Kanye West - Rolling Stone Magazine

The Rolling Stone magazine is a biweekly magazine which focuses on music and politics. The signature shade of red they use for their title and as the type of music they focus to write about is the rock genre.  This genre is enjoyed by an older male, educated audience.

This evidence is shown on the magazine cover above. There are 2 main stories: God's senator - inside the war room of the religious right" and "Battlestar galactica the toughest, smartest show on television." The first story talks about war and the religious right which is a political subject, which is aimed at older people (stereotypically). The second story includes the word "smartest" which shows that it is aimed at clever people. 

also the word "toughest" can relate to discipline, which educated people has as they were "disciplined" to work and become educated. 

Another example that the Rolling Stone magazine is aimed at older audience is the 3 artist at the top. Cat Power, James Blunt and Billy Joel. The 3 are all above their 40's which suggests the "old" audience are around in their young 30's who had listened to the 3 when they were teenagers, so they would know who the 3 are. The gold colouring appeals to these readers as the magazine appears classic and authentic.

However, as the main focus of this cover and the magazine article this week is on Kanye West, this separates the audience in to a secondary audience. The audience Kanye West has are young, "rough", and "thug". They are fans of rap and R'n'B music, which is completely the opposite to a rock music. Adding to this you can also say that the audience who may read this magazine will grow for this issue because both audiences are being targeted.  The gold colour has connotations of bling which is rap iconography.

Applying Stuart Hall's theories to this front cover. The preferred reading of this representation of Kanye is that he is a god in the music industry. The representation of how Kanye is shown as god is that Kanye is wearing the hat thing on his head, which expresses Jesus and also his religion, which is christianity so this will get attention from those who share the same religion as Kanye, and not only it expands their audience, it also reflects on how Kanye is portrayed by the industry and socially.

However negatively, strong christians may have disagreements with who this media text has represented Kanye as "god" and be upset with many reasons. First of all, Kanye's songs and lyrics are rude, swearing, sexist and cheap. For example from one of his songs "The bounce" and raps "girls call me a cock star" which you would not expect to hear from someone who is religious. This makes the Christians angry as they are against this rude behaviour and doesn't want their own representation or stereotype to turn negative, thanks ti Kanye. By this behaviour shown, it shows this cover can be a micky of christians. Also, as Kanye West has been written in red, christians believe the colour red represents the devil so why would their so called "God" be written in a devil colour font?