Child aimed reviews in the media Essay

My review is aimed generally at teenagers, the ‘Top Of The Pops’ article is based at early teenagers, although it is obvious that children of a younger age will read it. The purpose of the reviews are purely to entertain, but also to promote the band. This is done by using emotive and persuasive language. When i looked at real reviews from ‘Top Of The Pops’ i noticed that every review that was printed was in the favour of the band, using strong adjectives like ‘energetic’, and ‘deep’ in the bands favor. Whereas the review from ‘Kerrang’ (a magazine for teenagers who’s style of music is not mainstream) showed strong adjectives against the band such as ‘Nothing inspirational’. The reviews are aimed at teenagers but regarding the fact that younger people than teenagers are bound to read the magazine, this is because younger children want to look, and seem older. The article aimed at the ‘Times’ supplement is aimed at an age significantly higher than that of both reviews this is around the age of eighteen plus. The purpose of the article is one to entertain, and two to inform about the history of the band (Coldplay). When i looked at an example of an article from the times supplement it became clear that the in-house style had a very concentrated taste of music and they would be very particular about the things they would say about a band. I tried to make this clear in my piece by adding quotes and opinions from NME such as â€Å"The ideal debut album. Very Nick Drake. Very English†. The formality of the reviews in comparison with the article show big differences. The reviews use colloquialisms such as â€Å"same old†, â€Å"basically† and â€Å"might as well†. I think this is to create a relaxed atmosphere e. g. â€Å"Stand back Westlife†¦.. Pheobus Apollo is in town†. as the piece is aimed at teenagers and teenagers will understand a less formal format, and relaxed style of language. The review uses mild jokes to also create a relaxed atmosphere The review uses some incomplete sentences, for example â€Å"Great to finally see some good Brit rock again† whereas the article only uses incomplete sentences in quotes/statements for example † Very Nick. Very English†. The main text does not uses incomplete sentences. Both of the reviews use personal pronouns, for example in kerrang â€Å"you might as well†. In the article from the times supplement use less personal pronouns to keep up the formality of the piece, also to make the article more formal i wrote in the third person. Because i thought the review was to entertain (and to inform) i used exclamative sentences and declarative sentences, with the article i used predominantly declarative sentences as it was all basically informing. The reviews use proper nouns like band names; Blink 182, Finch, and Staind, when assuming that the reader will already know the band names, they also use personal pronouns to get this effect. This is to create a relationship with the reader, the reader will feel involved in the text because they will recognise the references to bands and this makes it exclusive. The times article uses proper nouns but assumes that the reader will have to have some of it explained for example â€Å"Coldplay released their first elf funded EP Safety†. The article also makes lots of references to time; dates, months and years. This is used to provide the impression that the writer has researched properly. The layout of the review is based on the reviews that i have looked at in Top Of The Pops and Kerrang, they were all in columns, but this has no relevance to linguistic language features. Both pieces use a lot of Jargon that is within the lexical field of music (in general) and bands. From the review this included â€Å"two chord, punk, Westlife, Finch, and album†. From the article the words include â€Å"acoustic, guitar, EP, Grammys, and charts†. The difference here between the two pieces is that the reviews assumes that the reader already knows the lexis, but the article gives extra information for the reader. Regarding this both articles do use brackets (to provide additional information). I carried out a smog test on the reviews article so i could compare the reading age and level of each piece. I found that both the reviews have a reading age of fourteen which suggests that the language used is relatively simple and easy. The article’s reading age was at the older age of eighteen, this indicates that the words used (and the language in general) is much more sophisticated than that of the review.