This are the terminology that I've learned throughout my lesson on Media Studies
Reflection : When my teacher first introduced us to magazine terminologies, I found that it very overwhelming as there are lots of new words. Luckily when I looked through some of the list, I recognised some definitions of words that are just in more professional terminology, like "byline" which I often heard in newspaper articles, that soothed my stress by a bit. Still, I did end up learning more vocabulary from this table of terminology. With the power of practicing by identifying these terms in actual magazine examples multiple times in my research, I am now able to grasp a lot of these terms and find it easier to notice or point out. Having the table as a blog allows me to access it with ease in the case I need a quick refresher.
Table of terminologies provided by my teacher:
| Masthead | The name of the magazine, in its typical font, on the cover. |
| Selling line | The short description of the ‘identity’ of the magazine under the masthead, |
| Main image | The image which fills the cover – a model, celebrity, animal, artefact. |
| Coverlines | ‘Teasers’ for the contents of the magazine on the cover. |
| Typography/font | The shape, style, size and colour of the letters used. |
| Drop cap | The enlarged initial letter of the first word of an article – an aesthetic feature which is designed to engage the reader. |
| Pull quotes | Enlarged quotes from an article – these may be included in coverlines, but are also used in the body of the article to break up the page and to attract the attention of the reader. |
| Byline | The name of the writer of the article, usually found at the beginning. Simply, it is the ‘line’ which tells you who the article is by. |
| Main cover line | The most important article featured, grabs the audience’s attention (featured article) |
| Mode of address | The way the magazine/article addresses the audience. Formal, casual, direct (for images too) |
| Barcode | Used for retailers |
| Skyline | A list of keywords featured at the top of the cover |
| Thirds | The upper and left third are the most important. why? |
| Prop | An image of an item |
| Puff / Boxout | A smaller image/text to stand out from the rest of the information (puff=circle. boxout=square) |
| Buzzwords | Exclusive, free, new, special edition |
| Banner | A block of colour with info inside, usually stretches the width of the cover |
| Caption | Information about an image. |
| Spread | Pages of a magazine that should be viewed together (usually two) |
| Border | Empty space around the edges |
| White space | Empty space in the spread, used to break up the content (negative space) |
