Main Task: Front Cover Texual Analysis

Denotation
From the image alone we can clearly see she’s not wearing a lot. She’s clearly been soaked. She’s standing against a white background.

Connotation
She’s obviously not wearing a lot which will attract mainly the male sex and even possibly women as well. When you take a first look you think wow and make you want to know why she’s half naked and wet. She also has a very seductive look which seems like she’s looking right at you.

The props on this magazine front cover are only her clothes. She is wearing these sorts of clothes because they fit the whole sexy look, for instance if she was wearing jeans and a jumper but was still wet it wouldn’t be as effective as what she is wearing now.  

The key lighting is around her chest area and by her bum. This is clearly to catch the eye of the audience so they look there. Clearly with the whole sexy look, these are the keys areas off where people are going to be looking anyway so they even hint at us the audience to look.

Her non-verbal communication once again is a very seductive look and looks like she wants who ever is watching her to come to her. This is another very smart way the producers have blended her in with the whole sexy theme. If she was just standing there looking at the wall it wouldn’t be as effective as it could be but that look will defiantly attract and audience.

Mise en scene
· Props - there aren’t really any props in this at all apart from the wall behind her.
· Lighting – The main light of the picture is on her body and her face, this shows that the producers of the magazine cover clearly want you to be look at her and it makes her seem the main attraction of the front cover which she is meant to be.
· Setting – From what we can see, we don’t really know where she is but from looking at the way she’s wet and dressed plus the wall in the background it kind of looks like tiles that you would find in a shower.
· Non-verbal communication – Her NVC is very strong on this front cover, just alone from her posture we can tell she’s being a bit “saucy”. Another thing that backs that theory up is her look on her face. She clearly is looking at the audience in a very seductive way, without there being any words it’s almost like she’s saying she wants who ever is viewing the cover.
· Costume – Her costume is very explicit. She is wearing very very short shorts that are clearly made to reveal her legs. Also the shirt she is wearing is designed to reveal a women’s breasts plus the fact its wet which sticks to her to make her breasts look better.


Anchorage
The anchorage line on this front cover is defiantly “Beyonce strips down”. This is basically the main line on the front cover that links with the main image. Clearly in the image she is stripped down and has been wetted, we can use this line to get us a slight insight why she is exposed.

Masthead
The masthead on the cover is very attracting. It’s big! And also its red. The red sticks out from the white background and it is very eye grabbing.

Date
The date isn’t very important at all but it does have to be on there. It’s on the barcode box and is very small but like I said it doesn’t tell readers anything about the cover itself so there’s no need for it to take up space over the main image.

Barcode
The barcode is an essential to any magazine, it doesn’t matter how big or small the magazine brand is, if it’s a selling magazine it has to have one on there. It’s been printed at the bottom right of the page. This is ok because there’s nothing there that it would cover anyway.