Real Media Analysis 6
The title of the article, “WK” is the initials of the featured artist in this article, Wiz Khalifa, who is on the left half of the double page spread. The letters are artistically joined together to allow the title to stand out boldly. This also helps the title to become short and snappy. The sub-title “HOW HIGH?” is ambiguous, it can mean either high referring to the effect of the drug or high as in the level of Wiz Khalifa’s success and achievements within the music industry – this suggests that the two topics will be talking points within the article. Vibe’s masthead is always on each article in the magazine. There is also a link to Vibe’s website, which means that the magazine is a multi-media platform product. The page number acts as a reference to the reader. Only a third of the right page is actually text based, the rest is white space. This may suggest that Vibe’s readers don’t want to read heavy text based articles with the article being split simply into two separate columns. The article’s text begins with a large letter “B”, this is a drop cap. This is one of the generic codes and conventions of magazines and a lot of magazines use it. The “B” is bolder and in orange, helping it stand out. It also links the “K” in the title and Wiz Khalifa’s orange cap together as they are all orange. The main image is of Wiz Khalifa, one of the leading hip-hop artists of today’s generation. He is a young Afro-Carribbean, which a lot of Vibe’s target audience will stereotypically be, therefore many readers can relate to him as soon as they see the image to the left side of the spread. The smirk on his face contributes to a chilled out, relaxed image. The main factor of the image is that he is being seen as smoking weed which is making him appear high and chilled out. The smoke has been shot to look heavy and overpowering, going across near on half of his face. Because of this, the reader can take into account that the article may be able Wiz Khalifa smoking weed and his laid back character. In the bottom right corner of the article there is a byline crediting the authors and photographer. It is important that the people involved get credited for their involvement and contribution to the magazine and the article in particular.