Look carefully at the front covers of MOJO and RNR magazines.
QUESTION: How far do MOJO and RNR use different media language to create different connotations? (CONNOTATION meaning: an idea or quality that a word makes you think about in addition to its meaning.)
In your answer you should have 2 paragraphs:
- analyse the media language in MOJO and RNR magazine. 'Media language' includes the placement of the main image, the type of photography, lighting, colours, fonts, how busy or restrained the cover is, the layout (such as alignment to the margins), how serious or playful
- make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the media language is used differently in both extracts to create different connotations. Are there similarities in both covers? What sorts of audiences are they targeting? You could think about MOJO's rock aesthetic of living loud and dangerously compared to RNR's folk, rock, blues vibe.
- MOJO has a more busy, cluttered cover due to its numerous cover lines, images, puffs and a dynamic cover mount in neon colours with a vibrant cartoon image. RnR has many cover lines too, but they are more minimalistic and justified to the RH margin. They are all in white creating a calm, orderly, uncluttered quality. Equally the cover mount, with its modest verbal play, unheard, is very plain and streamlined. MOJO's choice of colours is vibrant, electric and dynamic. Particularly in the primary colours of the cover mount, with its playful skeleton. By contrast, RnR uses soft, dull browns and only red as an accent colour- it is far more monotone.
- Dave Grohl is positioned to dominate the cover; he is given power and prominence and occupies a great deal of space. It's clear how dynamic the group is as the title of the band is placed in between his hands; it's in a distinctive text unlike other fonts on the page. The 'Foo Fighters' font is sans serif red and white and in italics with a drop shadow. This connotes action and energy, which is supported by the title of the featured article "further adventures of Dave Grohl", with "adventures" being the key word. The pull quote states "We've been to funerals, we've been to jail"- this conveys the idea that the band has experienced struggle and have been in dark places. It can be inferred that this struggle was for their music.This media language reflects a very stereotypical rockstar lifestyle. The RnR cover is far less aggressive; the main splash is a folk singer, Christy Moore, who comes across as more tranquil and laid-back than Grohl. The pull quote "yoga, camomile tea" connotes relaxation, with the last words "Our Father" reflecting the start of the Lord's Prayer. The pull quote overall demonstrates that Moore leads a retired, calm, spiritual lifestyle.
- Therefore I judge that although both magazines conform to genre conventions and feature a star as the centre of visual interest and celebrate them, MOJO does so in a more dynamic, aggressive, confrontational way compared to RnR's gentle, low-key, folksy vibe. This is because MOJO targets a primarily male rock audience while RnR is aimed at folk and blues audiences. Although both music magazines feature many articles (typical of music magazines), RnR is more orderly and restrained.
