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”.

My Article

Crashing through the charts with Big Ed

Eddy Fiford, also known as Big Ed is the youngest Grime artist to hit number 1 in the charts at the age of 17. His new hit song “Livin’ the good life” got 100,000 views in 3 days on YouTube and some major Hip-hop labels have already contacted him. Ed has claimed to be “the next big thing” and is currently recording his first album.

“It’s not been so tough really. I mean, all I’ve done so far was write a song and rap it over a beat I made with a few mates. If the rest of the job is this easy, I’ll be bringing out songs quicker than anyone else in the industry. After I Uploaded my song to YouTube and my Facebook page, I didn’t have to do anything. After about a day, ManBetterKnow commented telling me I was pretty good. Now, I think that’s quite an achievement. I met them later in the week and discussed my future career. So now I’m putting my album together and it’ll be out in 2014.”

Big Ed has been performing since he was 13 and has been compared to people like Ghetts and Manga. After hearing this, Ghetts said “It’s decent to hear about young rappers making it big so quickly.”

Eddy is from a town in Cornwall called Bodmin. It’s a change from having all the successful Grime artists coming from places like London. He believes that this will give him an advantage as no one will expect him to be as good as he is. We asked him to describe his childhood. “It wasn’t that hard on me. I didn’t grow up in a massive city around loads of people, just a town with a fair amount of farmers. I spent my time either on my BMX or trying to write lyrics, but most of the time they were shit. It did take me a while to write some proper Dench lyrics. As soon as I got the hang of it though, I knew I was quality.”

Ed wasn’t alone when writing his music. He had help from a friend with making the beats and putting it all together. DJ J was the one behind the beats. He’s also been recognised by some local talent and is appearing at some festivals in the upcoming years. He was telling us about his plans. “Yeah I guess I will be separating from Ed but we did agree to keep making songs together. We’ll be starting our next song soon ready for his Album. I just can’t believe he’s got all these people with him and I’m doing festivals, lucky prick.”

Big Ed laughing about his childhood “Yeah I didn’t do much really, basically played Pokemon and sat around all day”

Music Magazine Cover Analysis

The Source Magazine Analysis

Target Audience:

The main audience for this magazine is young people mainly in America. The age range would most likely be between the ages of 15 and 30. That is why they've used an icon of HipHop for the main image. Everyone knows who Snoop Dogg is. With him on the cover, it will attract the target audience as they would all want to know about him. I believe that the target audience will buy this magazine just because of all the big names on the front and the bold, gripping text. 

Masthead:

I quite like the masthead of the magazine as a whole. I think it's bold and stands out well next to a lot of other covers.  Another thing I do like about it is the way it uses the same masthead in each design but different colours for each. It all depends on what colour the main images on the cover are. For example, in this it's a light grey and white masthead because the background and part of the image is blue. It arranges it differently with the way it puts 'The' on it's side. This just makes it easier to tell what magazine it is. It is also more helpful when it is in a shop and you can't see the whole magazine, you can only see either the top or the left third. Because of the simple placement of the masthead, you can tell it's The Source magazine. The shadow behind helps add depth to the whole magazine. It's at the back of everything with a drop shadow which makes it look like it's coming out further than it is. 

Layout: 
They use a similar layout for all issues of The Source; the main image in the middle and the Masthead taking up the top third with the teasers coming down either side.They focus mainly on the top left part of the magazine. This is also known as the 'sweet spot' of a magazine as it's been proved that it's the first place people look at. They stick to a very straight forward layout in this issue. They've made everything directly in-line and doesn't overlap, apart from the top of the main image.
Colour Pallet:
They've used a 4 way colour pallet; Blue, grey, black and white. I'm not sure why they've used these colours in particular because they don't help each-other stand out very well. It makes it look a bit bland. I think that if they had used something strong like yellow on top of the blue it would have helped it to stand out. The black and white text on top of each-other helps make a reverse colour which is a popular effect. 
Main Image: 
The main photo used in this issue is Snoop Dogg wearing a suit. Snoop Dogg is a well-known rapper and was one of the most popular HipHop artists around. They've had him wear a suit in the photo. I believe this was to attract the target audience as he would never wear things like that due to his background. 

