big issue essay

Analyse why The Big Issue magazine has used an intertextual approach on its front cover. 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.

Critical of education in the Uk
Wants it to reform

Intro- what is the big issue

Main body- Harry Potter

The Big Issue is a magazine sold to homeless people so that they too can sell it and make some profit for themselves.Vendors buy product £1.25 each and sell for £2.50. The education magazine front cover is a criticism on the main education system.

The use of intertextuality helps audiences gain an understanding that The Big Issue believes that the education system doesn't allow children to be creative and imaginative individuals. The Harry Potter characters on the front cover promotes an education of more imagination, liberty and creativity. Children are instead educated to know set curriculums well and if they do not know them well or have some sort of difficulty which they cannot help they will fail through the presence of Ozzy Osbourne on the front cover. It is like they are manufactured, they are all  taught the exact same thing and are made to recall the exact same thing in exams, we learn this through the Pink Floyd reference.

In Harry Potter, students are to make spells and are therefore more creative. It shows that there is more to education than just facts and figures. Children should be able to do what they do best and that is to be imaginative rather than all mad to learn and do the same thing as if they are robots programmed by the higher education systems, interlinking with Pink Floyd as it is said in their song 'The Wall' 'We don't need no thought control.'` Children should be liberal in the classroom and independent, the 'teachers should leave us alone.' Education is an institution put up to control the minds of the young so they can carry what they have learnt into adulthood and the rest of their life, as pink floyd believed. The Big Issue cover is therefore bound to be a controversial topic as generally, in today's society, education is seen as the way to be successful in life and without it, success has a major cap on it. The education system is made to be on our side and not against us as mainstream society would believe, but instead this cover claims that those who work in the education system are preventing imagination and only teaching us what they want us to know. Students are to follow a set curriculum and the same curriculum as each other, children are now manufactured.

Ozzy Osbourne is one who was failed by the education system because of his dyslexia, teachers didn't believe in him. Dyslexia was yet to be a diagnosis so he was just labelled as a dumb and unable kid. Because of these harsh actions towards him as a child he wasn't getting the support he needed and ended up being a failure and succumbing to huge amounts of mental stress such as depression. Here is an example of when the education system has gone against somebody and have turned them into a very poor version of themselves. Because of education, Osbourne submerged into drug abuse and addiction. Big Issue is highlighting the issues education brings with people's self confidence. It imposes on you whether you are goo enough to make it in life from the age of a child, Osbourne is the epitome.