager as he respects himself and will be able to achieve great things. This would inspire the youth that they could achieve things that he could. The badge is next to his name to show was club he is linked to. The badge is relatively big compared to the actual picture of him. That would appeal to the fans of that club.

"Youth as fun, youth as trouble maker" This links too the sport of football in general has the stereotype of fans is to be hooligans and cause trouble. In theory the youth of today will follow that stereotypes to fit in and make friends. This magazine would have linked to the fun part of the quote as they are using the magazine for a source of entertainment.

This contents page is from Golf magazine. Golf magazine is a very prestigious golf magazine that has been running for many years. I decided to analyse this contents page to get an idea of the conventions held by sports contents pages. The primary target audience for this magazine would be males in the social class bands A-B, usually aged 30 and over. This target audience is because this age range predominantly plays the sport as the game has a slow pace and takes a long time to complete, so is more leisurely than most sports. The secondary target audiences would be males that are younger than this age range or females or this age range.

The layout of this magazine is very organised and tidy and has a different section of the page listings for each category.  The page listings are down the left hand side of the page with 4 images to the right of this, which highlight the main stories within the magazine.  There is a great sense of organisation about this contents page and this is a convention of this genre of contents because it connotes the older target audience, who are stereotypically more organised and tidy. Another convention of sports contents pages in terms of layout is to have a handful of images that represent the main stories in the magazine, this is done because it helps the reader to visualise the story and make the reader more interested. This is common within sports magazine because it helps the reader get to know who/what the story is about, so that they can recognise it again it they saw it.  Page numbers are also a common convention of contents pages, as they are used so that the reader can navigate through the magazine with ease. Another common convention of contents pages is to have the title of the magazine and the word “contents” at the top of the page with the date and issue of the magazine. This contents page have the mast head from the cover in the top left of the magazine with the word “contents” in the top left.  The colour pallet uses 3 main colours, red, white and black, which once more is a convention of magazine contents pages. There aren’t lots of colours as an older target audience will not be as interested in that. The use of colours that connote, passion, competition and purity are often seen on sports magazines. The font used is a very professional and sophisticated font. This attracts the target audience as they are of an older age and a higher class band and this typography helps to attract the target audience because it makes the magazine have a more professional and sophisticated feel.

In terms of images, there are 4 images that represent the main stories that are within the magazine. 3 of the images are long action shots of some professional golf stars are performing and a final landscape picture of a well known golf course. These images are used to draw the readers into the stories and to break up the page, so that it is easier on the eye. It also target the secondary target audience of younger up and coming golf fans who won’t be interested in a page full of words. Each image is also labeled with the story, separately to the list on the left hand side; this represents the target audience as they like things to be organised and simple.

The lexis choices are small with limited words. There are sentences explaining shots and words of just players. This is good for a contents page as the main writing will actually be on the article. The writing is just explaining in brief terms what is in the article later in the magazine. There is a specific semantic field of golf in with specific jargon used that only golf fans would understand including, “The range” and “front 9.”