C2- Magazine: The Big Issue Flashcards
Context
-Founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick
-Founded in September 1991, set edition for week Oct 17-23 2016, Issue no. 1227
-The set edition is a celebratory issue, of 25 years of The Big Issue.
-Published in four continents
-One of the UK’s leading social businesses
-World’s most widely circulated street newspaper
-Has a circulation of over 57,000 as of 2022
-Has sold over 200m copies since it’s inception
-Has won the UN Habitat Scroll of Honour Award
-Has faced criticism over it’s commiercialness/profitiabilty in the past, and for the limited participation by homeless individuals in the actual magazine.
-Have international editions in Australia, France, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Malawi, Namibia, Ireland, South Africa, Taiwan, and Zambia.
Media Language
-The masthead of The Big Issue can be broken down into two parts, ‘big’ connotes a great size, whilst ‘issue’ can connote that an important topic is being debating, and then with reference to the magazine, it could show how it’s an ‘issue’ of how many times The Big Issue has been published and the fact we still need it’s help and support today.
-The magazine’s tagline establishes a sense of ethos and purpose.
-The layout of the front page is significant as the image of the number ‘25’ is hightlighted. This could’ve been for two reasons: In that it celebrates The Big Issue and it’s history, as well as make a societal comment that it is sad that we stiil need The Big Issue 25 years after it was intially published.
-The camera angle seems to be almost looking down on the headline on the front cover, which could’ve been done by the prodcuers to demonstrate how some mebers of the public perceive homeless people and The Big Issue vendors.
-The mode of address is direct and formal overall in “25 years of a publishing revolution” whilst the word “revolution” could be viewed as informal due to it’s cockiness and arrogance potentially. However, it could also be perceived as them showing the strengths of The Big Issue and why it has been so sucessful for so long.
-Colour is also employed specifically on the front cover to draw attention. The background is quite dark, as to contrast the main story title on the front page, as well as to highlight “Thousands & thousands of vendors!” beneath the list of famous faces celebrating the success of The Big Issue inside the magazine.
-The Iconography of the stage lights, the stars, the night sky and the writing style all seem to imitate Hollywood, and the famous Hollywood sign in LA.
-The structure is important also as it the front page is typical of The Big Issue to feature one main story.
-The contents page layout is important, as it frames a Big Issue vendor. The page also focuses on The Big Issue manifesto as well.
-The colours used on the contents page fit with the colour palette of the magazine: white, black, and red.
-We then move onto the correspondence page, which shows some of the top mentions, emails and letters The Big Issue had recieved recently. A key article is Carolyn’s, who has written in with a different perspective to an article published the week before, showing their commitment to voice a range of opinions. The page features social links, as well as using colour again to focus on a key story. The images and iconography of the cartoon at the bottom of the page provides a bit of political criticism to the then-Conservative Government.
-We then move onto the editor’s piece and reflecting on the main story from the original issue of The Big Issue. The structure of this could’ve been done to show the magazine talking to experts to show that homeless people cannot just go home, and educating those who don’t know a lot on this subject. The editor focuses on the changes in the last 25 years whilst The Big Issue’s motto stays the same “a hand up not a handout”.
-We then move onto a message from the founder of The Big Issue. The structure of this article and the fact it takes up a whole page shows the importance of it. The colour used in the article, or lack thereof, shows that the issue is black and white, it’s simple, The Big Issue will keep going for as long as they need to.
-Next up, is the street art section, which highlights the creativity of homeless and vulnerable people.
-Littered within the adverts, feature more informative ones, such as the ‘Turn2Us’ advert, which talks about how looking into benefits and payments can drastly help your situation and make people not suffer alone.
-Next is the ‘step into time’ segement, which focuses on highlighting the differences 25 years make, which shows that house prices have increased, less houses are being built, and more people are sleeping rough at night, showing that a quarter of a century doesn’t change that much. It also uses images and/of graphics to help convey their message to people who may struggle with reading.
-Next is the interview with Grayson Perry, in which he discusses his life was like when he has 16. The images, costume and layout of the article all connote this quirky, in-touch artist who is very frank about his childhood and what he wants to do for the future. The next page features a whole-page image of Perry, which could’ve been done to connote the importance of the story.
