The Big Issue recap

 The Big Issue magazine was launched in 1991 by John Bird with the aim of transforming the lives of homeless through its slogan "A hand up not a hand out".

The Big Issue is sometimes referred to as a street paper. It supports the homeless and those seeking to escape poverty. Vendors buy the magazine for 1.25 and sell it to the public for £2.50. They get 50% of the profits. The big issue has helped over 100,000 people since it began, and it usually sells 80,000 copies a week(pre covid).

A big issue reader is likely to:

• Be university educated
• be interested in politics, popular and high culture
• Have a limited disposable income
• want to help make a difference to the society we live in

The front covers and content of BI must therefore attract this reader. The type of media language and the representations it constructs must also appeal to the reader in order to ensure street vendors can sell each issue and make money.

Media language

-Refers to the technical elements used to construct a media product so that:

• It is identifiable as a magazine, along with the sub genre within this form
• It allows the producer to communicate specific points of view on the front cover about the magazines's cover
• It appeals visually to the target audience enough to ensure they purchase the magazine

The Big issue is a niche magazine that is outside the commercial mainstream. It is a contrasting example of how elements of media language can be used to construct alternative representations that appeal to a particular audience.

Viewpoints and ideology

The BI as a brand is considered to be a business that functions to produce money, which is socially invested to create employment and ease poverty for people rather than providing profit for those who own it.

It therefore represents a viewpoint that runs counter to mainstream and can be seen to question dominant ideology and the dominant group.

The political bias of the paper isnt direct, as this could affect sales of the magazine for the vendor, but the magazine has a clear social agenda with features covering:

• Social welfare
• current affairs
• politics
• culture
• environment
• finance
• health
• sport

The Big issue agenda can be seen to counter right-wing politics, which do not value progressive, social welfare politics but instead value individual and financial profit from business above access to social provision for all social groups.

Therefore, the owners of teh BI are members of gthe dominant group in that they are predominantly white, male, middle class and middle aged, ideologically their alternative viewpoint is bound with creating opportunities to support social welfare and values. This is achieved in the following ways;

• Through the use of satire, the representation of events, issues, social groups and individuals can be critiqued without there being an overtly political message
• The interesting and creative use of media language helps communicate the magazines ideological values that we should care about all social groups and the society we live in, not just those with political, social and cultural power

This helps position the audience from the point of view of the producer, inviting the reader to question the meanings constructed on the front cover and in turn question established ideological values.