Q Article Analysis

The chosen artist that features in the Q article is Cheryl Cole, this is due to her recent solo work as Girls Aloud have taken a years break. The choice of artist is odd for Q magazine which is renowned for featuring 'serious' artists such as The Killers, Green Day, U2 and Muse, also most of the cover artists fall into the rock genre. However, when women feature on the cover of Q, their image is sexualized, such as Lady Gaga's and Lily Allen's topless cover pages, possibly due to the fact that the main target audience is men above 25. They also fall into the pop genre, so Cheryl Cole being on the cover and having the main article is not so strange after all.

The language in the article gives the reader the sense that Q believes them to be intelligent and well informed. They use wordy phrases such as 'So universal has Cole's appeal become her individual achievements have eclipsed those of Girls Aloud', showing that they are not minimizing the amount of words to appeal to a wider audience, they want older people to be entertained by the article. There are also some obscure words that younger people might not understand such as 'nadir' demonstrating Q's aim of appealing to adults. However as it is a magazine, and not a serious broadsheet newspaper, Q uses quotes from Cheryl Cole and other people who know her to give the article a more welcoming feel. The anchorage text to one of Coles images is 'Everything I do is scrutinized. Everything I fucking say'. Q wants our attention to be brought to this phrase as it is dominant on the page; even if you didn't read the article and just skimmed through you would still see this. This is because they want the article to feel as if it is between two friends, the formality is reduced with the use of the swear, also Q knows its main readership is adults so there is no need to worry that they will offend someone with it.

The text in the article is a simple black font, this gives a sophisticated feeling to the magazine as it follows the house style of Q, the anchorage text is in red demonstrating the importance of the house style. The article is laid out around various pictures, giving it a simple feel and sticking to the fact that they aim to look sophisticated. However, most of the article is made up of images, on the pages of texts the image is the main attraction on the page. Also three out of the six pages in the article is dedicated solely to images rather than text, this could be due to Cheryls fame as one of the most attractive people in Britain and Q is playing to her strengths.

The images in the article present Cole in an attractive manner, she has pouted poses and leather clothing showing her in a sexual light, her images also have connotations to the film Sin City, something that the readership will be able to relate to. The text attached to one of her images reads 'Wa-hey, I shoulda brought me brolly pet', which is the antithesis of what is being shown in the image. Q may want the reader to not take the article too seriously as the images suggests you would, it may also be Cheryl Cole showing that she too doesn't take herself seriously either as she jokes about the Prime Minister Gordon Brown too, 'Brrrr' She grimaces 'Slippery one ain't he?'.

The article does demand some prior knowledge about Cheryl Coles career, however, this is common knowledge to anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past few years. Again, like the NME article, anything that happened prior to the article is explained just in case. However, in Q it is not explained in a large amount of detail so that it doesn't patronize the adult readers.