Magazine Newsstand Task

Magazine Newsstand

This is newsstand in WHSmith. From this image we can see that this is the music magazine section as WHSmith mostly stocks classics and rock magazines such as ‘kerrang’, .Q’ and ‘classic rock’. However, when buying the magazines for my textual analysis I know that WHSmith also sells magazine of a Hip Hop genre like ‘XXL’.

The magazines in WHSmith are organised in sections according to the genre of the magazine. For example, the music magazines are sectioned at the front. These music magazines are also sectioned within themselves depending on the music genre. Furthermore, from the image we can see how the magazines are displayed in a structured order, titles like ‘Q’ magazine which are well known have been provide with their own entire section. This is because these are the magazines that are the most popular in that they bring in the most buyers and so giving them their own section makes them easier for the buyer to spot.

The overall organisations of the magazines are that they overlay each other in rows. They are overplayed in a way where you can see the top right half of the magazine, in other words, you can see the masthead of each type of magazine. The reason they are arranged from left to right is because in the western countries people automatically read from left to right. Therefore, the masthead would be the first thing the reader would notice. Also, for magazine that are not well known (low readership) tend to showcase the full front cover of the cover star. This may draw in the customers as even though they may not be familiar with the magazine, they may recognise the cover star, giving them a reason to buy it.