Time and Heat: A Discussion of Two Distinct Magazine Covers - Essay Example

Time and Heat: A Discussion of Two Distinct Magazine Covers Although both Heat and Time are weekly news magazines, the practical similarities end there. First published in the United States on 3 March 1923 (‘Time Magazine’, 15 November 2005), Time is an esteemed periodical with a global presence and the website version dedicated to Europe, the Middle East and Africa attracts two million users weekly (‘Time Media Kit’, 2005). As an intrinsically flagship publication, the decades of publishing has enhanced its reputation and the growth and expansion into magazine and website versions on other continents have furthered both its reach and gains. While Time was, from the beginning, an innovator as the United States’ first weekly news publication, the same cannot be said for the other periodical under analysis. Heat was produced in 2000 by the already well-established publishing giant Emap (‘Heat’, 2005). This magazine doesn’t have a website and is dedicated to exploiting the expansion of the already long established tabloid fascination with celebrity news and foibles. These and other fundamental differences are clearly demonstrated in a careful study of the imagery, wordage and arrangement of their respective covers. If a magazine is ‘just a collection of signs’ (Bignell, 1997, p. 78), then it stands to reason that the cover is composed to both reflect the signs represented in the pages and to attract the target demographic. That the cover of a magazine accomplishes this is essential to its success, especially as magazines tend to be displayed together and many options are available. Additionally, when a person is seen carrying a magazine, the cover effectually ‘serves to label its possessor’ (McLoughlin, 2000, p. 5). Almost like a logo on a t-shirt or a distinct pair of jeans, the type of publication one reads can determine what sort of person he or she might be, as it functions as a brand. All the specific components of that cover, from the font type and colour to the selection of photographs and other artwork and their placement to the texture of the paper to the layout of different elements, come together to create what Daniel Chandler calls ‘a complex sign containing other signs’ (Chandler, n. d.). Even though it is only a single page, a magazine cover is what Barthes would consider a ‘system of signification’ (Barthes, 1967, p. 9), with the potential for revealing far more than the most attractive contents of the pages within. On 24 October 2005, the European version of Time (published in the United Kingdom) featured a solitary photograph within a thick red frame highlighted by a much thinner inner white line. The sole image presented is an older man in three-quarters profile. His bald head covers significant portions of the red and capitalised T, I and M and his eyes look left towards the viewer. With a thick white beard and grey-blue shirt, he appears approachable yet distinguished against the bit of slightly varying dark background included. His bust takes up around 80% of the available space. The headline reads, ‘Living Better Longer.’ Most of the smaller print, including a smaller runner on top of the magazine’s title, features small phrases such as ‘Can Mercedes Be A Star…Again?’ Yet the additional lines are already tertiary and do not interfere with the unity of the overall composition. This is a coherent, sober image with an intelligent appeal. Literally framed with the iconic red rectangle, the man’s head is centred within the space. Possessing none of the standardised properties of male attractiveness and outside of the realm of instantly recognisable celebrity, he still warrants the cover of this major publication. It is a flattering photograph from a professional session. He is still, self-possessed and appears both warm and intelligent. Despite the unfussiness involved, his pose is engaging, as though he has something worthwhile to communicate. A closer look at the smaller text below the main headline identifies him as Dr. Andrew Weil, and he has dedicated his life to assisting others. This is a reputable medical practitioner whose achievements are both substantial and worthy of a sole placement on the cover. Framed, positioned and presented on this page, the doctor and his associated text become more interesting the longer they are studied. With the glossy sheen to the pages and high production values, this is clearly a respectable news magazine, with the capacity to present a single article with depth. The aesthetic is contained, the composition is restful and almost calming. There is no focus on the youth or celebrities culture, nor is there an appeal towards the dominant perceptions of beauty or sex appeal. Time is a successful publication that doesn’t need to resort to such glib imagery. Their editorial team can confidently place a relatively unknown doctor past the prime of his life on the cover and not fear a dip in sales or advertising rates. However, this is certainly not the case for the 21 October 2005 edition of Heat. Featuring five photographs and a plethora of texts and colours, the cover layout is more like a scrapbook than a unified whole. There is no coherent theme, visual or subject-based, to effectively fuse this page as a number of different elements battle for the reader’s attention. Running across the top is a paparazzi-style shot of David and Victoria Beckham accompanied by the headline, ‘Beckhams’ Epilepsy Fears for Romeo,’ placed on a yellow background, with Beckhams’ in orange and the rest of the text in black. Below this is the title in orange lower case letters, with a distinct drop shadow effect. A large head to knee photograph of Kinga from Big Brother, with the figure removed from its original setting to naturalise on the page, is set on an orange background on the right. There is another, smaller image of her on the bottom left. On the right below the magazine title, in column formation, is a full shot of Will Young (distinctly smaller than Kinga’s) in costume as a pilot for a new music video and below this is a yellow block with a small photograph of Jordan and the promise of an interview discussing her marriage. The words ‘Jordan’s Marriage’ are on individual white rectangular backgrounds and are placed at slightly random angles. Finally, on the right corner, on top of Kinga’s black dress, is the rather obviously placed bar code on a rectangular white background. Above all else, this publication is for sale. A cohesive written account of this piecemeal and extraordinarily packed cover is practically impossible. None of the simplistic style and ease of the Time cover is evident here, and it seems designed to appeal to those with short attention spans. Between