ANALYSIS OF DAZED & CONFUSED MAGAZINE AND I-D MAGAZINE

REPRESENTATION- Dazed & ConfusedDazed experiments some what with androgyny. Women are shown figureless, using extremely thin models to show a more masculine frame. Female models also do not wear make up to flatter feminine features, but make up that makes features much stronger, and more masculine. Many women featured have short hair. These models defy what the classic standards of beauty are, with unusual hair and make up. This makes the models seem more of an artifact than a realistic representation of women.

Men and women on the cover of Dazed are shown posing in similar positions, standing tall, head on to make them appear stronger. Often men featured on the front cover are in black and white, perhaps conforming to stereotypes as it makes them appear darker, more mysterious or rebellious. Some men are featured wearing make up, this it is not used to make features more feminine, but more to show defiance.

I think Dazed & Confused has broken a lot of gender stereotypes. The magazine shows women able to be masculine and men able to be feminine. I think this may be meant as a reflection on the audience. The audience for Dazed may be a lot more open minded to new ideas of beauty, and experimental with their looks.

REPRESENTATION- i-D

The women featured in i-D appear much more flirtatious than in Dazed & Confused. Women often posing with their shoulders facing the camera, touching their lips or breasts. Make up is still bold, though has some feminine quality to it. I-D magazine shows women and men of different ages, rather than just one age. As the magazine is aimed at a fairly young trendy audience, it shows older members of society as being trendy as well. The younger female models are shown as being sexy and flirty, the older models however are not. The older female model above is shown posing straight ahead, covered up with a coat with arms on her hips. The men featured on the front cover are not shown to be sexy or flirty. In the images to the right, both the men are shown with completely straight faces.

I-D has more negative stereotypes than in Dazed. Gender stereotypes are a lot more apparent in i-D. They conform to the idea that women are sexual objects, and that men are emotionless. Though their representation of older generations is perhaps a step forward, as it breaks the stereotype that old people are un cool, unattractive and perhaps uninteresting.

CONTENT- DAZED & CONFUSED

Dazed & Confused Magazine covers topics such as fashion, music, art and culture and photography. The magazine takes a more artistic approach to fashion. It features articles on high end designers, not clothes from the high street. It talks a lot about the designers themselves rather than just the clothes. This could reflect the audiences interest in fashion, they may take it more seriously. The fact they feature more about the designers than the clothes, and they don’t feature much about affordable clothing shows they are less about consumerism than other fashion magazines such as LOOK. Dazed talks about a variety of music genres, such as hip-hop, rap, house, techno, electronic, jungle, k-pop etc. It talks about new and interesting art, film visionaries and technology innovations. Technology may be features in the art and culture section as it is very much engrained in our society, especially amongst young people. Marc Prensky came up with the “Digital native, digital immigrant” theory, which suggested anyone born after the 1980/90s is a digital native, meaning it is engrained in them as they have grown up with the technology, and anyone born before is a digital immigrant, as they have had to learn it in later years. I think that the audience are likely to be aged between 18-30, meaning they would have been born anywhere between 1983-1995.

CONTENT- i-D

The content in i-D magazine is similar to Dazed & Confused. Its all about fashion and lifestyle with a lot of music influence. Several of the artists featured in Dazed have also been in i-D magazine. The photography and photographers are also very important to the magazine. It features people from every creative field such as fashion, music, art, clubs and film. I think i-D features many more people who have already achieved fame, rather than with Dazed who focus of more upcoming artists.

STYLE- DAZED & CONFUSEDDazed & Confused style is quite minimalist. The front cover is never to crowded, and the website is neat and tidy, with a white page and black writing and boxes to enclose curtain articles. The font they use is quite square and straight forward, and the font used rarely changes. The title is usually in white, though on occasion it is not, depending on the content. Using minimalism means that the images used are the boldest thing on the page, and turn into the focal point. I think the audience would find the minimalist layout aesthetically pleasing, as it looks modern.

STYLE- i-DSimilarly to Dazed, the front cover is never too over crowded. Infact i-D is probably less crowded on the front cover, perhaps only featuring one or two words. Although, the font changes more frequently, depending on the theme of the issue. The colour of the title also changes more frequently.

SYMBOLISM & TECHNICAL CODES- DAZED & CONFUSED

On many covers of Dazed & Confused, the men are wearing dark clothing, leather or chokers. These things all couldbe seen to represent the punk subculture, usually stereotyped as rebellious, or different. The colour of the title is sometimes used as symbolism. On the cover of this issue, the title is black to reflect the word “darkside” used to give clues to the theme.

SYMBOLISM & TECHNICAL CODES- i-D

i-D uses a lot of phallic symbolism with female models on their front covers. As with the image here, she is holding a red lipstick to her open mouth. This reflects their over sexualized representation of women. The colour red is frequently used in the media to represent sexuality.

CULTURAL COMPETANCE- DAZED & CONFUSED

The people featured on the front are more there to appeal to British youth, and so British youth would need to have knowledge of them. People such as Grimes, Chance the Rapper, M.I.A and Saoirse Ronan have been featured on the cover, and as modern day stars would appeal to the younger audience. In the August 2011 issue Dazed featured an article on hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg. The article refers to Snoop as “smoked out”, if you didn’t know of Snoop Dogg you wouldn’t know what they were talking about. This is an indication that they are expecting their audience to know who he is. Referring to him as just “Snoop” rather than Snoop Dogg is another indication the audience should know who he is. Due to cultural differences, in the Korean Dazed & Confused they feature people that are well known amongst their audience, that we may not have necessarily heard of. Some of the text is in Korean, and some is in English. This may be because English is quite a worldwide language. They may understand English, but if in the British version they wrote in Korean we probably wouldn’t understand it. The events advertised in Korean Dazed & Confused would be different to the events in the British version.

CULTURAL COMPETANCY- i-DAs with Dazed & Confused, i-D features people who the audience would know, such as Raf Simons, FKA Twigs, Kreayshawn and Kate Moss. Most of the black models featured are wearing their natural hair, rather than weave, which could mean that they embrace many cultures fully, or reflecting a multicultural audience.

CHANGES OVER TIME- DAZED & CONFUSED

The magazine began in 1992, as a black and white folded up poster, but developed throughout the 90s. One of the first recognizable issued was published in June 2001, featuring Alicia Keys . The title looks partly drawn in and the text is nowhere near the neat and tide standards we see from Dazed now. The colours used are also much brighter, though the font of the title hasn’t changed.

CHANGES OVER TIME- i-D

I-D magazine started out as a fanzine (an unofficial publication made by fans) created by former Vogue art director Terry Jones, first published in 1980. The magazine has now been taken over by Vice. Some of the first issues in the 80s looked like this. They have kept the winking covermodel theme. They also still keep the text on thefont cover to a minimum. Not much has changed, thoughI guess the colours are toned down now, and some ofthe font has changed. On this particular issue theyhave the title the right way up, however in most issues now they have it facing downwards to symbolisea winking face.