Cohen's Moral Panic

Moral Panic is a condition, episode, person or groups of people who emerge as a threat to the societal values and interests.

Feautires of Moral Panic:

• Concern - Behaviour of a particular group is represented as being a threat
• Volatility - Short lives drama, were the panic emerges dramatically then fizzes out
• Hostility - "folk devils" constructed to create clear diversion between "them" & "us"
• Consensus - widespread acceptance of the threat
• Disproportionality - wild exaggeration of the evidence.

Cohen in his book Folk Devils and Moral Panics lead the way in determining what a Moral Panic was and got the public interested in what the idea is.
An example of Moral Panic is the drug and alcohol filled lifestyle of Amy Winehouse, who the media decided was influincing young people into living their lives this way.

Coursework Brief

For my media AS Coursework I have been asked to design and create a front page, contents and double page spread for a music magazine.

For inspiration on how to design my music magazine I will examine music magazines that already exist such as: Kerrang & NME.

I will look at how these publishings are presented and analyse the content within them.

I will use the information I have found to design my magazine and make it appropriate for the target market.

Whilst examining these magazines I will take into account:

• Layout
• Font style
• Use of colour
• Use of pictures
• The size of the different pictures in relation to their respective text
• Overall relevance to the purpose

By examining these features I will be able to use the knowledge I have found to creat a better finished product that is most suited to my tagert market.

Questionnaire

Please could you spare a few minutes to answer my Music Magazine Questionnaire. The page can be found here

Magazine Ideology

Magazine Ideology is a system of values, beliefs or ideas that is common amongst a group of people.

The Ideology of the magazine 'Kerrang' is: a Indie genre of music, contains Rock and could be considered for people who like to 'Break the mould'.

My Ideology for my magazine will be, heavy metal, something a little different that will appeal to those out there who like living different to everyone else an not being like a sheep an following the latest trend.

Semotic Theory

This theory was brought about by Saussure, he secided that our brains act by three different signs; sign -> signified -> signifier.

An example of this would be :
Rain -> Moody music -> sadness.
Sign -> Signifier -> Signified.

I have decided for my music magazine to have it based on the music genre of heavy metal.
For this I will follow the Semiotic Theory and I will include a colour scheme of Black & White.

Quantitive or Qualitive?

For my media coursework I have been asked to decide whether I would prefer to base my own work on Quantitive or Qualitive data.

Quantitive data is where you include a high amount of information, based on questionnaires, surveys and research, and also within this there is a lot of extra information included.

However if Quantitive is used, it can be quite clear how simplistic and basic the standard of your work is, and it is likely that your work will not be to a very high standard.

Qualitive data however, is based on a variety of very complex information, being very in depth on the topic that is being questioned, based around interviews and case studies.

However, truth be told, neither Qualitive or Quantitive are see as being very reliable, and due to this, a fair amount of trust on the subject in question is required.

After considering both options, I personally have decided to base my work around Qualitive data. This is because I believe that by doing a music magazine, the interviews within it are a vital part of the information needed so that the readers of the magazine can get all of the latest gossip on their favourite singers.