BACKGROUND
- published bi-monthly by TCO London, 2006 to present.
- Set edition: Feb/March 2016
- Price: £6
- 60,000 print readership (Huck website Apr 2017)
- Genre: Independent/youth culture/arts and culture – began as skating/ surfing magazine.
- Tagline: ‘Radical Culture’ Counter-cultural magazine, subverting mainstream culture/ ideology, DIY ethos, campaigning.
- ‘Huck celebrates independence: people and movements that paddle against the flow.’
- Huck is independent published by TCO – a ‘publisher-agency’ encompassing Huck
magazine and a film magazine (Little White Lies). Huck has ‘brand partnerships’ with
many large companies including Nike, Van’s, Microsoft and also features advertising from
smaller/ niche companies such as specialist printers to reflect the independent, countercultural
nature of the magazine.
TCO London
-Publishers of Huck
-Independent publishers
-TCO London Co-Founder named new Content Marketing Association Chairman. Vince Medeiros, co-founder and publisher of TCO London, has been named chairman of the Content Marketing Association (CMA). Is part of a media conglomerate.
-TCO has produced other media products such as; Little Whites Lies (Europe's largest premium independent film brand), 71A (brand events)
-By working with large companies from around the world, the audience will be much wider
brand identity
-The brand evidently has a close relationship with Apple as it advertises some of their products
digital technologies
-Huck available on Zinio, the world’s largest digital newsstand (digital outlet)
-can subscribe and get delivered to you (print outlet)
-can subscribe and get delivered to you (print outlet)
Advantages of using Zinio
-can reach wider audience
-can translate
-already has a large audience/is highly popular
-can access on mobile
-many prefer online content (easier access)
-can reach wider audience
-can translate
-already has a large audience/is highly popular
-can access on mobile
-many prefer online content (easier access)
The new industry landscape for huck magazine
The Church of London
The company publishes two regular magazines, indie film title Little White Lies, and youth culture magazine huck. Both are bi-monthly with readerships of 45,000. Both highly design-led (and with huck highly photography-led) the look of the finished products is key, reports publishing manager Hannah El-Boghdady.
The Church of London also produces a whole range of customer magazines, coffee table books, fanzines and mini magazines for corporate clients. The company also showcases its creativity with occasional one-off projects such as The Good Times newspaper, produced to cheer people in the east London area on Monday 16 January, allegedly the most depressing day of the year.
Of real value to The Church of London, is help in ensuring the agency’s carefully thought-out designs really look their best. So colour is critical.
Collaboration
Distribution and marketing are permanent headaches for independent publishers – how do you break out of your own painstakingly created network and reach people who wouldn’t otherwise have heard about your magazine?
British title Huck is working hard to win new readers in North America at the moment, and it’s doing so via a pair of clever collaborations. Its book, Paddle Against the Flow, was released last month with San Francisco-based Chronicle Books; and its first clothing collection was unveiled last week with Canadian apparel company Roots.
The Church of London
The company publishes two regular magazines, indie film title Little White Lies, and youth culture magazine huck. Both are bi-monthly with readerships of 45,000. Both highly design-led (and with huck highly photography-led) the look of the finished products is key, reports publishing manager Hannah El-Boghdady.
The Church of London also produces a whole range of customer magazines, coffee table books, fanzines and mini magazines for corporate clients. The company also showcases its creativity with occasional one-off projects such as The Good Times newspaper, produced to cheer people in the east London area on Monday 16 January, allegedly the most depressing day of the year.
Of real value to The Church of London, is help in ensuring the agency’s carefully thought-out designs really look their best. So colour is critical.
Collaboration
Distribution and marketing are permanent headaches for independent publishers – how do you break out of your own painstakingly created network and reach people who wouldn’t otherwise have heard about your magazine?
British title Huck is working hard to win new readers in North America at the moment, and it’s doing so via a pair of clever collaborations. Its book, Paddle Against the Flow, was released last month with San Francisco-based Chronicle Books; and its first clothing collection was unveiled last week with Canadian apparel company Roots.
Audience
TYPES OF AUDIENCE THAT MAY BE INTERESTED BASED ON THE FRONT COVER:
-Niche Audience – A relatively small audience with specialised interests, tastes and backgrounds.
-Specialised Audience – A non-mass, or niche, audience that may be defined by a particular social group or by a specific interest.
-Reformer
-Explorer
-Lower middle/middle class (B-C1)
-Niche Audience – A relatively small audience with specialised interests, tastes and backgrounds.
