Essay, Big Issue

Question 5 Explain how the representations in magazines reflect their contexts. Refer to The Big Issue covers you have studied to support your answer. [10]

The big issues overall context that they have been trying to convey since september 1991 is that homeless is big issue in our society therefore they believed themselves to be of great help towards their cause by helping them sell the Big Issue’s magazines for 100% profit at the homeless buy these magazines for £1.25 and then they sell them on for £2.50. In a way they act like a charity that act by providing the public news and mostly truthful content which will refer to real world problems that they feel need to be brought into the public eye whilst also providing a huge aid to homeless people that decide to sell their newspapers. 

The A team magazine perfectly encapsulates the context of what the Big Issue has been built on, It represents Autism as something to be proud of and that you can be a hero even though you have a disability such as autism which most people think of heroes when they see the A team because of the 80s TV series, which was a show about heroes of all shapes and sizes teaming up. Another way this helps the context would be the celebrity christopher eccleston who wants to help with spreading the word about autism, most celebrities want to help with the big issue therefore they get involved in the magazine to help raise awareness, this has been a sort of traditional thing since the magazines conception. They have also put emphasis on the autism side of things by keeping the stories about brexit and such at the bottom in a much smaller font, they do this to make sure that autism is being made an aware thing, so people help with getting people to feel accepted in society with autism.

One big thing about this magazine as well is the fact that the typography surrounds both of them with the letter “A” as we know the letter A in this context stands for autism, therefore it represents that they both have autism, one being servere and one being not so severe, this shows that people can have autism regardless of who they are, and they can be joined as a team rather than shunning them both out and creating just a soul community of where we don’t accept others like the autists and we’d become a very segregated country.

The paddington bear magazine is done superbly with the context of it all, because once again this also raises a huge problem going on currently, which would be immigrants being denied access to our country and even when they are allowed into the country they are ridiculed and shamed because of their skin colour or their accent. Therefore they used paddington bear to help prove the Big Issue’s point because technically paddington is also an immigrant from peru and we accepted him into our country with open arms, so why not accept others who are of different cultures to also have access into our country. 

Typography is also a massive part of what makes this magazine cover stand out because in huge font it says “ONE OF US” which clearly shows that the message is that we as a country need to accept people as a community without shunning people out, in a way they are campaigning for all immigrants, but they are all being represented within paddington bear, they are him. Another point about the typography would be that it has a marmalade texture to it which is paddingtons favourite sandwich which can represent that everyone has different quirks, cultures and religions, so that we shouldn’t disturb these kinds of things.

In conclusion these magazines confront the context of dealing with the truth and conveying messages that need to be heard by the entire community of england. They have been doing this for years as well as helping homeless people find money from doing good acts and not doing shady jobs. By using their magazines they spread messages that need to be heard about the world and the problems in the UK, in return the homeless are helped by earning 100% of the profit made by the magazines so they truly want to help england in a positive way and make it as wide spread as possible