Kanye West - TIME

Kanye West's medium close up shot on the front cover of TIME magazine allows us to see Kanye as an important figure who we should be focusing on. This is reinforced by the fact that the article he features on is 'the world's most influential people' and he is number one out of one hundred. Kanye's stare directly into the camera makes him appear intimidating and gives the effect that he is staring directly at you. This imitates the Earl Kitchener or Uncle Sam propaganda posters during the war which were used to persuade people to enlist to fight, this gives him an added feel of power and importance to the audience looking at the magazine. His hand covering his face adds an air of mystery about him by partially covering up his identity and adding shadows to his frame.  

The encoders of the magazine are representing Kanye in a way that fits with what the mainstream audience will know of him. This is done through the photographer taking the picture of him blank faced without a smile (as he is notoriously known for looking at press events and on thousands of internet memes).  By having Kanye West on their cover, the encoders realise that their target audience are closer to the audience following Kanye West than a celebrity such as his wife, Kim Kardashian - who are almost polar opposites yet through their marriage they were able to unite them and create a pangea of potential audience members. 

The target audience would be teenagers to young adults as they would be the majority of his fan base due to his explicit music and fame from the 2000s. However, as they are reading TIME magazine and the article is about how influential he is, the audience majority will be of the succeeder type. They would appreciate Kanye West as he has become such an icon through his music and burst into the fashion industry.

Kanye West is seen, more recently, as less of a 'celebrity for celebrity sake' (ironically compared to Kim Kardashian) and instead as more of a cultural influence across the globe with his successful development from hip hop up and comer to edgy, artistic 'genius'. Funny enough, another name on the 'TIME 100' on the cover is Kim Kardashian. The fact that she is not the cover star but instead her husband is shows society's shift from blankly absorbing all information shown to us by the media about celebrities and instead choosing to follow people with more depth who have more layers to them and almost more business behind them.

As well as this, the fact that their cover star just last year was a black man shows the effect that reaching out to minority groups (far less ethnic minorities have featured on the cover compared to white people) is able to bring by captivating much larger audience members and enabling themselves to be seen as almost pioneers towards racial equality in an age were discrimination is still prevalent in pop culture.