LIIAR: Liam Gallagher NME Cover

Language: in NME’s splash you can see one large masthead stating NME in red which is conventional for NME because it has always been there since the start of the magazine and is never changed in place. The skyline tells us about Kasabian and a quote from them “HYDE PARK IS CALLING” this shows how the magazine is interested in this, and that this is one of the main topics that the magazine will be talking about. The date is located with the price in small just below the masthead, this is there because it is more of a referential place to have it and because this way it is more likely to be noticed. It does however have the date and price anchored to the barcode also but this is less obvious because it blend in with the rest of the writing on the barcode, (other prices and the website). The barcode is here in order for it to not encroach onto the main image and stay more out of the way because otherwise it may make the magazine tacky and unprofessional. Both the left and right third of the magazine are filled with cover lines about the bands/artists involved in the magazine. Anchored onto the main image is a large quote from Liam Gallagher, which is supposed to make you want to the magazine because of who he is and who he is talking about the colour scheme works well because it has always been used on NME magazine, but only recently exclusively. The red works well on all the largest lettering because it is the largest and brightest colour on the magazine.

Institution: IPC Media creates NME and a lot like Bauer Media (Q magazine) it has magazines which are specifically targeted at certain audiences for example Rugby World.

Ideology: NME’s ethos is to create a publication which focuses more on the music of the times , Live and CD review wise rather than just focusing on one certain aspect of music. It may regularly be disloyal to bands it used to like because it simply wants to be bought because of who is in it at the time. It helps that NME sells itself as part newspaper and part magazine because it is weekly and its short therefore more brief and concise than a longer monthly magazine which would be harder and more expensive to read.

Audience: NME is aimed at young people aged 16 – 19 or slightly older and as a majority is read by men, music magazine tend to be more aimed at men because there seem to be more music writers who are male not female. Also it holds more laddish bands as good and will not feature people like JLS or Justin Bieber because they are usually only liked by girls.  

Representation: NME represents itself quite formally and professionally, like a paper, because this makes it look a lot more refined and substantial than it is. The black and white image of Liam Gallagher helps to create this effect because of its aged look, and how respectful it looks. This represents NME well because it isn’t a cheap picture of a band no one has heard of, showing  that NME has grown up a lot so now even weekly can afford to get big names upon its pages.