-We then see the impact of The Big Issue over a double page spread, again with easy-to-understand graphics about the amount of copies they’ve sold, the amount of vendors, and the social return of their investment. This again would’ve been done to show their impact and to celebrate their success over the years. It is also used to promote Big Issue INvest their social investment aim and the work they do accross the country.
-Next is a four page spread on the beginnings of The Big Issue showing how the focus at the beginning of the magazine is on their sucess and the founders, as opposed to the vendors themselves just yet. This includes a large image which again is used to celebrate their success and show them in a different time, the 1990s, therefore again supporting this comment that it is sad that we still need The Big Issue 25 years later.
-We then see a double page spread about the international equivalents of The Big Issue, and how the ideas of the magazine have transpired. It also puts a spotlight onto international vendors, whom it says will feature on their website, showing their international impact.
-We then move onto the ‘happy birthday’ section, which features the famous faces listed on the front cover describe what they like most about The Big Issue and discusses their acheivements. It can also been seen as a political ploy, as both Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon detail what there plans and ambitions were at the time.
-In the middle of this segement, we have the competiton for desigining The Big Issue’s Christmas front page. This has been done to show them conforming to normal conventions of magazines, but also that they are urging young people to get involed in the societal fight.
-We then feature a double-page spread of the success stories of some previous vendors, which use colour and images to provide bold, standout moments and celebrate their, and by extension, The Big Issue’s success. However, there are only 4 women featured, whilst there is 8 men featured, showing a slight disparity.
Next, there is a donation page, urging readers to help support the vendors of the magazine. This again uses colour to draw the reader’s attention to the donation form in the hopes they will complete it and send it in.
-Then there is the ‘in memoriam’ page, which highlights some of the vendors who have tragically lost their lives. This page uses iimages at the top of the page to catch attention, in the hopes that then readers will read through the article.
-Next is an article about Big Issue Invest, showing thier hard work and how they help the wider community.
-Most of The Big Issue articles primarily focus on using images and colours, showing how they are attracting a wide range of social demographic groups to read and engage with the newspaper.
Representation
-The set pages clearly represent the ideologies of the magazine and publishers, which is atypical as most magazines try to appear unbias to attract the highest number of audiences and not alienate anyone because of their political views, etc.
-They represent homeless people in a positive and sympathetic light because supporting the homeless is their main goal as a magazine.
-Letter refers to homeless vendors of the magazine as “inspirational” and “friendly”
-Features vendors and their stories inside the magazine, humanising them. The use of these personal stories and first person perspectives, helps readers to understand and sympathise with homeless vendors. This represents a typically underrepresented social group
-In the ‘comment of the week’ section, there is a story about a vendor speaking about battling the weather, which constructs the representation of homeless people as being brave and strong.
-The representations aren’t all positive though. They do include some more girtty details of homeless culture. They do talk about drug use, alcohol and even violence, which creates a seemingly realistic representation of homeless life for vendors.
-The magazine doesn’t idealise homelessness
-Left-wing ideologies are clearly represented on the pages (mention of Thatcher, etc.) as well as through a negative representation of Donald Trump.
-The magazine paints a resonably negative picture of the then-Conservative government.
-The ‘Westworld’ advert represents men as powerful, successful, important etc. This is a reasonably stereotypical way of representing men in the media.
-In an interview section, the lack of inclusion of female bosses in the interview might reflect the context that women are less likely to be hired for managerial jobs. It also represents men in positions of power and status.
-The set pages are dominated by men, this could be because the writers of The Big Issue are primarily male, and so are the readers. This could also reflect the fact that men afre more likely to be made homeless than women, so their focus might be on creative more positive role models for men.
-On the pages discussing the foundations of The Big Issue, the use of masculine and powerful, aggressive adjectives creates a macho image of the founders. Obviously the magazine is going to create strong representations of it own founders. This also adds to the stereotype that men are emotionally detached, mentally tough and “no-nonsense”. This idea is also reinforced by the photos from films Terminator and Captain America: Civil War, showing agressive power.
-Labels used on the birthday pages of The Big Issue such as ‘legend’, ‘modfather’, etc. are used to create powerful respected images of men. This articles also creates the idea of these men being ultimate role models and the top in their field. However, the women aren’t described in such a idealised and revered way similarly.