-Specialised Audience – A non-mass, or niche, audience that may be defined by a particular social group or by a specific interest.
-Reformer
-Explorer
-Lower middle/middle class (B-C1)
front cover analysis
(Media Language, Representation, Audience, Industry)- The masthead 'Huck' means to throw, this could suggest an outreach to the wider reaches of the world and their social problems. Or even to throw away conventional magazine traits and story coverage. This would link to the way they champion people going against the status quo.
- Single individual on the cover, is in keeping with their brand values, they value individualism. Also can link to the way the magazine is an independent magazine.
- 'Female Fighters', alliterated cover line, aggressive sound. This goes against conventional ideals of woman not being aggressive. Contradicts stereotypes and a patriarchal structure. As well as challenging stereotypes of race and ethnicity.
- Unconventional house style displaying its independence, Minimalist black & white juxtaposed with the natural colour palette of the landscape below.
- Typography is informal/casual displaying its attempts to not be like a mainstream magazine, displaying its independence.
- Rather expensive as is £6, suggest niche audience, idea of wealth.
- All connotations suggest an audience who want actual change/something new.
- According to the 4 c's model probably will appeal to an explorer consumer, this being quite young, as it is about social change. Can link to the idea that the youth/younger audience is interested in inclusivity.
- Enigma used as their is a lack of developed information
- Body language suggests a captured candid moment, not constructed, displaying how they cover the truth of the situations.
- Could be looking back at a bad past as if the future is going to bring on this change.
- Ideology of diversification/acceptance, voice to the under-represented. (all of them)
Binary opposition - Colour palette of minimalist header with the picture
- Female character in armed forces clothing which would be associated with a male usually.
- Single individual on the cover, is in keeping with their brand values, they value individualism. Also can link to the way the magazine is an independent magazine.
- 'Female Fighters', alliterated cover line, aggressive sound. This goes against conventional ideals of woman not being aggressive. Contradicts stereotypes and a patriarchal structure. As well as challenging stereotypes of race and ethnicity.
- Unconventional house style displaying its independence, Minimalist black & white juxtaposed with the natural colour palette of the landscape below.
- Typography is informal/casual displaying its attempts to not be like a mainstream magazine, displaying its independence.
- Rather expensive as is £6, suggest niche audience, idea of wealth.
- All connotations suggest an audience who want actual change/something new.
- According to the 4 c's model probably will appeal to an explorer consumer, this being quite young, as it is about social change. Can link to the idea that the youth/younger audience is interested in inclusivity.
- Enigma used as their is a lack of developed information
- Body language suggests a captured candid moment, not constructed, displaying how they cover the truth of the situations.
- Could be looking back at a bad past as if the future is going to bring on this change.
- Ideology of diversification/acceptance, voice to the under-represented. (all of them)
Binary opposition - Colour palette of minimalist header with the picture
- Female character in armed forces clothing which would be associated with a male usually.
brand values and ideologies
According to the Huck website:
“Huck celebrates independence: people and movements that paddle against the flow. Inspired by radical youth culture, Huck roams the globe seeking out artists, activists and creative renegades who are breaking down the old world to build something new. Out on the countercultural frontlines, our reporters break stories before anyone else, offering a global map of youth-fuelled social change – from emerging subcultures that challenge conventions to investigative journalism that defies dominant narratives. As a premium youth culture channel, Huck sits at the centre of a switched-on community who crave original stories and quality journalism in print, film and across the digital landscape.”
“Huck celebrates independence: people and movements that paddle against the flow. Inspired by radical youth culture, Huck roams the globe seeking out artists, activists and creative renegades who are breaking down the old world to build something new. Out on the countercultural frontlines, our reporters break stories before anyone else, offering a global map of youth-fuelled social change – from emerging subcultures that challenge conventions to investigative journalism that defies dominant narratives. As a premium youth culture channel, Huck sits at the centre of a switched-on community who crave original stories and quality journalism in print, film and across the digital landscape.”
Ocalan's angels
'We live in a world where women are dominated by men. We are here to take control of our own future'
Theoretical framework questions
How are young Kurdish women represented in the article?
-they are presented as being strong, independent females that go against the general stereotype that women are weak and need protecting by men.
-being in the army gives the women direction in life
-'their faces are fresh and youthful' - conventional of a teenager
-execute numerous ISIS fighters regularly- unconventional and are savage
How do these representations reflect the ideologies and values of Huck Magazine?
-demonstrates how Huck doesn't write articles on situations that revolve around the 'norm', they discuss real life events that involve people who are considered different and ultimately defy the stereotypes against them.
