Tone of Voice- Vice

Within our recent seminar we were asked to bring along a magazine that we religiously read, as I am not a huge reader of magazines (needs to change), I cautiously picked one from the pile at the front of the seminar group that I was unfamiliar with. I think that picking a magazine that I did not know would be more of a challenge and I would be able to use my first impression of it to analyse its content deeply. I picked up the magazine Vice.

We were then asked to choose an article at random and analyse it's tone of voice to establish the magazines content and audience. I looked at the article 'A Semi-transient Expert on Hobos' written by Liz Armstrong, an interview with film maker and photographer Bill Daniel who documents the graffiti that hobos write on freight trains. I established that it was full of colloquial language and came across as chatty, conversational, humorous and laid back even before the interview had begun. It was a reflective interview (not a narrative) and the interviewer was very different than most. A lot of taboo language was used "I fucked up his plans" this to me signifies that the audience of the magazine is older and more mature.

Bill Daniel

From the article and flicking through the magazine I came to the conclusion that it is a photography, art, common interest, political and lifestyle magazine for 18+ audience with immature minds as you must need to be laid back to understand the language and tone of voice which was being used for some serious articles and interviews. This activity helped me to realise to use the same technique for analysing brands, make connections? What attitude do they have? What are they trying to represent?