As we can see, Rolling Stone has used conventional features for their front cover, (such as masthead, main feature headline, main image, price and date).
Noticeably, the masthead has been layered underneath the subject, making Melissa the most visible subject on the front cover of this magazine: as result of this, Melissa is identified as a very important figure as she's seen by all, and as she's in front of everything else on the magazine cover, including the magazine masthead.
The Rolling Stone masthead is remarkably distinct as its traits a curled lettering of "Rolling Stone" filled in red with a black outline.
Additionally, the font is Royal Acidbath, designed by Sharkshock.
equally, the main line clearly exclaims "Melissa McCharty", which makes us aware that Rolling Stone do not need an enciting line to draw in the reader's attention.
The sub headline, which links to the main image, describes her, and it isn't shouting "I'm the most beautiful in the world", but "Fearless", relating to the fact that she often swears on screen, and that, in the Rolling Stone article, she declared: "I could eat healthier, I could drink less, I should be learning another language and working out more, but I'm just always saying, 'Ah, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.' ", which goes against the "latest trend" of eating healthy, which involves not having a perfect body, (or at least the common idea of it.)
This may come as a shocker to some celebrities who are weight-obsessed and spend their days searching for the perfect diet, but Melissa actually does not mind her extra pounds and is actually happy the way she is now.
Basically, she's not scared of what people say, she's fearless.
At the same time, as we can deduce from the main image, she's fierce, and while doing the other two things, she's also funny.
The language is simple, but effective.
Institution
Rolling Stone is an American Magazine, which is published every two weeks, focusing in popular culture and politics. Jann Simon Wenner, who is still the magazine's chief editor, founded Rolling Stone in San Francisco, California, in 1967, alongside music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
Wenner Media, LLC is a company which is based in New York City, oublishes not only Rolling Stone, but also US Weekly and Men's Journal magazines.
In total, the company's three brands draw a monthly audience of 58.1 million, togheter with 41.9 million readers per month in print, 9.8 monthly individual visitors to its websites (UsMagazine.com, Rolling Stone.com and MensJournal.com), and 5.9 million mobile monthly individual visitors and 5.3 million followers through social media outlets.
In the 1990's, the magazine altered its strategy to attract younger readers interested in youth oriented television shows, film actors and popular music.
In the last few years, Rolling Stone has re-established its custumary mix of elements, including extensive political stories.
Moreover, Rolling Stone has broadened content to incorporate reporting of financial and banking matters.
Ideology
It is evident hat Rolling Stone is a political and music bi-weekly magazine and therefore reveals supreme values. When conducting my research on Rolling stone magazine, I clearly identified that Rolling Stone preferably and predominantly uses pop stars and singers as the models on their front covers.
This accordingly conveys the society that we live in, in view of the fact that the general public is more interested in the lives of those who acquire fame and money, rather than politicians who influence public policy and decision-making in accordance to our benefit.
Since the magazine focuses on politics and music, Rolling Stone retains a controversial target audience on account of the fact that the majority of music fans are more than likely going to be young and are therefore much more courageous and energetic than those who do not experience music in the way that the youth do (festivals, gigs, live concerts, etc.)
However, politics usually concerns adults considerably more, giving Rolling Stone a mature feel to the magazine.
The majority of this issue, usually concerns music, but along with the numerous music features.
Rolling Stone also broadcasts details on political and social issues. (Rolling Stone fist political coverage began in 1970's).
Rolling Stone is not the most mainstream magazine, since it goes against the norms of any other music magazine - Rolling stone Combines two separate genres, creating a Hybrid.
Audience
Rolling Stone have said that their target audience is the"middle of the road rock fans of all ages".
This suggests that they want their target audience to have great music knowledge, especially in rock music; which is what the magazine mostly focuses on.
I noticed that Rolling Stone's previous advertisements were for drink such as Pepsi.
This indicates to me, personally, that their target audience likes to relax, as well as luxuriate in music knowledge.
Although the magazine was first created in 1967, the audience is allowed to interact with the magazine like they never been in the past. Social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook have allowed Rolling Stone's costumers to interact, not only with the magazine, but with other music fans.
On These websites they are able to express their views on different songs, musicians, as well as on movie reviews, television shows and lots more.
Rolling Stone keeps up to date with pages on social media; all important to attract young music fans worldwide. These let the magazine and the audience interact like never before.
Rolling Stone costs £4.50; which is reasonable considering its monthly status.
58% of Rolling Stone's readership consists of males, and
42% of their readership are females.
32.2 is the median age of Rolling Stone's readership, and
30% of the overall readers are aged 18-24.
Circulation of the magazine is 1,453,158 (paid and verified).
94.5% of the entire readership is through subscriptions - which would indicate that their readership is mostly people who have been reading the magazine for a long time, and who also are very interested int the music.
Representation
Melissa is not wearing any particular short dress, or a particular necked t-shirt, she neither has an elaborate make-up and she's not partially naked.
She's wearing a simple black and grey t-shirt, (not very eye-catching colours), and she is not covered in jewellery or in expensive clothing, conveying her original normality.
On her t-shirt we can find Molly, one of the main characters of the Tv Series "Mike and Molly" like a reminder of her performance as a normal, overweight, woman.
She's not a model, so she's not in any provoking pose, on the contrary, the pose as it is, is not really original, but assumes all another value due to the subject in the picture.
She's showing her biceps (connotation of strength) but she's not muscular.
Her face is showing us a triumphant sneer, which seems it's saying "Look at me, maybe I'm not the slimmer in the world, or the most beautiful, but I'm the fearless, the fiercest and the funniest, and that's what matter."
Hers is a pose, in its totality, who easily links us to the Rolling Stone definition.
Rolling Stone is therefore trying to make their magazine as influential as possible by featuring a woman like Melissa as their main feature.
In many ways, Rolling Stone could be trying to set a new trend as she is just an ordinary woman from Illinois, who doesn't have a particularly beauty, and found success just the way she is.
Rolling Stone is trying to be as original and influential as possible, in order to attract always more audience for their magazine.
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