Primary Audience Research

Primary Audience Research

My first question I asked on my survey was the gender question. I asked this because it would help me have some of sight of what target audience I will be promoting my Music magazine too. In my survey around 75% of people who answered was male. 

My second question on my survey was 'what is your age?' As you can see by my results that the highest selected answer was a younger audience. This works well because they are all in my sort of age group and interests will be the same in this age group.  but the age group of 18-24 will be the one I prioritise.

My third question asked them if they read music magazines recently. Over 60% of people said that they do. This means that there is still a market for physical music magazines instead of my first theory of teenagers reading magazines online or even getting the lasting music gossip and news from other sources.

As you can see in this question you still have the 37% of people who don't read music magazines at all but the 63% who do mainly buy monthly magazines instead of weekly. Weekly magazines are still very popular as no one in my survey buys a magazines daily and thats something I suspected.

Finding out the genre of magazines people are interesting in was very import and so i could see how popular my genre was ( Indie / alternative ). As you can see not a lot of people who answered my survey are strongly interested in my genre. I wouldn't say this is the end of the road because there is still some interest there and Im going to try and change many peoples minds on this genre.

By a clear mile White was a clear winner as everyone who answered my survey selected this. I will take this on board when I'm doing my own magazine.

When asking this question, I had a theory that alot of people will select this price to be very low as maybe thats what they ant to pay, but looking at my results you can see that people have been really honest and paying around £3-35 was an acceptable price to pay but no more.

When asking this question I was hoping to see a balanced answer, I almost got this excluding images. I think that my cover will include most of these things.

About 50%  of people have a fairly low household income but are still set to pay high for a magazine. So I may change my prices a bit when I come to do it. As I want my magazine to be affordable but yet sophisticated.

Im not to concerned about this question or answers as I want to my magazine to try and appeal to all sexuality's although I will take this on board and acknowledge this.

Researching Photographic Lighting

The first video I have watched and chosen to learn more known lodge on about photographic lighting is this one about the egg. This tutorial explains many different techniques on how lighting is effective when taking photos. Lighting is important factor on making a good photo this is because too much or even too little light can make such a huge difference.  

The first major point they talk about is how the light creates shadows. He paced an egg in a centre of a table and panned a light source around it. As he did this the shadow would change shape and depth.

From this tutorial I have learned where to position the model or the item and also how to include light depending on where the model or the item is placed.  I also watched some other videos that showed me how a model should be placed corresponding to the lighting. This has allowed me to understand how to make more of a professional style photo.

Contents Page Analysis

This contents page shows a picture of a drum using his drum kit. There is also smaller images of drum kits and as the the title of this contents page is 'Drummer' its clearly about drumming. The main colours used on this contents page is Red, Black and White. The black represent danger, serious and powerful which a drummer could also be associated with. The images are all positioned central or down the right hand side of the contents page, which the the text runs down the opposite side of the contents page. The fonts used work well with the contents page as  they are strong and in a style which suits musicians.







     
This contents page is from Q which is an indie/ alternative music magazine. This is a very tidy and organised layout at first glance. The target audience for this cover would be around 13-43 and probably a higher social class due to the way this is laid out. The contents page doest include the masthead but thats not such a surprise as many contents pages doesn't. Instead this contents page has loads of sub-headings. There is one main image which catches your eye almost straight away. The main image is a popular artist which 99% of people will recognise and might influence them to read the article about her. This is another image below it to try and create more visual effects and to add colour this artist probably isn't as well known but still might capture the audience the main image didn't.

Representation – Selling Through Stereotypes

Media produces use stereotypes to sell a product, I’m going to show you how stereotypes effect your decision into buying a product.

Gender

In 1975, feminist critic Laura Mulvey said females are summarized “As erotic objects of desire for the characters within the story, and as erotic objects of desire for the spectator.” Females are very commonly used as sex appealing objects to the audience for a long time. These does appeal to both genders but when you have a female model such as Katy Perry semi naked on the front of a magazine cover it most probably catch the attention of males. But also this would catch the attention to females who are the secondary target audience. Females the age of the model or younger will be interested as they want to been seen attractive as well. But since 1975 men have been used in the same way. Men have been used in the same way woman have been used as you can see Justin Bieber is the main image of this magazine cover and he is topless which is supposed to attract women.

Youth

In 1904 Stanley Hall wrote that a theory known as the Storm & Stress Model. In this he suggested that the common mood for teenagers is being depressed, And that a lot of criminal activity happens from people between the ages of 12 and 24. He also suggested that the 'youth' need an extreme amount of excitement and that excitement usually contains 'alcohol, drugs and sex'. Bill Osgerby said that “We do not have to search too hard to find negative representations of youth in postwar Britain." Most of the youth will read more 'Rebellious' Magazine's if they deem themselves as rebellious. Unlike straight A students who would be represented in a different way. As you can see on this magazine cover the two statements apply as their is a close up of a youth, smoking and making inappropriate gestures. He is also wearing all black clothes and this brings out his 'Rebellious side'. This connotes the depression and how the youth always need excitement as the the story on this cover is 'David Cameron...Be Very Afraid'.

Race

On this topic Sarita Malik argues: “Many feel that Black and Asian audiences are still not sufficiently catered for and that insensitivity towards issues of race and ethnicity still exist. The reality of a lived multiculturalism is not represented in the British media." This is because the Music magazine industry does not cater fairly to all the races n the UK. When i was googling music magazine covers it was hard to find one which had someone who wasn't white on it. Top of the Pops, Kerrang and NME support Malik statement as these are all music magazine companies but yet don't cater fairly as most of there models are white. Even though this is true Malik statement might be slowly becoming outdated as Companies such as XXL and others are now including more models which are not white.

Sexuality

The next magazine I'm looking at is about sexuality. This cover "Chooses aspect of gay male behaviour (SELECTION), inflates it into the defining male characteristic of male homosexuality (MAGNIFICATION), then establish it as the most easily recognizable image (REDUCTION).” This is shown through his clothing choice. He is wearing all black clothing and black makeup which shows us he has a 'gothic' fashion sense which is normally related to homosexual males.

 National/Regional Identity

Theorist Andrew Higson writes; “Identity is generally understood to be the shared identity of naturalized inhabitants of a particular political-geographic space – this can be a particular nation or region. This is shown quite obviously in this magazine cover by Kerrang as the main use of the Union Jack flag. Also all over this magazine cover they use the main colours of the union jack (Red, Blue and White). This is also represented through some of the text as well such as 'cool britannia' which also portrays this theme.

 

Class

My last magazine cover is represented through the theories of class and social grades. It is argued that the middle class of the population has the best deal in terms of representation as the middle class have the biggest impact the the social media. This magazines cover is middle/higher class as the choice of clothing of the main image portrays a higher social class and looks in control. The content is layer out in a very formal way and this also makes the magazine cover more of a higher class.