Contemporary Magazine

Contemporary magazine incorporates lots of different media or disciplines within the artistic field. Its 'party line', taken from its website, is:

'We are a multi-faceted magazine, covering visual arts, news, books, trivia, architecture, design, fashion, film, music, new media, photography, dance, sport and much more'

Because of this, two arguments could be put forward about media (using this term as a collective for those above); is media the most important aspect of an artwork, which is why the journal trys to focus on as many as possible; or is it rather unimportant, is the magazine merely using the media as means of catergorisation, the ideas surrouding the work are the most important and the media is a constant that the magazine is able to use as a system to display the ideas of many different works.

Of course, this is one of those questions which could be argued to the end of time, and an answer never be reached, but I will try and give my thoughts on the matter here.

In this case, I believe the latter argument to be more likely. A magazine is a tool of communication, and for this to be done sucessfully, they message has to be given as clearly as possible. The magazine creates these catergories, and asigns the information brought to the forefront to them. It enabes the reader to reference the articles they are reading to a constant; if a theme is present, more concentration can be placed on specific content. I am not way suggesting that the magazine places no value on media, it is in fact embracing the different varietes and styles and using them as an outline for itself. It is just that the information that is displayed through the media is truely what they want to put across to the public.