Magazine Cover Analysis: 50 cent & Eminem

While looking at few magazines I have noticed the producers of the VIBE magazine consistently do throughout their various editions of magazine is that they will always use the large, bold and thick title VIBE, by doing this they are hitting two birds with one stone because as well as promoting the artists on the front cover they are also promoting their own magazine. This particular magazine the producers used two main artists 50 cent and Eminem for their front cover. They are both represented in an intimidating and aggressive way, with both artists leaning forwards, wearing plenty of shiny, most likely expensive jewelry with a hard stare into the lens of the camera. Eminem and 50 cent are very close artists, if anybody is a true hip-hop or rap fan, they should know that Eminem kicked off 50 cents career, this gives VIBE the right to say ‘A conversations between brothers’ – because with their target audience being fans of this genre of music, they should be aware what the subliminal message is with that text. VIBE always make the image of the artist/s the largest one on the magazine cover, this demonstrates that they want to make it clear to the reader to reader that they are the most important figures in the magazine. I think this type of magazine is not aimed at an older age band, I feel this magazine would be aimed at the 16-27 age groups. My reasoning for this is that 50 cent and Eminem are both artists of a recent era; this instantly shows us that the magazine is formed around that genre of music, and everybody knows what genre of music these artists perform.