How do magazines use denotation and connotation to attract their intended audience?

The October 2003 Rolling Stone magazine cover, issue no. 93, uses denotation and connotation to attract their intended audience. It is a music magazine and therefore aimed at music lovers. This front cover is aimed at both sexes as it has the popular female artist Britney Spears looking sexy to attract men but yet not sleazy so as to attract women as well. The age of the audience is likely to be, but not limited to, 16-30 years of age due to the provocative photo on the cover as well as the reference to what is going on in the world outside music toward the bottom of page titled ‘Special Report’.

This front cover uses a specific colour scheme which is made up of mainly blue, orange, black and white. This works because the title of the magazine is blue and white and the background is mainly white, The Blue and Orange text contrast each other whereas the black and white are neutral and this therefore catches the intended audience’s eye and attracts them to this magazine. Underneath the main title, to the left hand side of the paper is the word Britney is bold black letters. Other than the main title this is the largest word on the cover and therefore the reader would expect this to be the main article and perhaps the double page spread. This is further expected due to the image of Britney on the cover. If a Britney Spears fan sees this cover she will be attracted to it because she wants to read an article on Britney Spears. Towards the bottom of the page there is a description of another article in the magazine about ‘America’s Dirty War’, because this is an important issue that people would be interested in the title for this article is in capital letters and it will therefore be something the audience is drawn in by which will increase attraction to this magazine.

To the right hand side of the page there is insight to another article that will be in the magazine called ‘The 2003 Hot List’. The words ‘hot list’ are in bold and are of a larger font in order to attract the audience. Men will want to read this because they can look at hot women and women will want to read this because they want to look like these hot women. The fact that the image of Britney on the front is sexy or ‘hot’ will attract the audience to want to see more hot women inside the magazine.

The Language used isn’t gender specific or genre specific. This is done to attract a wider range of audiences and this use of language and images that are not specific to any certain type of person is what makes the Rolling Stone’s audience so large. There are different types of articles advertised on the front page; Gossip, Music, Looks and Politics. This attracts so many different types of people and is done in such a manner that it still looks very professional and by just using denotation (the literal meaning of words and pictures) and connotation (the idea/feeling that a word invokes) a large audience is attracted and the magazine is very successful.