Complete Analysis: Rolling Stone

Magazine
Rolling Stone magazine was founded in 1967 by Jann Wenner in San
Francisco. The first issue was published on 9th November
1967. It was sold for 25 cents. A new issue came out
approximately every fortnight. The title was based on the
Rolling Stones band, as well as a song with this name by
Muddy Waters and the song Like a Rolling Stone by Bob
Dylan. It also came from the old saying a rolling stone
gathers no moss.
The magazine focused on John Lennon; he was the main
cover image. This immediately shows that the magazine
has a large focus on music because Lennon and the
Beatles were an iconic band of the 1960s. The image is a still from his
movie How I Won the War, which was based on World War II. This suggests
that the magazine focused on politics as well as music. The genre of music
the magazine focused on was rock and roll, because Jann Wenner, the
editor, stated in his letter that the magazine was reflecting what we see
as the changes in rock and roll and the changes related to rock and roll.
The further issues of the 1960s emphasise the focus
Rolling Stone magazine had on music. The cover of the
second issue only focused on Bob Dylan, and the third
again focused on the Beatles, but this time the whole
band along with a group of people were on the main
image.

From the first issue of the magazine, the target

audience has been young adults. This is due to the
political content that might not be as interesting to
teenagers, and the rock and roll content was aimed
at older people because popular
culture was more of an interest for
teenagers. However, during the
1990s the magazine began to focus
more on popular culture so that a
younger target audience would be
appealed to. This was one of the largest
change made to Rolling Stone
magazine. The overall format of the
magazine has been changed several
times. The magazine took the form of a newspaper from
1967 to 1972. The only thing that distinguished each
issue was a single colour highlight. This was either on the
title or around the main image if the issue was a special
edition. The rest of the magazine was black and white.
The process changed to a four colour press, so the pages
were full colour, and the magazine was made in a different size. Barcodes
began to appear on the magazine front covers in 1979. The finish of the
paper used for the magazine was changed in 1980; they were printed on
glossy paper, and the size of the magazine was increased to 10 x 12.
The magazine was made smaller in 2008 so that it was easier to carry
about.
There are some multi platform aspects of Rolling Stone magazine, such
as the website designed to accompany it. There are several different
features on the site there are tabs for politics, music, TV, movies,
culture, sports, reviews, and RS Country which focuses
on country music. This shows that the magazine has
much more of a wider focus compared to when it was
founded in the 1960s. On each tab there is recent
news about each topic, and all of the news about the
topic is kept on the website. There is also an app
available for Apple and Android.
The magazine holds musical events such as the
Rolling Stone Weekender
which is held every year in Germany. The event
began in 2009, and this year bands such as Of
Monsters and Men and Alabama Shakes are
performing, as well as solo artists including
Jamie Lawson.
Something distinctive about the modern day
covers of Rolling Stone magazine is that the mast head is always in

exactly in the same place, whether it is being

superimposed by the main image or not. Also, the
colours on the mast head are almost always the same,
apart from when there is a colour mentioned
somewhere on the front cover, for example, the mast
head was changed from red to orange when the issue
focused on the stars of the TV show Orange is the New
Black.