-giving an outlook of those who are a minority
How do these representations reflect the social and cultural context in which the magazine was made?
-it is evident that there is much more diversity and society is seen as much more accepting of those who are classed as 'different'. However there still are some issues with certain people believing in the stereotypes and are also not as willing to accept those who do not conform to the uniform society. This is demonstrated through the fact that these articles are still published as the people being different and the struggles they have to face because of how they are or what they do.
-feminism is a popular discourse at the moment
How are audiences positioned to feel in relation to these representations?
-the female audience is made to feel empowered by this article as it shows how women can have just as much power and strength as men can. They are made to realise that they are their own individual who doesn't need a male to protect them
-Western audience feels positive towards this as anything against ISIS is good
-sympathy- element of lost youth, they have been brainwashed
How can bell hook’s ideas be applied to the issues that are being discussed in this article?
-Feminism is a struggle to end sexist / patriarchal oppression
-The idea that race and class as well as sex determine the extent to which individuals are exploited, discriminated against or oppressed
-physical fight/war against patriarchy
beyond the binary
There are 4 theorists that might be useful for these articles:
Liesbet Van Zoonen
Thinks that ideas about gender will vary depending on cultural and historical context
Thinks that we partly get our ideas about gender from the media, and these ideas will vary depending on cultural and historical context
Jacob Tobia
-born in North Carolina (discrimination, prejudice, conservative; religion)
Arabia Felix
- born in Kuwait (muslim; negative towards homosexuality)
Huck as a media product is suggesting media liberation
David Gauntlett
Believes that unlike historical media products (which tend to show binary representations of gender), modern texts often show more diverse pluralistic representations of gender, which the audience can ‘pick and choose’ from.
Diversity of representation- you can literally 'pick and choose' which article to read/what type of 'diversity'
bell hooks
Believes that race and class, as well as gender, determine the extent to which people are oppressed.
Arabia Felix is the most oppressed due to her religious background, her unaccepting family and the law that punishes gender fluidity. She quotes 'In some ways I feel lucky, if I were born in Saudi Arabia, the death penalty would be looming'
Judith Butler
Believes that ideas about gender are constructed through ritual ‘performativity’, which means doing things or acting out certain behaviours. So it’s about what you DO on a regular basis that makes you feel male or female, rather than your biological sex.
She also believes that gender is therefore fluid and flexible, depending on what behaviours you perform on any particular day, and depending on historical, social and cultural context.
She thinks that gender is non-binary, and the assumption that it is binary is out of date.
Gender can be binary and can be fluid
Liesbet Van Zoonen
Thinks that ideas about gender will vary depending on cultural and historical context
Thinks that we partly get our ideas about gender from the media, and these ideas will vary depending on cultural and historical context
Jacob Tobia
-born in North Carolina (discrimination, prejudice, conservative; religion)
Arabia Felix
- born in Kuwait (muslim; negative towards homosexuality)
Huck as a media product is suggesting media liberation
David Gauntlett
Believes that unlike historical media products (which tend to show binary representations of gender), modern texts often show more diverse pluralistic representations of gender, which the audience can ‘pick and choose’ from.
Diversity of representation- you can literally 'pick and choose' which article to read/what type of 'diversity'
bell hooks
Believes that race and class, as well as gender, determine the extent to which people are oppressed.
Arabia Felix is the most oppressed due to her religious background, her unaccepting family and the law that punishes gender fluidity. She quotes 'In some ways I feel lucky, if I were born in Saudi Arabia, the death penalty would be looming'
Judith Butler
Believes that ideas about gender are constructed through ritual ‘performativity’, which means doing things or acting out certain behaviours. So it’s about what you DO on a regular basis that makes you feel male or female, rather than your biological sex.
She also believes that gender is therefore fluid and flexible, depending on what behaviours you perform on any particular day, and depending on historical, social and cultural context.
She thinks that gender is non-binary, and the assumption that it is binary is out of date.
Gender can be binary and can be fluid
advertising
G star raw jeans
-high end, high fashion designer advertising
-wealthy audience/demographic
-wealthy audience/demographic
go pro
-known for well known, extreme sports like skateboarding
-helps when the magazine includes an article discussing a extreme sport (skateboarding article)
-product designed to push you to be active, go exploring and take risks which fits in with the demographic
-helps when the magazine includes an article discussing a extreme sport (skateboarding article)
-product designed to push you to be active, go exploring and take risks which fits in with the demographic