Target Audience

Target Audience


Before I start planning and creating my music magazine, I need to decide on what age it will be aimed at. That will be my target audience. In 1998, Hall and Holmes said:

 “Any media text is created for a particular audience and will usually appeal most to this particular target audience”

I have got to know my target audience and find out their profile in order for me to sell my magazine.


Mass Audience is the audience of a large mainstream product, or in this case, magazine. People like Marxist would argue that these people would be made up mainly of the 'working class'. These sorts of magazines can be found anywhere. Some examples are Karrang, Rolling Stone and The Source. These magazines mainly include information about all the popular artists.

Niche Audience is a lot smaller than the mass audience but is a lot more influential. Marxist would describe as upper or middle class and who control the media. They would most likely read magazines like Q which include information about what the artists are doing instead of constant gossip and rumours.

Audience Profile:

When the magazines institutions profile their audiences, they have to take into account the age, gender, status, class and all the other audience demographics. They also need to take into account the viewing needs:

1-    What social class will the primary target audience fall under?

2-    What gender is the primary target audience?

3-    What age will the primary target audience be?

4-    What nationality will the primary target audience be?

5-    What values do the primary target audience have?

6-    Audience appeal, what will the primary target audience is looking for in a magazine?

After answering these, I can figure out how to represent my audience through artists, pictures, articles, editing, and other things.

Key Representation Theories:

The following theories will be taken into account when profiling, representing and pitching to audiences.

Class:

One way of identifying a target audience is the social-economic model. Even though this model used by the NRD (National Readership Survey Ltd) has been used for a long time, it is still a useful way of identifying an audience.

The basis for the system is money – AB audiences for example are assumed to have more spending power to the lower classed audience.

However, it is also presumed AB audiences prefer different sorts of magazines to people of a lower class and culture.

Age:

Due to legal classifications film makers have to think carefully about content to make sure their film gets the right age rating for their primary target audience.

After research was taken, it was said that the most popular age range who buy magazines was 15-24 year olds. This is because this age range has the most time on their hands. Companies always take this into account. If they made all magazines filled with text and no pictures whatsoever, they wouldn't sell as many. This is also why in magazines for females, they include sexual articles to attract women above the age of 20.

Why are age ratings put in place?

Effects Theory:

The ‘Frankfurt School’ is the term given to a group of social scientist, who were originally based as the Institute for Social Research Frankfurt, they conducted research into the potential power the mass media had over audiences. They were worried that the media there would be used as a tool in fascist propaganda. The founders were all left-wing and criticised the capitalist system which was controlling the mass media for creating a mass culture which eliminated oppositional or alternatives.

They were responsible for the 'Hypodermic Needle Model' believing the mass audience were not only passive, but they could simply be 'injected' with the messages created by the media producers.

Stanley Hall wrote Adolescence in 2 volumes in 1904.

He came up with the ‘Storm & Stress Model’, which pretty much meant that

“Adolescence is inherently a time of storm & stress when ‘all’ young people go through some degree of emotional and behavioural upheaval, before establishing a more stable equilibrium at adulthood.

He thought that

1-      Common mood in teenagers was depressed

2-      Criminal activity would increase at the ages of 12 & 24

3-      Heightened sensation seeking “Youth must have excitement and if this is not at hand in the form of moral intellectual enthusiasms it is more prone to be sought in sex or drink”.