Shania Carter Notes and Research: Write an article on a magazine, genre of your choice and heavily research it.

Could be any layout of article e.g. a rant. Critically take notes and analyse genre characteristics and also the representation of people in magazines. Representation: people are represented in a positive and negative light; however it is not a true picture of the person. Use example of football magazine- genders, social groups, individuals and aspects of the world. Frame work of publishers belief, they will write their opinion. Not a true representation. What groups are being represented, different age groups and genders, positive or negative? Give examples. Age- teenagers, people over 30? Does this match the target audience; are any other age groups shown? How are they shown? Gender how does the magazine represent gender, a dominant gender? How is the other gender shown? Social groups: what social groups are represented? What social issues are represented, positive or negative? Give specific examples. What groups are shown in the magazine, what groups are not there? Absence can tell a lot men, women, old, young missing from the magazine. Stereotypesoften negative, again not a true representation. What stereotypes are in the mag? Generic Characteristics: typical genre content, what are the pictures like what the article is about, what is advertised in there. Style- is it recognisable. Symbolic- brands as symbols of who they are. Cultural- specific groups, words, clothing, if someone is not part of a culture it can be hard to understand the code. Technical- the way things are normally done in a magazine, number of pages, text/picture ratio, and amount of advertising. Changes over time- magazines are always adapting to their audiences, compare old versions of the magazine to the new one. Use past work to help, knowledge of audience theories and preferred readings.

Old and new contrast pictures FourFourTwo football magazine. There arent many pictures of the entire old versions of this particular magazine. This image I have found is dated back to December 1994, when the magazine was first launched. There are other cover pictures from 2005, as it changes over the years.

The second picture is taken from 2005, before Steven Gerrard, won the CL final. The representation of footballers in this magazine is not always true as the publishers have said have a bit of a giggle when writing the magazine. If a player is not doing particularly well, the magazine will make a joke out of that, http://www.fourfourtwo.com/about-fourfourtwo http://www.fourfourtwo.com/funny this link goes to the lighter side of football, where the publishers make a joke out of some of the players or the club. It is not a bias opinion but just someones belief, if they do not like a player one particular week, they will write about him. The title of the magazine is a representation of the traditional 4-4-2 line in which the teams have used for many decades. Typically, managers do not stick to the 4-4-2 formation so it is not an actual representation of the formations. The upfront part of the magazine tends to take up the majority of the magazine. The magazine is around 200 pages long. The upfront part of the magazine mainly focuses on the funny side; with silly interviews, and non-football related questions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FourFourTwo there are 15 magazines, published around the world, the earliest being in Korea 2007. Other countries include; Australia, Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Nigeria, Polish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnam. No real age group represented, more male dominant mens sport. Other gender shown as being a pin up. No mention of women footballers in the UK magazine. Australia version talks about female footballers. The last English women feature was in 2010, still male dominance as women are rarely written about. No present social groups, different groups supporting different teams. Represented in a positive light- all clubs are given a fair write up, still publishers own beliefs. Social issues represented in magazine, poverty around the world footballers giving money to charity overseas, funding projects for disabled children all represented in the magazine. Social media represented in a positive and negative light, publishers want you to buy the magazine rather than tweet about it or Facebook like it. There are over 61,000 hard copies bought and read every issue. The type of class that the magazine appeals to is ABC; the monthly cost of the magazine is 4.50. Examples of cover photos of FourFourTwo from around the world. Stereotypes- often negative within football, if he hasnt been a particular good player in the past, he will not have a good future. Or stereotypes with the football fans- one club have the minority of fans that are racist so therefore the whole fan base is like that. FourFourTwo magazine will not tolerate any racism and there are no stereotypes because no one can predict who is going to have a good or bad season.

Football in a positive and negative light. The magazines that I will use for my article are football magazine FourFourTwo and Match of the Day. I have chosen these magazines because I am a big football fan and also these are great magazines to pick out representations from, pick the pros and cons and look at the layout. These magazines are the UKs best selling football magazines; this is also why I chose the magazines because they represent the football community.

Representation: In this magazine, footballers are represented in a positive and negative light. This magazine has real interviews with the football players so that way the players are represented in a positive light. When a football hero i.e. Steven Gerrard has a bad game, he is represented in a negative light because he is supposed to be an all round outstanding player the opinion of a Liverpool fan. The representation of the footballers isnt always true because the publisher goes on their belief, their representation of a player whether it is positive or negative, will go down in the magazine. Therefore the majority of the magazine is an ideological framework. The publisher/writers beliefs stand when it comes to the magazine because the publisher would want a preferred reading, when a player has a bad game, typically he would get slated, the publisher is then speaking for the fans by representing that player as a bad one or not a very good role model. The positive representation of the magazine is that they show big football stars that have had a positive impact on football over the last month. The representation of this magazine depends on the target audience and the producer. Here I am going to discuss the positive and negative representations.

