Data Analysis

Do you think that it is a representative sample of the whole data pool?

I feel that both magazines are good representations as they are both the two highest selling regular football magazines in the UK according to www.w3newspapers.com. In this sense, they seem the two best choices to use and compare. In terms of the magazines themselves, they are a good example for the company as they are presented the same as their previous issues, containing similar content, just with updated news stories.

Does it offer enough data to analyse/test your hypothesis with/write 1500 words about?

From looking within the magazines, I have found that it does have enough data as I have looked at a number of different features in both of the magazines that I am able to compare such as:

-Language & Grammar

-Use of Graphology
-Number of Polysyllabic words

-The Front Cover. (Using David Ogilvy's theory)

What can you quantify/tabulate?

From reading the magazines briefly, I feel that one thing I can do is look at two similar articles within both of the magazines and compare the number of words used that are polysyllabic  I can also do this numerous times with a number of different articles in the magazines for reliability. I will expect to find that one of them will have a lot more usage of higher lexis than the other.

How does the theory you have read so far illuminate your data (what does theory tell you to look for that you have found or found the opposite)?

The theorist I have decided to look at is 'David Ogilvy' who was an advertising executive, and hailed as the "Father of Advertising". He said that certain words can be used to attract the audience including qualifies like 'new' and 'free', with also verbs like 'buy' and 'free'.

He said that you can also tend to find the use of puns, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia and rhyme for entertainment.

So I can use these statements and compare if the magazines use these methods, and if so how they use them differently, which will likely be on the front cover.

This could also count as another thing to quantify, to see how much they use these conventions.

Investigation Methodology

My investigation is based around comparing two different football magazines that are aimed at different-aged audiences, so I had to find out how to find the most appropriate magazines to compare. The two magazines I have eventually decided to compare are 'Four Four two' magazine, and 'Match' magazine.

My main question for this research is: How do football magazines ‘Four Four Two’ and ‘Match!’ use different language to maintain and further develop their audience?

I look to differentiate these through the language used, grammar, graphology, phonology?, use of humour, and initial front-cover presentation.

The theory it is based around will likely be language and change, but I may also look into language and power, depending on which theory gives me more to work with. 

There are several reasons I have decided to compare these two. Firstly, according to 'www.w3newspapers.com', they are both in the top 4 best-selling football magazines in the world - with Four Four two and match being the only two in the top four sold regularly in England.(Source: http://www.w3newspapers.com/magazines/soccer/)

Also, they both (as intended) have very different target audiences. Four Four Two is a more serious, informative magazine, said to be aimed at ages 18-40 and at a middle classed audience who are more interested in the facts and detailed information(Source: http://magazineindustry.wikispaces.com/file/view/foufourtwo+case+study_Alex.doc). Whereas on the other hand, match magazine has an average-reader age of 11 so therefore is aimed at a fairly younger audience who do not have a great reading ability at that age.(Source: http://magazines.bauermediaadvertising.com/magazines/detail/match)

However, there are also some good similarities between them that make them even more suitable to compare, such as the fact that both of these magazines were released within a couple of days of each other (with four four two being a monthly magazine, and Match weekly) so they will contain the same stories, but in their specific way. Also, according to both of my sourced websites, both of these magazines are primarily aimed at boys/men as they are stereo-typically normally seen as being more interested in football and sport. So in this respect they may contain similar (male) language and phrases that associate to male slang, something that you'd be more likely to find in the 'Four Four Two' magazine, but you could pick up on in the child's magazine.

So overall the majority of what I do to compare them will be by finding similar stories in the two of these magazines, but seeing at how they present them differently and how they speak to their audience. As said above, I will also look at the language and grammar used, how much they use both graphology and possibly even phonology, the seriousness of the texts/use of humour and also I will compare their front covers to ultimately see how their magazine is meant to be seen.

English Coursework Idea

For my coursework research topic, I am looking at two separate football magazines - one aimed at younger children and one aimed at older teenagers/adults and looking at how these two magazines use different language techniques in order to communicate to their target audience.

For my data, I have collected the most recent issue of the magazine "Match!” which is a weekly magazine released every Tuesday and is aimed at children. The magazine I am comparing it to is the most recent issue of the monthly magazine "Four Four Two" - it is released at the start of every month and is a more serious football magazine for an older, more mature audience.
There are several reasons why I have chosen to compare these magazines. Firstly, they were both released at the same time near enough so will contain similar stories. Also, I am comparing them as according to w3newspapers.com, they are both in the top 4 most read magazines in the UK.

My main question for this research is: How do these two magazines use different language techniques to communicate to their audience?
I look to differentiate these through the language used, grammar, phonology, graphology, use of humour, and initial front-cover presentation.
This theory it is based around is language and change.