Textual Analysis

Denotation:

the magazine cover consists of a photograph of the music artist Mary J Blige. It is a long shot showing her head, arms, waist and legs. She is standing up with her arm around the right side of her waist. The background of the photo is white and the photograph covers the whole of the front cover. Behind the legendary music artist is the Billboard Masthead and in front of her are various cover –lines in dark blue and pink. Part of the music Artists name is on the front cover accompanying her official website the colour of her name and website is yellow and it the font is also done in an urban stylish way. A bar code is slightly visible as we can see only parts of it as the name and website URL is covering the bar code.

 Masthead:

The Billboard masthead is very unique: Black with red, yellow and blue filling the wholes of the letter A and letter B of the word ‘Billboard’. The font is just a casual big bold font; the particular font goes by the name of ‘basic Latin’. After the first letter of the magazine title Billboard the rest of the letters are all lower case letters as the writing does not join together it stays bold and separate. The word Billboard derives from the ‘history of rock’. The Billboard music magazine has had a number of successful artists featuring on the front cover such as one of their first Artists Elton john.

Character:

The photograph is of the thriving singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress ‘Mary J Blige’

Composition:

She is posed in a very sexy and purgative kind of way.  Her outfit, body language and posed is very sexually indicative.

Costume:

Her clothing is a dark mini navy blue cotton dress showing half of her thighs downwards. In addition to this as she is wearing a tight dress, the dress also brings out her accentuating figure and curves. This particular piece of clothing has been chosen purposely to appeal to the specific target audience of the magazine, who are most likely to be male. The clothing she has on now is very similar to the one she had on in one of her biggest worldwide hits: ‘just fine’.

NVC (Non verbal communication) :

Her non verbal communication is also extremely sexually appealing. Her hands are round her waist emphasising on the shortness of the dress and also her body structure. She looks directly at the camera.

Lighting:  

The lighting is very neutral as the background is plain white.

Setting:

There is very little setting however the white background connotes tranquillity and subtleness in contrast with her pose and body language. 

Cover- lines:

The main cover-line that relates to the music artist is ‘the long ride to the top’  this is making reference to everything the music artist has been through and what she has had to over come to finally be were she is and also to be on top.  The other cover lines are based on a variety of things. One cover line in particular focus on the marketing side of the magazine. For example: ‘Super Bowl winner: MP3’ this cover line tells the audience that there is something to be won if the magazine is bought. This is a USP, (unique selling point) of a magazine and it is also a way for the magazine to appeal to customers. In addition the cover lines are also very informative for the audience to know what will be featured in the magazine. For example the way the exclusive news cover lines are lined up to one side in a organised and structured way, this is to give the audience a sense of direction so they are able to understand and read without any problems.