Codes & Conventions Of A Regional Magazine

A regional magazine will feature all the typical codes and conventions of a magazine.

Code and convention rules for a magazine front cover:

·       Masthead

·       Cover stories

·       Barcode

·       Advertisement

·       A large image, that fills the majority of the page, normally focusing on something in particular).

Codes & Conventions of a contents page:

·      Arranged in columns – 2/3

·      Will have a page number sometimes with a picture beside it which anchors them to the written contents

·      The magazine name will feature t the top of the page

·      Normally have a simple colour scheme

·      A main picture relating to a cover article

·      Normally only covers 1-2 pages

·      Information about subscription to the magazine

·      Sub - lines 

In all magazines there will be a similarity between the front cover, contents page and the feature pages.  People will stereotype a magazine from what is featuring on and in it. This allows readers to adapt to the style and lets the audience pick a magazine style that appeals to them. Colours, text style and image will all affects the brand identity of a magazine to readers.

A front cover of a magazine will generally feature a masthead, a main picture, and the main featuring articles. These basic outlines will help me when I will be making my magazine. It will allow me to create the magazine easily; I will know colour combinations that will suit the magazine and what will look right, suiting my target audience.

When making a magazine the masthead is often located in the top left hand corner reading across the page. The main image will be centralized; if it is a person featuring in the image, they will normally be looking straight into the camera lens to create a strong image, as if they are creating eye contact with readers or the camera will be focused on something within the photograph drawing the audiences eyes to what is featured on the cover. The feature of the front cover of the magazine will also need to suit the genre of the magazine; the colour and typography will also need to be adapted to suit the style too.

Codes and conventions that are included in a magazine are there to insure that there is a formality between issues that are made; I will use codes and conventions so that my regional magazine and a real style regional magazine will have similar features. If I were not to use a formality then readers wouldn’t be able to identify my style of magazine. 


There are 3 categories of codes that are used to convey meanings. These are:

•   Technical codes. 

•   Symbolic codes. 

•   Written codes.

Technical codes, which includes camera techniques, framing, depth of field, lighting and exposure and juxtaposition. 

Symbolic codes, that refers to objects, settings, people’s body language, clothing and colour. 

Written codes, the language, which is used, and the effect it would have on the reader/audience. 

The codes and conventions give the text meaning and determine the response of the viewer. They can be used as a basis for simple text analysis. 

Codes are the equipment what are used such as the cameras. Symbolic codes could be what the person is feeling and how they are portraying this to us as the viewer. 

Convention is the way things are done within the video this also describes the genre of the music video

Taken from: 

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_codes_and_conventions_music_videos#ixzz1BxZCs8Z