Rolling Stone Magazine Analysis

Target Audience:

Rolling Stone is aimed at basically all audiences. It features all the mainstream artists which would mean it appeals to a very wide age range. I would say it's most likely aimed at 16-45 year olds. In this issue, they've used Adele. This will help appeal to the target audience as she's a massive star and has been for a long time now. Because the target audience is 16-45 year olds, they'll most likely be fans of Adele's music.
Masthead: 
The Rolling Stone masthead is very well known. Because it's so bright and unique, it's easy to spot it out of a crowd of magazines. The red and white was a great choice for colours as the red can stand out on most colours then with the white outline and drop shadow behind it, it really stands out and makes it easy to see what magazine it is. 
Layout:
The layout in this issue has focused most on the top third, right third and bottom third. With this effect, it leaves more space for the main image. I think that this way, the target audience will see the photo of Adele and think that it is worth reading. They haven't used the soft spot to it's full usage as they have everything mainly on the right side of the cover. Maybe if they had an advert on the soft spot, it would get noticed slightly more. 
Colour Pallet:
The main colours are red, white and you could say brown. This is only if you count her hair colour as the only text used is either red or white. These colours are very strong when used together. Especially with the dark background with the white text on top, the text is a lot easier to read.
Main Image: 
Rolling Stones is a massive magazine. It's very popular and always has the biggest stars on the cover. This example has Adele on the cover. They've used this to attract the older and younger people as she's very popular and has recently won an oscar. This will also get more people to buy the magazine.

Vibe Magazine Cover

Target Audience:

The main audience for this magazine is young people from all over the world. The age range would most likely be between the ages of 15 and 25. They've used bold bright writing for a few reasons. Younger people will always be more interested in bigger fonts compared to small slender writing, but that doesn't mean you cannot use it. I believe that because this cover has been aimed at that audience, they can use all these conventions properly. 

Masthead:

The masthead for Vibe magazine never changed anything but it's colour. This way, it's easy for the audience to connect with the magazine and trust that it will always give only the information it needs to. I think this is a good aspect as it stops confusion with the magazine and it is in itself a great masthead. It takes up the whole top of the cover and is bright enough for any background. 

Layout: 

This magazine rows are split into fourths I think. You can see that the banner and masthead takes up the while top quarter of the page. The cover is then split up into thirds. They've got the main image in the centre third and the teasers in left and right third. I guess you can say the important aspects of the magazine are placed into the left third as that's where some of the teasers, the main teaser and the start of the masthead is. This is exactly what is going to attract the audience when the magazine is seen in the store. 

Colour Pallet: 

They've used a 3 colour pallet on this cover. It's mainly red, black and white. I think this is a very effective colour scheme as all the colours can stand out on top of the others. For example, they've used the white as the colour for the background so that they can use the red on the masthead and the black on some of the text. This way, there isn't a part of text that doesn't stand out.

Main Image:

This choice is main image was a very smart one. Because they've used someone like Ke$ha, not only do they have the advantage by using a famous face, but they've added sex appeal to pull in the male audience and they've used a female icon to pull in the female audience. Simply by using an attractive female model, they've attracted a massive audience.

XXL Magazine Cover

Target Audience:

The target audience for XXL magazine is similar to most Hip-Hop magazines. It's around the ages of 17-30, mainly young adults. This cover appeals to this well as it uses an artist who appeals to a young audience and lots of aspects which can only be enjoyed fully by younger people. If they only used text to pull in the audience, it wouldn't work as well as it does with these conventions. 

Masthead:

The masthead for XXL is very unique on this cover. As you can see, it sits in the top left corner. I really think this is a fantastic thing for the magazine to do. A very common convention is to have the masthead take up the whole top third of the magazine. In this issue, it's only in the corner so they can add information in the top right corner, a lot like Q magazine.

Layout: 

The Layout of this cover is split into almost 2 columns. The first has the masthead, a quote and the main article teaser. The second half has what else the magazine is going to include. This way, it's not hard to get lost or overpowered by the cover as it's easy on the eyes and places everything in perfect places. They've even taken advantage of the sweet spot by including a quote from Waka Flocka.

Colour Pallet: 

This cover uses a 4 colour pallet scheme. This includes red, green, black and white. This was almost brave as a lot of magazines don't use green on their covers with other colours like red and black. On the other hand, they've done very well to use all the colours to their full potential as the green looks fine. I think the fact they've only used one colour for the masthead and nothing else was not the best choice as It can stand out on plenty of different colours. 

Main Image: 

The choice of the model is always a hard decision as you need someone who can appeal to the audience as a whole. For example, on the Vibe cover they used a model who appeals to the entire audience. On this cover, they've used a big artist who is very well known (as he quotes on the cover) and is very entertaining. I think this was a fantastic choice since as they do say, "Everybody Loves Waka".