Positive: Young football stars have their confidence boosted because they are represented in a positive light by a big magazine, Managers can also have their ego boosted because pundits who can be quite critical are also praising them and also people all over the world will see it. Footballers who do interviews in these types of magazines can get their side of a story out if they have been misled by a headline in another media product e.g. a sex scandal. Negative:

Football players confidence knocked if they have a bad month- written in a negative light. The writers beliefs may not change at all, so the same player could be slated every monthly issue. Chopping and changing the target audience, some part of the magazine could be for teenagers whilst the rest is for people (predominantly males) in there 20s. The representations in these magazines are; gender, social groups, individuals and aspects of the world. The representation of women is not in any of these magazines as football is considered as a dominant male sport. The representation of a social group would be the fans of a football club, the writer will chose one club to represent the main part of the magazine e.g. Athletico Madrid and focus on the social group being the fans. The individuals represented in these magazines are the individuals that have made a significant contribution to football over the past month, decades or week. The best individual to have been printed on these magazines is Mario Ballotelli. He is known for his erratic behaviour off the pitch but he is a great football player.

The aspects of the world in sporting magazines is the Champions League, teams from around the world are joined together for a series of weeks, sporting magazines all over the world will pay attention to this because it is a big aspect in the football world.

Age and Gender Representation: The two magazines that I am focusing on Match of the Day and FourFourTwo, both represent different ages. The match of the day magazine represents a younger age because it targets players that young teenagers etc will recognise whereas in FourFourTwo magazine, it does look at present players but the targeted audience of people in their 20s will know about the players talked about in the early 90s. This can be shown positively because FourFourTwo are still representing the past players as well as the present ones, this can also be shown positively because it is showing that any age can read this magazine there is no set target audience even though the target audience is quite outstanding. In Match of the Day, the age is shown pretty clearly, as the colours on the front of the magazine show that the magazine is quite childish and therefore will appeal to a younger target audience. FourFourTwo and Match of the Day magazine do not represent both genders as much. FourFourTwo do write about the England womens team occasionally but the last time FourFourTwo wrote about women in football, was back in 2010. From my own experience of reading Match of the Day, I have not seen anything written about female football teams, this does not affect me because I do follow womens football in other magazines and on social media. Here I am going to pull out the positives and negatives of age and gender representation.

Positive (Age) Every age can understand the art of modern football. The older generation of the target audience can look at the players from their time. Shows a balance between modern football and the beginning i.e. writing about old players and stars of the future. Positive (Gender) Both men and women are represented in the sport by the national team. Women can read about their favourite male player without getting judged. Magazine is less sexist when occasionally writing about the womens national team. Negative (Age) The younger target audience might just think that they are buying the magazine to see their generation of players. The older target audience will only pick out certain parts of the magazine. Both target audiences might get confused about who the magazine is really appealing too. Negative (Gender) Women are not written about as often as men could be seen as sexist as not in the magazine all the time. Male players are given a bad write up therefore giving a bad impression about males i.e. a fight in a nightclub. Not enough female football magazines to support the women who play and are a fan of football. Social Groups/Issues: There arent many social issues within the magazines that could be a stand out problem. The only social issue I can think of is people wearing football shirts. As an avid football fan I have an array of football shirts to wear in my wardrobe however I dont wear them all the time. I could be seen as a social outcast because the majority of football fans wear their shirts all the time. This is represented negatively because football fans are seen to as hooligans in their favourite football shirts. As mentioning hooligans earlier, the magazine is representing a positive social look because the magazines portray football fans to be passionate supporters which we are and to not cause too much trouble at football grounds. Another social issue could be the rivalry between two clubs e.g. Liverpool hate Manchester United and vice versa this hatred has got to the extent where if a fan goes in either of these cities wearing a football shirt, they could end up in a fight.

The rivalry between the two clubs is always talked about in magazines espcially when the two play each other, this social issue will never go away because the clubs rivalry has gone on too long. The only social groups associated with these two issues are the football fans themselves. You cannot pull too many negatives or positives out of these two issues, when a football fan, who supports a particualr team and has a fight gets wrote about in Match of the Day or FourFourTwo, that whole fan base, as you wish to call it will become bullied because of this one fan being represented negativley by these magazines. Presence and Absence: Again, there is only one social group that is represented in these magazines and this is the football fans, the social group you could say that is missing is the religious group because the magazine is quite blasphemy e.g. if a player prays before going on the pitch the magazine puts a caption such as whats he doing to take the mick out of a potentially insulting situation to the religious group of people wanting to read the magazine. Another social group that is also absent from the magazine is women because the way in which the magazine is written is in the way that a man would read or or act at football matches or in other different circumstances. Therefore the women are excluded as the magazines are male domincance, Match of the Day magazine does include a little bit for women as female fans have written in and had their work published. I am very passionate about getting females noticed within football, as many more football presenters are women however this does not always coincide with some people e.g. the editors of these two magazines because male football is THE most watched sport broad cast on TV. You can also tell a lot from the magazine what groups are missing from the first example you can see, although the England women were playing in the world cup too, the main focus was on the group of men. This particular example shows a tradional way of looking at the World Cup because women were not present as footballers in the 60, 70s and 80s. The second example shows that the group of men are absent from the magazine. The example was taken from SheKicks magazine which focuses on womens football. This can not be classed as a sexist absence because the two magazines are both focusing on the two genders within the sport where each magazine has a gender domincance.

