Vibe magazine cover

Here is one front cover of Vibe magazine. The main image on this magazine is Chris Brown, the way he is dressed in this image is a very important aspect of the representation of this magazine. The clothes that he is wearing show his genre of music, which is R'n'b/hip hop. Although Chris Brown is a very famous artist, someone who may not have heard of him or his music before may buy this magazine just because of the way he is dressed. So the institution must think very carefully about the appearence they wish to present to their target audience. The way that Chris Brown is portrayed in this image is quite moody, but also quite confident at the same time. Suggesting that his music talks about himself and his personal experiences quite a lot.
The language on this front cover is also very important. R'n'b/ hip hop, and rap artists seem to use 'slang' words quite a lot, so if the correct language is used on the front cover, this will appeal more to the potential target audience. There are quite a few coverlines on this magazine cover, and they seem to be quite short. The company who make this magazine may not have wanted to use slang words on their magazine cover, obviously because not everyone would understand it, and as this is a commercial magazine, they would like to get as many buyers as possible. So instead of using slang language, they have shortened the sentences to make the language fit in more with this genre.
I think that the target audience for this magazine would be age 18+, this is because if you think about the genre of music this magazine is portraying, a lot of this music uses quite a lot of taboo language, and also the main coverline being 'I'm still a virgin... in your eyes' This article may not be appropriate for younger age groups.
In my opinion, I think that the masthead also contributes to portraying the genre of music across to the readers. There are some quite bright covers on this magazine cover, the reds, greens and whites could possibly resemble strobe lights, which fit in with the genre of R'n'b and dance music, as people aged 18 and over will know from nightclubs etc.