Student Magazine Analysis - High Profile

LIAR Structure for a Student Magazine

The magazine is from King Edward High School for Girls and is named High Profile. A title such as High Profile connotes a sense of importance and status; it also creates an interest the parents and teachers are encouraging the students to have in current events at the school. The word ‘profile’ has been put in a bold font; this is to put more emphasis on the word as well as the title. The front cover’s main headline is ‘Boat Challenge in Borneo’, the feature is about the most recent trip organised in the school by the World Challenge Company.

The magazine is distributed amongst the students at the school. Although there is no direct fee for the magazine, the school will have to use the funds received from the parents and government to finance the publication. The magazine is published each term; this particular issue is the Autumn/Winter 2007 issue. The magazine’s circulation is directly the students; however the school also intends for the magazine to then be passed along to parents. The main demographic is students though.

It seems unnecessary for the magazine to have to have their own website as the school does and any information from the magazine can be easily posted there. The students are supposed to interact with the magazine by experiencing what has been published in the magazine or because they have written some of the features themselves; the parents are supposed to interact with the magazine by finding out what has being going on in the school over the term.

There is one focal image on the front cover of the magazine of girls (most likely the students) on a boat in Borneo. The photograph links with the main story on the front cover: ‘Boat Challenge in Borneo’; this is a usual conventions in the printing world (most of the main headlines will have a photograph to accompany them). The facial expressions of the girls on the boat is happy, this is because the school will be trying to promote the trip for people to go next year. The photograph has been positioned very precisely so that the title and the main story of the magazine does not cover the photograph but instead covers either trees in the background or the girls’ feet. All of the girls are smiling and seem very open, implying that the girls at the school are all like this. The target audience can relate to the people on the front cover of the magazine as they are at the same school, and are even friends with them.

The front cover also includes a bar positioned at the bottom of the front cover talking about other stories and features the magazine. The stories all use positive words such as ‘award for Miss Evans’ and ‘exam success’. Alliteration has been used in the main headline with the words: ‘boat’ and ‘Borneo’.

Other features in the magazine included summer charity fetes, a New Zealand exchange and a geography competition. The magazine’s presentation looks very professional; the school have clearly dedicated a lot of time to creating this magazine and have been doing so for a long time so have been able to improve over the years.

The girls in the magazine have been represented as happy and intelligent girls. This has been done for two reasons. Firstly, because the magazine is shown to parents and the school wants to convey how their children are at the school; secondly, because the magazine is most likely given to prospective students’ when they visit the school and the girls need to set a good example. Under achievers and troublemakers will be unlikely because they would give a bad impression to the target audience.

The magazine has been published for two particular reasons: to inform and to promote. The students and parents will be informed of what has been achieved at the school and what upcoming events. The school is promoted through the magazine for potential students.