-Despite there being a strong prescence of positive representations of men through traditional traits, there is also representation of David Bowie within the magazine, who whilst rich, successful, and powerful, challenged traditional ideas about masculinty in many ways in his day-to-day life.
-Additionally, the representation of Grayson Perry in the magazine is countertypical as it shows a man comfortable with expressing his more feminine and creative side by wearing dresses and make up. This adds a more modern and diverse representation of masculinty that is often not seen in mainstream media products. The article discusses his more typically masculine past, e.g.- watching war films, joining army cadets, having a temper, etc. This therefore makes the repsentation of masculinty quite complex and not one dimensional.
-However, with the representations of Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon, this article shows women in some very senior positions of political power.
-Some articles represent women as educated and respected in their fields, such as newsreader Sophie Raworth, providing a countertype to many mainstream representations of women.
-The Turn2Us pensions advice advert creates a more stereotypical representation fo women being financially dependent on their husbands. Perhaps targeting older women where this may be more likely to be the case.
-As an ‘alternative’ magazine, it makes sense that they do include some articles that challenge traditional stereotypes of gender, sexuality, etc.
-Typical readers of The Big Issue are more likely to be left-wing, and have liberal, alternative points of view, so it makes sense for the magazine to include these representation on their pages.
Media Industries
-The Big Issue LTD is an independany magazine company and is not part of a larger conglomerate.
-They partner with Dennis Publishing to print the magazine.
-The magazine operates on a Not-For-Profit basis, using any excess revenue to support homeless people.
-The magazine isn’t sold through conventional methods, such as shops, stores, or supermarkets, but sold through street vendors who are often homless people or people living in poverty.
-Vendors purchase copies of the magazine for £1.50 each, and sell them for around £3, and keep the profit.
-The premise is that this provides homeless people and people living in poverty a legal way of making money and able to support themselves.
-When the magazine was first beginning, it needed to secure external funding to help set it up. Gordon Roddick, one of the founders of The Big Issue, was married to Anita Roddick, the founder of high street chain The Body Shop, which granted the £50,000 to help get the magazine to a self-sustained module.
-The Big Issue is a perfect example of a product and company going against Curran and Seaton’s ‘Power and Media Industries’ theory as they are not for profit and power, but instead supporting and uplifting community in times of need.
-They reserve a lot of space for adverts about charities and community projects which show them wanting to make a revenue from the adverts to support people but also prioritising supporting people.
-The producers collaborate with celebrities for cover photos, interviews and even invite some to be guest editors for an issue. This draws in pre-sold fans of those celebs. Sometimes they have collectors/exclusive editions that work with celebs to create special editions of the magazine which makes it feel more exclusive. This encourages readers to buy multiple copies to try and collect them.
-The Not-for-Profit method employed by The Big Issue that many international versions have been created, such as a Japanese version, and Irish version and an Australian version. This shows that despite remaining an independant niche magazine, it has become a globally recognised brand.
-In general, the magazine industry have suffered in terms of distirbution in recent years due to technological advancements
Media Industries: Success of The Big Issue
-After the success The Big Issue saw, they wanted to do more to help people in need, so they have diversified and expanded into other areas, such as in 1995 they set up The Big Issue foundation, providing homeless people with training, workshops and information on how to get support with various issues and aspects of life, such as mental health, domestic abuse, and housing. They also went further in 2005 when they setted up The Big Issue Invest, which is a financial fund available for charities and small businesses, individuals with ideas for businesses that perhaps have been turned away from other investors due to impoverished backgrounds. TBII are able to provide funds to people with business plans. They set up their own online shop in 2016 also.
Audiences
-Have an ABC1 audience
-Whilst a mixture of political perspectives are catered torwards, as shown through the front cover, as supported by then-Prime Minster and Leader of the Conservative party Theresa May, and then-First Minster of Scotland and Leader of the SNP Nicola Sturgeon, there are clear left-wing ideologies throughout the magazine.
-A more male-dominated audience is targeted due to the fact men are more likely to be homeless. This could show the magazine trying to construct positive representations of men.
-Women aren’t as present in the magazine, which is reflected in their readership, but when they are in the set issue, they aren’t as hyperbolised as the men, showing the producers of The Big Issue not as interested in targeting a female audience.