the fonts and the highlighting boxes, orange, yellow, pink, white and black are all featured in the layout. This is an unfocused and varied layout, promising as much content to attract as many buyers as possible. This excessiveness implies a high quantity of articles with little in-depth focus. The small tagline above the title, ‘This week’s hottest celebrity news,’ furthers this impression. Naturally, no older male doctors grace the cover of Heat. The largest image is celebrating the quick weight loss of a reality television star, dressed provocatively in a strapless black dress, looking forward with an odd sultriness. Kinga’s smaller photo features her squeezed into a bikini before the diet, a record of quite an embarrassing and exhibitionist display. While the before photograph is taken from a what appears to be a misguided night out, the after image is professionally posed and styled, without a hint of seediness, further adding to the drastic alteration in her appearance. Moreover, the position and quality of the before and after images as well as the accompanying text is congratulatory. This identification of thinness with attractiveness for females is not surprising, as a fairly recent study demonstrated that 78% of the covers of women’s magazines contained a message concerning body appearance (Malkin et. al., 1999). Losing around twenty pounds over six weeks is unabashedly lauded—there is no question of whether she did this in a healthy way or that her life is improved with the loss of weight. In fact, all the text associated with her headline is white except for the ‘stone and a half,’ which earns black bolding. She poses in a lovely dress and manicured nails, her blonde hair down and her skin glowing with fake tan. This elevation of appearance as the most worthy element of the magazine to display on the cover is both obvious and telling. Each of the headlines deals with pure celebrity, the professed entire purpose of this publication. A recent study went as far as to demonstrate a close relationship between certain laypeople’s attitudes towards famous men and women and attitudes towards religion (Maltby, 2002). The smallest details of their lives are somehow extraordinarily newsworthy and fascinating, as this publication (and others like it) ‘incorporates the fictional and the extraordinary into their real, ordinary, everyday lives’ (Ferris, 2001, p. 26). This contortion of quasi-religious admiration and engulfing interest in extremely mundane activities of those in the public eye is revealed in the arrangement of this layout. Even more disturbing is that three of the four cover stories deal with a darker side to these celebrities. A recent study of the last 25 years of People covers in the United States revealed that the themes ‘shifted away from celebrity careers and became preoccupied with the stars’ personal problems—illnesses, crime and family key issues’ (‘Northwestern University Study, April 2002). An interview with a glamour model about her marriage, a reality star’s quick weight loss and concerns over the health of a little boy are now glossy cover news. By setting up the dialectic of analysing two covers concurrently, this assignment has shown me how disturbing the semiotic meanings within such a small space can be. Having to study the portrayals of these men and women and the situations conveyed, especially while Time was so fresh in my mind, was almost an epiphany for me. If McLoughlin is correct about the magazine cover labelling its reader, then I would much prefer to possess a copy of Time. For the longer I looked at the Heat cover, the more bothered I became with the messages leaping off the page. Yet the more I scrutinised Time, the more I wanted to read it. The distinctions between Time and Heat are easy to perceive, as the careful observation undertaken has established the drastic distinctions in the meaning generated through the content, layout and arrangement of the two covers. One is simple, tasteful and focused, demonstrating an interest beyond youth and beauty, while the other is jumbled and a bit chaotic, focused on celebrity imagery, and the eye unable to comprehend or focus with any ease. One is restrained, the other brightly covered and over the top. Heat is hot, with celebrity bodies and secrets, bursting with bits of information, while Time focused and steady, framed and centred, in-depth and reliable. These are the messages transmitted through the imagery, text and layout of the respective covers. Yet there is more to learn from this study than these conclusions. Both are successful periodicals with no sign of failing in the near future and appeal to very different markets. That the contents of a single page could possess such distinct results despite their common language and cultural foundations is truly a warning against over-generalisation and not looking at each piece of potential evidence closely. Although the scope of this study is limited, it effectively demonstrates the beginnings of the methodology required for a larger enquiry and how something as small as the scale of a page can contain such valuable connotations and meanings. Bibliography Magazine Covers Analyzed Heat, 15 October 2005. Time, 24 October 2005. Books Barthes, Roland. 1967. Elements of Semiology. Trans. By A. Levers and C. Smith. London: Jonathan Cape. Bignell, Jonathan. 1997. Media Semantics: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University. McLoughlin, Linda. 2000. The Language of Magazines. London: Routledge. Articles Ferris, K. 2001. Through a Glass, Darkly: The Dynamic of Fan-Celebrity Encounters. Symbolic Interaction, 24, p. 25-47. Malkin, A., K. Wornian and J. Chrisle. April 1999. Women and Weight: Gendered Messages on Magazine Covers. Sex Roles: A Journal for Research, 40, 647-655. Maltby, J., J. Houran, R. Lange, D. Ashe and L. McCutcheon. 2002. Thou Shalt Worship No Other Gods—Unless They Are Celebrities. Personality and Individual Difference, 32, p. 1157-1172. Websites Chandler, Daniel. n. d. Semiotics for Beginners. Retrieved 27 November 2005 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/documents/s4b/sem12.html. Heat. 2005. Emap Product Information. Retrieved 27 November 2005 from http://www.emap.com/nav?page=emap.aboutus.websites.description&resource=1028818&submit=go. Northwestern University Study Analyzes Cover Trends of People Magazine. April 2002. Science Blog. Retrieved 27 November 2005 from http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/d/20024432.html. Time Magazine. 25 November 2005. Wikipedia. Retrieved 27 November 2005 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Magazine. Time Media Kit. 2005. Time Europe. Retrieved 27 November 2005 from http://www.time.com/time/europe/mediakit/pr. Read More