Vice magazine- research
Vice magazine was founded by Suroosh Alvi and Shane Smith with Eddy Morreti as chief creative officer. It is a Canadian- American print magazine that’s focused on arts, culture and new topics. The magazine was founded in 1994 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and the founders of the magazine later launched Vice Media, which has various components, including the magazine, website, broadcast news unit, a film production company, a record label and a publishing imprint. The magazine was originally called ‘the voice on Montreal’. The British edition of Vice magazine launched in 2002 with Andy Capper as its first editor.
The magazine itself includes the work of photographers, journalists, graphic designers, columnists and fiction writers, and now, both the magazine and Vice Media have shifted their focus from independent arts and pop culture matters to more serious topics in the news. For example, when going onto the website, the first article is about the gender recognition act. Vice magazine is described by The Guardian as a punk magazine transformed into a media giant, showing how at first, the magazine had works related to small time photographers, independent artists and pop culture, whereas now, more well known photographers and artists are used and chosen by the magazine, with articles that relate to serious news topics. Articles on the site and in the magazine feature a large range of subjects and they are often things that aren’t covered by mainstream media. This magazine is definitely aimed at the younger generation, mostly millennial's by the style of photography used but also the contents of the articles. By having an online presence and launching Vice News videos it was hoped to capture younger viewers, to much success.
Vice competitors
Vice is a very popular photography/ graphic design magazine amongst those who enjoy the arts, but it is also popular for its political views and articles about recent news stories, especially among millenials as it focuses on issues that that generation have been bringing up in the news, issues such as gender, equality, sexuality etc. The addition of Vice media also makes it more popular as readers can connect the two and research more on their media website and get new stories and information. However, there are a lot of competitors out there.
Firstly, I would say Hunger magazine is a competitor. Hunger is a fashion and photography focused magazine developed by Rankin, a renowned photographer in the likes of fashion and portrait photography. I find the magazine quite similar to Vice, what with the use of very contemporary and ‘loud’ photographs with very popular and well known photographers from around the world. Hunger also provides articles focused on fashion and photography, as well as popular arts, so it is a lot more audience focused than Vice, who cater for a much wider audience, as while the first glance may seem like a photography or design magazine, but it includes articles about news from all over the world that each person reading can relate to in some way.
Another competitor is a magazine that I have recently discovered called Cake magazine, who describe themselves as an indie, confused and sweet magazine. The reason I’d say this would be a competitor is that it’s very contemporary, very ‘weird’ and also very new and relevant, with an ‘I don’t care’ attitude running throughout that I believe younger generations, like millenials will relate to. It includes photography that could be seen as controversial to some, for example a model posing with her arm up exposing her grown out armpit hair, that relates to the feminist movement and the idea of letting your body be the way you want it to be. This is a movement a lot of millenials are involved in, as well as the issues related to feminism, so it’s targeted to a very similar audience as Vice magazine.