Music Magazine Genres

Introduction: 
Music is very popular. People buy music magazines for simple reasons, they want to know about the bands or singers they like and might want to know about other aspects of their lives. The main target audience can be narrowed down to people between the ages of 12 and 35. This is because younger people do like reading about certain bands and knowing about their backstories. Older people might buy it to find out about their upcoming concerts. The magazines do play a large role when it comes to how popular bands can be. They get advertised throughout magazines, which helps people know about the band and increases their popularity. This shows how profitable it can be if you work well. It's obvious that after time, the internet will take over. Magazines will not be sold as people will just get all the information off the internet. Recently, one of the biggest shops for DVDs and CDs went out of business. I think it's simply because everyone got all the newest films from the internet for less money; the same as bound to happen to magazines. The Music Industry covers a large range of music genres. This is because not everyone wants to listen to the same music, it's all completely different. A few genres are HipHop, Indie, Metal, Pop, Reggae and Rock. I will show you what each of these genres are like: 

HipHop:

Hiphop can be separated into many different sub genres. The main ones are Rap and Grime. Rap is what most people listen to. Some popular rappers include Eminem, Kanye West and Chris Brown. There are many more, but they are very well known around the world. It is basically like a mix of heavy slang and poetry. Grime is quite different to rap as a whole. It's completely English whereas Rap is American. Popular Grime artists include Dizzee Rascal, Skepta and JME. Grime usually includes other genres of music in theirs, like Drum and Bass.

The Source is one of the most popular HipHop magazines. It mainly covers rap and can be found in most shops. It's popular as it covers all the news of the biggest stars of Rap. The alternative for Grime is GRM daily. This basically gets all the news of Grime and slaps it into one website. They do not have a magazine, whereas the Source does. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CL6n0FJZpk

This is a link to a very popular hiphop song by the well known producer Dr Dre.

Indie:
Indie music can be summed up as independent music. It's the reverse of mainstream music and is there to basically be different. Indie music is quite popular but not as well known as some other genres. 

NME magazine is the main Indie music magazine. You can see it's Audience card above. This shows that its target audience is men aged 17-30. With this, you can understand why they've used all those different images on the cover. 

Metal:
Metal is a lot more popular with older people i've found. Many adults listen to it as they grow up with it everywhere. Nowadays, metal bands don't really bring out much music. The most popular metal bands out there in my opinion are AC-DC, Metallica and Iron Maiden. They've all been active for many, many years and if anything are just as popular as they used to be. 

Decibel is one of the main Metal magazines. This is their website design. You can see to the left, they have a photo of their current issue. You can see simply from the cover what it's about and what it will include. 

Pop:
Pop music is pretty much any music that's popular. Almost like the Mainstream music at the time. This basically means that most big stars are pop stars. This is people like Justin Bieber, Robbie Williams and many other artists. These are the kind of artists that make music and aim it at people of all ages.

Rolling Stones is a massive magazine. It's very popular and always has the biggest stars on the cover. This example has Justin Bieber on the cover. They've used this to attract the younger people as he has sex appeal. This will also get more females to buy the magazine as it's mainly aimmed at males.

Reggae:
Reggae music is more or less soul. The biggest stars in Reggae always include Bill Lovelady, Maxi Priest and Bob Marley. It's not very popular nowadays but it does still have a large fanbase. A while ago, one of the biggest stars around, Snoop Dogg, turned to Reggae music. This sort of expanded the fanbase and attracted many more people of different ages.

United Reggae is one of the only magazines based around this music genre. As I said earlier, this is most likely because not many people are interested in Reggae music and don't really want to read up about it. This magazine is mainly aimed at older people of the age of about 30-45. This is because this genre was big a long time ago and most people who like Reggae would be older.

Rock:
Rock is not as big as it used to be. You still see big rock bands like AC-DC, Guns n Roses and Aerosmith but because the genre has changed from what it used to be, they're not the same. Most rock is aimed at teenagers and young adults; people aged between 15 and 30. 

Kerrang is no doubt the most popular rock magazine. It's aimed at older teenagers I think because it uses mostly newer, less well known bands a lot more than it uses the old bands.

