Attitude Online - Initial Analysis

Attitude Online

• Sans-serif font makes the article more modern and formal rather than it being serif and less serious. Showing that the topic is a serious topic to be spoken about.

• The basic straightforward colour scheme connotes a neutral and easy to read and informative article.

• The headline which will get you clicking is in caps. The folio 'opinion' is in caps as well, the reason why they included these folio's is to make the website easy to navigate and being able to include more stories in different categories.

• Attitude Online is a gay magazine - they appeal to this audience by including topics such as west end dancing that a straight audience wouldn't be familiar with.

• The reappropriation - using a slang or offensive word to describe yourself.

• Stereotypically a good looking man who will be attractive to gay men.

• The man is dancing and he is in character. The image has connotations of old school musicals which is anchoring and codified as gay.

Attitude Website - How are gay men represented?

• Lots of conformity to stereotypes for men being quite vain specifically on weight loss and improving muscle definition. A focus on aesthetics.
• Example Article - Want to improve your weight loss, muscle definition, and conditioning? Crossrope has the answer.

• Hyper sexualised - The models are posed in such a way that you couldn't think its not about sex, it tells us that the representation of gay men is that they are open and in your face.
• Example Article - Meet the ridiculously beautiful boys of e4's 'shipwrecked' reboot.

• ...however, the magazine and website has a definitive target audience, and may go 'hidden' in the general populace so it isn't in your face its only if you look for it you will find it.

• Articles focusses on the team's body image as opposed to their sporting prowess, again reinforcing an emphasis on aesthetics.
• Example Article - Gay rugby players of the King's Cross Steelers strip off to talk body image.

• Extravagant and with exotic lifestyles - maybe regarded as camp
• Example Article - Thailands best spots for a romantic escape.

• Proud and self-confident. Gives audience the confidence to come out and to live with pride
• Example Article - AJ Pritchard wants to be the first professional dancer on 'Strictly' in a same-sex couple.

• Gay men are sexualised most of the models have ab's and muscles so they are stereotypically attractive. They are encoding straight men such as Cristiano Ronaldo to look homosexual, it is a singular and stereotypical representation. Rather than just making them out to be a celeb for what they're famous at they're showing that they are attractive aswell.
• Example Article - Here are Cristiano Ronaldo's hottest ever moments to celebrate his birthday.

• In this website we see a singular, stereotypical representation also like Woman magazine. However, the difference is that Woman magazine is not made to want people to sleep with them and more to appeal to woman for inspirational purposes rather than sexual purposes.

• Heteronormativity - We assume that people are straight - however we have the opposite here and see a specific representation of masculinity.

• There is a great extent of singular stereotypical representation of masculinity as it is all over the website of these big muscly stereotypically attractive guys this could make males feel inferior and intimidated as this is adopting feminist standards. Hyper-masculinity goes beyond the stereotypical male.

• Stereotypical gay people are usually deemed as feminine skinny and not very manly. However, these guys on Attitude magazine are the complete opposite which leaves the primary audience confused due to these stereotypes being completely broken.

• If this is all we see on Attitude being the gay primary audience seeing the same body type over and over again, not being able to see anyone without that body type. It creates a cultivation of what males need to look like, this could send the primary gay audience into a bit of a panic and they may become intimidated.

• The actual purpose of Attitude Online is to promote the magazine and selling it. This is an example of Digital Convergence. This is an example of the push pull effect, people are being pushed away by the technology and internet however the producers are pulling them back in by advertising the magazine all over the homepage.

• By the magazine being online it lets gay men who are closeted to look at the content without needing to admit what they are however a gay man who is closeted wouldn't want to go out and buy the magazine as they will be afraid that their sexuality will come out.

• Attitude is not offering a diverse representation of men.

Attitude Magazine - Front Cover Textual Analysis

• There is a prominent Z-Line in the front cover, we are automatically seeing the attitude brand along with the models face then as we scan over to the bottom we are aware of who the model is. So we get 3 main points of information just from the first glance of the magazine making it informing.

• The facial expression from Jake Shears looks almost like he is in shock and he is looking right at us as the audience positioning us in this shot, by the look on his face its as if us as the audience has done something bad and been caught connoting the badness of it which could lure into sexual connotations aswell.

• The colour scheme contrasts well with the black, white and hot pink this makes it seem vibrant and with the use of the hot pink this connotes femininity and we can almost tell straight away that this man is gay and/or represented as gay. The black background also emphasises the other colours and the bold headlines such as 'Masculinity' at the top of the magazine.

• The Mise-en-scene of the models costume makes him seem even more feminine and gay, the way his shirt is unbuttoned but still covering his body gives a sense of a hermeneutic code as although his shirt is covered there is a reason for it being unbuttoned so we can assume that there is to be some sort of sexualising within the magazine.

• His nail vanish and makeup acts as a binary opposition and a reject of the hegemonic norms. We do not expect a male to be wearing makeup or nail varnish so it is a shift of the hegemonic paradigms of a male. Also with the red nail vanish it is a connotation of sexualised aspects.

• The sell line is something that gives you a sneak peak on what is inside making the consumer feel promised that there is something inside so they would buy the magazine.