(Education Special) Analyse why The Big Issue magazine has used an intertextual approach on its front cover

Analyse why The Big Issue magazine has used an intertextual approach on its front cover. In your answer you must:

• analyse the use of intertextuality to create meaning in the source.
• make judgements and reach a conclusion about the advantages of this use of intertextuality to The Big Issue magazine.

The Big Issue is a street newspaper, which has the main focus of helping the poor, by offering them jobs as vendor, who sell The Big Issue Magazine, instead of just giving them money, and this makes them feel as if they earned money and that they are not getting handouts, which is highlighted by their slogan 'A hand up, not a hand down'. Street 'vendors' are the homeless that wear bright red jumpers and sell the magazine. 'Vendors' are normally found in and have cities and areas with high populations and have a huge circulation all around the UK.

This cover is the September 3-9 2018 edition of 'The Big Issue' and is labelled the 'Education Special'. The masthead is an intertextual reference to the British TV show called Grange Hill  which was a show that ran for a duration of 30 years and was based on a school and its students. Also, there was a cartoon of several celebrities and characters. One of which is Ozzy Osbourne who is a worldwide known artist, and when he was at school, when to an all-boys school. As well as this, he also has dyslexia which was not understood by the school, which lead to him misbehaving in school. This could help represent students who are also misunderstood, who may also have learning difficulties just like him. Another individual on this cover is actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who was a very middle class male, but also went to a public school, and he represents the middle class individuals who may read this magazine. 

There is also fictional characters such as Flashman & Harry Potter in this front cover. Flashman is a fictional character is seen as a bully and Harry Potter represents how the education system may not be handling children properly, and should focus on the imaginative mind of children, nurturing this, creating hope. Also, there is a cartoon of a character of Handmaids tail. This represents the inequality in  the education system. This character forms a revolution with other women to rebel against indoctrination, patriarchy and oppression. There is also a cartoon portraying Jean Brodie, who presents that education is more than a curriculum but is personal.

The message of this cover is to represent the education system of Great Britain, and how it

can be represented in many ways, by many diverse individuals, who can be real people,

or fictional characters.