College Magazine Evaluation

Evaluation

Bentley once said ''The making of the new through the rearranging of the old''. Similarly, Picasso said ''Good artists copy. Great artists steal''. This means that to make a good magazine, analyse other magazines and decide what looks good. If it looks good, use it. Before creating my magazine cover, i looked at other magazine covers and looked at why the popular ones are so good and why the unpopular ones are bad. The common conventions are what makes the magazine worth reading. I first looked at the Bodmin College magazine so I could understand how magazines are made up. This was a good example because it's not really the best magazine cover around. When analysing it, I found there was too many pictures and not enough text. There was no teasers and was overall a bad cover. Instead of recreating this cover straight away, I used Survey Monkey. I took results from the target audience and created a front cover from this information. 85% of people wanted a better layout of the magazine and 62% wanted colours that reflect youth culture. This shows how the college magazine wasn't very interesting overall. I took all the results and the common conventions and created my own magazine so it was different to the current magazine but yet still includes all the things a magazine should. 

The target audience of the magazine is mainly 11-19 year olds. It shouldn't matter what sex they are as it has to appeal to everyone in school. Along with this, it should have something to make the parents and teachers want to read it. This is because it would add to the amount of people reading it and it might include some important information for them. According to my survey, the main age range who reads the magazine is 14-16 year olds. This meant that out of all the age groups, i should focus more on them. This is why i've used the models I have, they are the same age as the most important group. Along with this, it goes against the theory by Stanley Hall. He believed that 'Criminal activity would increase between the ages of 12 and 24' and 'the common mood of teenagers is depressed'. My cover disproves that as my main image is just a teenager posing doing no harm and my other image is a boy standing up straight with a slight smile. This shows that teenagers can be happy and don't have to commit crimes. 

I used photoshop to edit my images before using it on my cover. I had to crop out the background using a quick selection tool on photoshop. Although, while using this tool I found out that most of the background was a similar colour to the model which made it difficult to crop out well. This is when I had to use the magnetic lasso tool and eraser. Using these, I could simply highlight the specific areas with ease and clear any area I didn't want or need. Other than that, I used the blur tools and burn tools just to make the photos really stand out. I also used the airbrush to smooth the photo. If I could go back over it, I would have tried to make the images a lot smother as from close up they're quite blurred and it doesn't look as good.

"The view that the internet and new digital media as an optional extra is replaced with the recognition that they have fundamentally changed the ways we engage with all media"(David Gaunlett 2007). I believe that quotes like this are the reasons I made the magazine cover. I think it means that in order to make successfull media products, you need to use a range of media devices. This is why i've used programmes like photoshop. Without these programmes, I wouldn't be able to really connect with my target audience. I have also done this by simply using Blogger. With this, I can easily update each post for the audience to see and read through at their own pace. I believe this all helps support Gaunletts theory.

Overall, I know that I have made a better version of the Bodmin College magazine. I have stuck to the common conventions of magazines and improved the original design completely. It doesn't use a random range of photos mashed together to make it look interesting, it uses a straight mix of information with photos to back up the stories. Apart from that, my magazine cover and contents page are far from perfect. If I had better tools and programmes to edit the photos and text I could make a very good magazine but as i'm only making a Bodmin College magazine it's not really that well done. If I could redo it, I would also try to make it more for both sexes instead of just boys. I would use a range of students on the pages instead of only having male models so it appeals to a wider audience.

Typography:
I think the typography works well together. You could say that the Masthead doesn't go properly with the rest of the text but I chose it because it's very similar to a lot of the fonts you'd see when looking at school fonts. Other than that, the rest of the text is the same as the official Bodmin College logo. I've only used the same colours as the logo and the Masthead which helps the audience actually make their way through the cover and contents easily. I think this is a main problem with magazines nowadays. A lot of them use too many different colours and fonts which makes it difficult for the reader. It makes it hard to stay focused on one part of the page.

Images:
The images have both ups and downs. There are some good aspects but some bad ones. I think it's good because i've only used a few pictures and they're not very overpowering. This makes the text stand out just as much as the pictures yet doesn't make it hard to read. On the other hand, i've only got two images on the cover. If I coud change it, I would have a couple more smaller images just to have something else on there. I think this would make the magazine as a whole appeal to a lot more people as it's more to look at.

Conclusion:
Overall, I think that both my cover and contents pages follow the common conventions and appeal to the target audience well. My cover page serves it's purpose well as you can see and read all the different pages and it has photos to back up the story. Along with this, it's not overpowering at all and it goes well with the colour scheme. This is also the case for the contents page as i've used black and red text to go with the clothes that the models are wearing. Apart from this, they aren't the best designs for cover and contents pages. They're both a bit boring at the moment and I doubt it would really get a lot of students to read further. If I could go back then I would change some of the design, but right now i'm happy with the result.

My Cover and Contents