How the magazine industry is regulated

Audience Expectations

Planning : My magazine - Target Audience and Genre

Who will be my target audience and what will my genre be? From doing research (mainly textual analysis) I have discovered all the tricks editors and magazine companies to in order to attract the audience and interact with the audience. Some magazines I have researched or discovered while researching have made it clear who their target audience is and what their genre of music is. For example Top of the Pops is clearly for teenage girls who like pop music, whereas NME are evidentially covering more of a rock and punk seen aimed at a mixed gender in their 20s onwards. By doing this research it has helped me to think about the possible target audience and genres I could cover. It has also helped me to see what genre dominants the music magazines of today and what room there is on the magazine market. I have completed two mid maps, one with all the possible genres of my magazine and another mind map of all the possible target audiences. I have come to the conclusion and decided that I will be doing my magazine genre of international music, this means my magazine will publish popular and unpopular (upcoming) music from various countries such as the United Kingdom, The United States, France, Spain and Germany and also many more. This allow my target audience and readership to become very large and mixed making the magazine more popular, it will also give me chance to include various different genres. For example from doing my research I have discovered that Pop (chart) music magazines aimed at teenagers (mainly girls) were quite dominant in the magazine market along with Rock and Punk magazines. This meant that I wanted to stay away from those genres and include genres which do not really get viewed or seen in the music magazine industry, this would be genres such as classical, indie, country and ballads. By doing this type of magazine with a range of different countries and a hybrid of various genres, it allows my magazine to have a wider target audience. I have decided for my magazine to be Unisex and at a range of 15-60+. By having this very large age range it again allows my magazine to open up to wider readership. By having all these factors (international, range of genres and wide target audience) it allows my magazine to be very versatile and flexible in many different forms and therefore making it popular. From research I have done, it appears that this will be the first type of international music magazine, therefore making it different and stand out compared to other magazines.

Possible genres for my magazine

This is another mind map I did in order to show all the possible genres of the magazine. This will also help my thoughts process and allow me to see all the different genres that could possibly be a genre of my magazine.

Possible Target Audiences

Here is a mind map I made of all the possible target audiences my magazine could be aimed at. This mind map will help me process my thoughts of different audiences and let me see what audiences are available to aim my magazine at. It will also help me pick a target audience for my magazine.

Audience Consumption Habits

Contents page - 'Q' Magazine anaylsis

Case Study on Billboard Magazine

Audience Consumption Habits....

I need to add the mind map onto the blog but I am unsure how.

Analysis of double page spread- Number one (Cheryl Cole Q Magazine)

The history of music magazines

Audience Theories

Marketing of a magazine

Distribution of a magazine

Production of a magazine

Magazine Anaylsis 3- Blender Magazine Alicia Keys

Magazine anaylsis numer two- Top of the pops - One Direction

Magazine Analysis : 'Q' magazine- Cheryl Cole

Research and planning

My media teacher gave me a check list of all the tasks I need to do. Then I created my own list of tasks to complete throughout the research and planning part of the coursework. By doing this I will be able to see what I need to do in order to create a successful magazine. I will also find and discover new factors about music magazines by doing this. I got some of my ideas from the check list my teacher gave me and then some I thought of myself. I think by doing this I will be able to see what I need to do. 

Evaluation of Preliminary Task:

Evaluation of Preliminary Task:

Area's for improvement:

I think there are many improvements that can be made to my preliminary task. Firstly, one improvement which I think I can learn from is to learn and understand how to use software and equipment correctly. This is because I do not fully understand and know how to use InDesign/Photoshop and therefore my magazine cover could be missing out some, professional looking techniques which good make my magazine cover look better. I could also do more research into school magazine covers as all I did was look images of school magazines on Google to get ideas of how they look. However, if I had done more research my magazine cover may have looked more professional rather than looking amateur as I think it does. I could also have made the front cover more dazzling and bright by changing the colour and typography, so it would catch the audiences eye. But I had an idea in my head of how I wanted it to look (traditional and sophisticated) but due to this it has left my cover looking a bit dull. More text could have been used to intrigue the audience to pick it up and read it as my cover only has 3 sub-headings/pieces of text on the front. Most people in my class and on Google images has chosen to use an image as a background, I opted for a different choice by having a gradient as my background and two pictures positioned together. I think this can be a negative and a positive. The negative being it may not look and stand as much as others do and look like a typical school magazine where as others magazines do.

Successes in the task:
My first success would obviously be finishing the task. I also made the magazine cover how I wanted it to look and I think it does look like a magazine cover due to the large typography of the masthead. The positive of my pictures not being a background (like many other people have chosen) is that it may stand out because of that reason and looks different from the rest. It also gives the magazine chance to display two medium sized pictures rather than one big one which covers the whole page. The green and pink colours bounce off each other and the pink makes the magazine cover look exciting. The small amount of text makes the front cover look sophisticated and not too 'cluttered'.

Factors I have learnt from the task:
By completing this task I have learnt, discovered and understood many factors to make a successful magazine cover which will then go on to help me in my main task of the music magazine. A support teacher who helps in my class, pointed out that Photoshop is for editing and InDesign is for placing all your edits onto. This has really helped me by knowing this and her telling me as I now know how I can make my final piece look good and professional with use of the software provided. I think it is helpful that I have done this mock practise task as it has taught me many things and also given me chance to play around with the software and learn what is needed to make my final task look good and be something that I am proud of. I do not really like the way my magazine cover has turned out. However, I can learn from this, as I can know make my final piece of work (Music magazine) the best of my ability.

Have I met the brief:
I first read the brief to learn what the task was and then forgot about it. I took pictures without looking out the brief first and then realised the brief strictly said a medium shot and therefore I had to re-take the pictures. I still used one of my pictures from before as I believed it looked like a medium shot, however I would consider the brief if I had to do this task again. From this point I checked with my brief to make sure everything was included that specifically mentioned in the brief. The brief also says 'laid- out text' and a' masthead', which I have done, consequently I sill believe I should have read the brief more often and stuck to it.

Preliminary Task