Connotations

The connotations I want to portray in my magazine are:
- Fun
- Interesting
- Informative
- Entertaining
- Easy To Understand
- Engaging

I'm going to communicate these by ensuring I use more interesting colours and images, to brighten the mood slightly. I want to try and use informative language and vocabulary in order to engage the readers with the topics in the magazine, however, I don't want to use over-the-top language because I want to make my magazine as easy to understand as possible. I will communicate the idea of it being entertaining by having a few different features on the double page spread, for example, I will be using both a story about the college, and some sort of tips to help out the readers.
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Audience Profile

Worcester College Life 

Worcester College Life readers agree that:

- The magazine caters for students who are trying their hardest for their A Levels and are putting in maximum effort.

- They are much more interested in being independent than still having to leech off their parent/guardians.

- They would like to achieve anything B's at minimum in their A levels.

- They do not believe themselves to be applicable to the stereotypical ideology of "Teens".

Our audience:

- Our audience are mostly students in Worcester Sixth Form College and believe themselves to be hard working.

- Our readers are mostly in the Achievers or Aspirers categories and are mostly in the age range of 16 and 19.

- Most of our readers believe in Dominant or Emergent ideologies.

Readership: 1200

Target Market: DE and mostly within the age range of 16-19
Male: 32%

Female: 68%

Employed: 41%

Unemployed: 59%

The readers of WCL follow much more Emergent and Dominant ideologies: They either want to try and fit in with the crowd and give off an acceptable impression to their peers, or they want to try and stand out, doing, wearing or acting different to others in the college. They would prefer to have a weekend job with lower pay than have a job after or before college that pays slightly more. They agree that they want to try and look different day by day as they want to make a good impression, but also believe that, when they are in for much less time, it's acceptable to dress much more casually.

Student Magazine Analysis

College Lifestyle: 

The male on the front of the magazine represent someone who perhaps has an interest in or goes to the college. His clothes give connotations of someone who if quite interested in fashion and perhaps is quite modern and up to date. He looks relatively happy and he takes up a lot of the front cover, showing his importance. This sign is then anchored by the caption "Dancehall's Bright Future" showing that he is perhaps quite intelligent and is set for a good future. This also relates to the fact that he is holding books, telling us he is most likely a student.

If we continue and look at the actually writing itself, we see that is is mostly white, grey and green standing out on a black and grey background. The writing that is in green immediately draws our attention and is quite strategically used in the masthead and the sub-headings to draw attention to things that students are interested in, such as "Money" and "Friday".

The New York Times College Issue:

The front cover is one big collage of things to do with students, such as ripped paper, post-it notes and many different images. There are many different things happening on the front cover too, showing just how stressful a students life in college can be and the fact that this is used in cooperation with their being many colours used, really emphasizes the stress. I think that the black font for "The College Issue" makes it look quite officially done and makes it look like it could be student work, too, in order to make it more applicable to the readers.

Hey There!

So, this is my first blog entry. So I'll try and make a good first impression. I'm into quite an array of bits and bobs, to be honest. I'm mostly into horror films, especially Paranormal Activity, The Cabin In The Woods and, well, any film that scares me half to death. I'm into a lot of different music, from Pendulum, Nero and Skrillex to Lady GaGa and Ke$ha to Korn and Celldweller. I enjoy settling down after a long college day with a couple of episodes of Friends, because let's be honest, who doesn't love Friends? That's about it for my first blog for now, I hope you enjoy my coursework!