Stereotypes: Stereotypes in magazines can often be quite negative. The stereotypes mostly used within football magazines (predominantly FourFourTwo) are women. This stereotype widely used across football magazines is that women do not know the offside rule in the game or that a woman only watches football for the men. It is a stereotype that has been said for decades and especially used on social media and modern football. Since I have been buying FourFourTwo I am not aware of any stereotypes surrounding women but I do know of the time when FourFourTwo have used this stereotype. This stereotype will never go away, it is impossible for some minority of editors or publishers to understand that their sport hasnt necessarily been taken over but the sport has adapted so that women can enjoy the game as well. The stereotype has been taken into the hands of women and there are female magazines coming out e.g. SheKicks that supports women in the role of football. As a woman it is hard to avoid the negative stereotypes from magazines, because if the magazine was to print something about female football fans like Match of the Day do it would be the younger generation of the fans rather than my age group of 16-20. Generic Characteristics: FourFourTwo and Match of the Day are both recognisable magazines and can are the magazines that you go straight to in a shop. From these picture examples I am going to show the style of the magazines and why they are recognisable.

Tall red lettering

Recognisable football star

Yellow and red writing that stands out

Both magazines have almost the same similarities that make them recognisable to us. By sticking big football stars like Ronaldo or Ronaldinho on the front cover appeals to more target audiences because these football players are dominant and are going to have a big impact on the magazine. Match of the Day have black bold writing on the front as black and bold headline the importance of something, whilst FourFourTwo have gone for a tall empowering lettering that makes them bigger than other football mags. Big football stars

Yellow writing on a red background

Jokes

Symbols The symbolic side to a magazine is using a particular symbol to represent the magazine. The only symbol within these two magazines is the football replacing the 0 in Match of the Day. The symbol of the football is used on the popular television show as well as the magazine. People will be able to distinguish the match magazine, as the symbol of the football is widely known. I also think that FourFourTwo itself, is a symbol because the structure of 4-4-4 (4 defenders, four midfielders and 2 strikers) is used in football around the world. Therefore I think it is symbolic because it is showing that it is a football magazine i.e. the typical football structure. Cultural As FourFourTwo is printed all over the world, there shouldnt be many cultural issues e.g. other countries finding it hard to understand, because the magazine is printed in their language. Both magazines dont have an cultural issues that would particularly affect anyone reading these magazines outside of the UK because there are big football stars that everyone knows from around the world being printed on the magazines every monthly issue. The only cultural issues that I am concerned about are some of the English sayings the magazines are mainly based in London where the cockneys are from. Some of the sayings that English footballers use e.g. Steven Gerrard, because is scouse it might be harder to communicate.

Technical In the magazine there are normally around 200 pages filled with interviews, cartoons and jokes. When the football players do an interview, there is more text to picture ratio because more than likely, the publisher will pick a footballer everyone wants an insight to and therefore will produce more text. However, at the back of FourFourTwo magazine there are two pages dedicated to advertising football teams all over the world are partnered with energy drinks and particular sports wear. This is the same sort of advertising in Match of the Day magazine, football shirts are normally advertised alongside energy drinks such as Gatorade. In Match of the Day magazine, because there are more pictures to keep the young target audience entertained, there is a bigger picture to text ratio. Changes over time Magazines are always looking at their audience and trying to adapt with them. FourFourTwo has been printing editions since 1994, after England infamously were knocked out of the world cup. It has then become the UKs best selling football magazine. One of the first editions in 1994- came from when Kevin Keegan was manager at Newcastle. Although times have changed since then and he is retired, many managers and other big football stars have appeared on the cover. Price of the magazine has risen- now 4.50 The colour of the lettering has changed from yellow to red. The colour of the pictures are now not in black and white.

This is a fairly recent image of the Match of the Day magazine (2011) the price of this magazine is 2.50, although this doesnt seem much but the magazine does actually fit into the bracket of ABC1.

I have come to the conclusion that football/sporting magazines do have a more positive light than a negative one because I found it harder to write about the negatives of the magazines. The representation of football is massive within these magazines and I have covered every representation to be included, from gender to changing over time.