Tamika : Texual Analysis of Horror Magazine (Fangoria)

The following is an example of a textual analysis of a magazine cover.

Denotation: The magazine cover consists of a coloured photograph of a man looking directly at the camera. It is a medium close up showing his shoulder and head. The background of the photograph is a dark grey, and the photograph covers the whole of the magazine cover. In front of the man is the Fangoria Masthead, and in front of the man are nine separate coverlines in white, black, purple and yellow. The man photographed on the cover’s name is in white in small font.

There is a white box in the left hand corner of the magazine, a bar code is not visible in the bottom left corner.

Masthead: The Fangoria masthead name is very unique- it is purple with a black outline. The font used is a san serif font, all the letters are in capital letters and are close together. The font stands out because instead of putting the font on the background which will make it a little dual and not stand out they placed a yellow box behind it.

The Cover photograph is of Tom Savini. He is dressed and made up like Freddy in ‘a nightmare on elm street 2’ his pose is quite scary looking directly into the camera and showing a hand looking like a claw his skin looks like he has veins all over his face or his whole body on his skin and it looks like he has been burnt this shows the audience that the man is a scary guy and that you should be afraid. His clothing is not shown much but I can see that he is wearing a black and red striped jumper so the clothing is casual.

The main coverline that relates to his photograph says: “Are you ready for freddy? Nightmare on elm street 2! This is making a reference to the film ‘A nightmare on elm street the film and is saying that there is going to be number 2. The different coverlines tell us that this magazine doesn’t concentrate on just one genre of films, and doesn’t only focus on films either. Actors mentioned on the coverlines include Tom Savini, Clu gulager, Angelo rossitto and john Saul’s.

The only person who is mentioned who isn’t an American actor is John Saul, who is an author of suspense and horror novels. The way the coverlines are written reveals that this magazine also focuses on current films that are out e.g. “Twilight zone terrors, John Saul’s paperback evils!”. All of the coverlines use a serif font, which is a connoting tradition. It suggests that fangoria magazine chose to follow the media conventions.

When I consider all of these points, I would suggest that the most likely target audience would be people male and female, but more likely to be atracted to males who would be aged 18-25+, and they would have an interest in horror films.

Tamika Nwokolo-Gentles