Big Issue

 What is representation?

How something is shown to public and how something is perceived

Example- Phil Michelle EastEnders

He does not simply represent the characters but rather the group he belongs to, Straight, working class, white, middle-age men in the East end of London

Through these character they represent all different kinds of social groups such as gender, sexuality, race, age, sex. 

Who does the Big Issue represent and why?

They try to represent the Marginalized groups who are normally stereotyped in society such as the homeless, those who use food banks and other ignored groups.

The headline 'Pay binmen more than bankers' epitomizes the big issues views

comparing this to a paper like the daily mail who would never do a story like this as it would be seen as too socialist.

comparing this with a story of the daily mail on the bin men being rash and clearly showing them in a negative and lazy light. They then ran a story about the bin men calling them courageous. This represents there ideology and allows use to understand exactly what drives there stories, profit.

In the exam:

We will need to understand what is being represented on the front cover of the big issue and carefully understand the specific message being conveyed through media language.

 

Who is being represented on the front cover?	Why has the big issue chosen to represent these people?
Scientist Brian cox Naturalist Chris Peckham Climate change activist Greta Thunberg Animals as well as more climate activist Different ages, genders and ethnicities	Due to the day they will have wanted to show those who are in support of protecting the earth and are against those who are against businesses and countries harming the climate

Media Language feature	How it helps construct the representation of the big issue and those who sell the big issue
Strapline	'A hand up not a hand down' this makes it clear that the big issue is created in order to help its vendors by giving them a way to support themselves financially
Main Image	Normally of someone who has done something that allines with the big issues values, or people that are under-represented in the media. they will often also have quite vibrant colorful images. as seen with all of the environmentalist
Caption	One chance to save our home, with no other caption and shows the importance of the caption
House style	the common use of bright detailed colors used with the big issue logo in the top right with it being behind the rest of the images focus.
Layout
Cover lines

The Big Issue

The cover is referencing the story Animal farm by George Orwell which is an allegory for the Russian revolution and is comparing it to Donald Trump taking charge in the US

For the Big Issue question we will need to know

• Media language
• Media representation (how the images and words are used to construct representations of people)
• Context
• Knowing the ideologies of the Big Issue 

Intertextuality

Why do the Big Issue rely so much on intertextuality?

72% of the BI readers are ABC1

43% of all readers are AB

Psychographics: the buyers are normally considered reformer explorers

This target audience will tend to have high cultural capital and understand all the hidden Easter eggs and intertextual references

Big Issue and politics

The Big Issue does not follow or is linked with any political party. The do however, hold left-wing socialist values and set to target big business and disparities in our society and holding everyone to account

They offer vendors a hand up through selling issues

They do however still get political as can be seen with this issue of Donald trump

Who is being represented? Donald Trump, socialites, white men, Americans, politicians, right wing men in power

How are they being represented? Mocking him

How has the representation been constructed through media language? the phrase fake news being being referenced with flake news as well as him melting with his appearance being similar to an ice-cream cone.

What are the big issue suggesting to you through the issue? That he is untrustworthy and a laughing

 

Analyse how efficiently Source C uses the combination of elements of media language to communicate multiple meanings 

•  References to twitter and Donald trump, which are both intertwined, and politically aware people would understand 

• The happy child-like display with the tag line, your essential guide in a world gone wrong 

• North Korean rockets only if you knew the flags colors 

• Facebook likes 

• The fish is dead in the bottom right, referring to pollution of the oceans 

• Putin riding a unicorn combining child-like magic with the treat of Russia 

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