Soap Opera Genre –

Ancillary Product Analysis

Name: Elizabeth PlumbCandidate Number: 2049Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic SchoolCenter Number: 64135

OCR Media Studies – A2 Level

Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio

‘Family Days Out Save £££s’ – attracts readers to the magazine through bold font and colours which stand out. This also attracts people to the magazine and expands the target audience to families seeking holidays.

‘What's on TV’ – The masthead of the magazine is large and attractive to the audience due to its bright colours.

‘Only 49p’ – the price of the magazine is inserted into a bright coloured bubble and bold font is used on the price in order to make the price more noticeable for the audience

A group of illustrated lures, such as ‘Corrie’, ‘Wimbledon’ and ‘EastEnders’ are used to show readers the content of the magazine and promote both soaps and sporting events. The lures contain small cover lines which give the audience an insight of the advertised TV listing in order to attract the audience to read on and tune into the programme.

There are 2 plugs for this magazine front cover which are the Masthead and the advert, both are spaced out from the other content as they are located in the corners of the page to attract the readers attention and magazine it is.

A large image of Eastenders characters Tanya & Max, this is used as it is the key feature of the magazine and is supported by image editing of the glow which is eye catching and helps grab the target audiences attention

Verbal codes such as ‘lovers’ ‘murder’, ‘divorce’ and ‘showdown’ are used to attract the target audience of the magazines to the article or particular TV listing as the emotive language is powerful and gives insight to the main story or event within the TV listing, this is also supported by characters that are involved with the event.

The pop-up consists of verbal codes such as ‘biggest Ever’ which has two extreme words together. Because of this, the readers will have an impression that this issue is a special one, as the font is larger than the cover lines too. The ‘ever’ is in italics which increases the importance of the information because it emphasises the word itself, being different from the rest of the sentence. The images of balloons around connotes celebration and achievement.

Part of the cover consists of promoting the magazine. The verbal code ‘amazing’ connotes that the pull-out is a unique selling point of this issue, which is attractive to readers. The image of the woman could be a typical representation of the typical reader, gender and age group.

20 years in a different font to the other sentences makes the number seem significant which connotes glory and formality.

The orange of the main cover story/Headline connotes passion and commitment as the readers will sense the excitement of the topic of the headline.

The font for ‘every’ on the strapline makes it stand out and promises to the audience the level of detail of the magazine information and excitement. The strapline connotes that that the magazine prides itself on producing the magazine ‘every week’ with new ‘secrets’

Not leaving a space between the words of the masthead could connote that all soap operas are together in this magazine and the red colour represents the magazine takes this with importance.

The non-verbal code of the image has characters who are counter stereotypically represented gender-wise, because the man is behind the woman connoting that the woman is more important to him. The camera is overall a medium shot, but it seems more focused on the woman with clear outlines of her.

The language used in the cover story has lack of grammar but because of this it succeeds in targeting those who watch soap, as they understand the narratives so not many words are needed to describe it. ‘Cain knows!’ does not refer to any details of what he actually knows. The explanation mark at the end of each short sentence ‘signifies’ that they are important events in the soap

Conclusion

From completing this task I will ‘repeat’ (Steve Neale – 1980) the use of bright and bold colours to attract the target audience as it is eye-catching. I will also repeat the use of large text and exclamation marks to sensationalise the story. I will also repeat the use of many cover stories on one page, this is because I feel it is eye catching for the target audience.