Used media theory to discuss target audience- project phoenix, Demographic and Psychographic Profiling techniques

My magazine is going to be aimed at teenager's both male and female's. The Socio Economic status will be middle class, this means it's going to be aimed at middle class teenager's who either go to college or work therefor they can afford to spend money on music magazine. Also i'll make sure my magazine will be at an affordable price. My magazine will tell the audience what the latest R&B song's are and include a lot of gossip about R&B star's. 

Questionnaire

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I produced a questionnaire with these question's to help me to understand what kind of music magazine the audience want. After ma questioners being completed I got the feedback that my music magazine should be £1.50 as almost everyone ticked that option and that it should be about R&B music genre. It also helped me to understand how I should design my magazine eg: make it colourful and use lots of photo's as after doing my questionnaire I got the feedback that people are more interested in magazine which are designed like this. Most people that filled ma questionnaire where 16 -17 therefor my magazine will be aimed at the teenage audience as my questionnaire's give me feedback on what kind of magazine this age range will like.

Analysis of download top 40

After carriying out a research on the top 40 downloads of this week and last week, I have realised R&B and HipHop are the most popular genres of music, as most the songs and artists on this table are from that genre. This table also shows that people have different tastes in music as there are songs in this table which don't belong to the R&B and HipHop genre, however because them two are the most popular genres in the top 40 downloads I think my music magazine being a R&B magazine will be popular and do well as most my researches show this is the genre under demand, therefor when people realise there's a new R&B music magazine people will want to buy it as it will have there favourite artists in.

Circulation figures For Music Magazines

I researched the figures for music magazines to help me understand which magazines sold the most  and which one's are under demand etc. Below are the circulation figures I found:

BBC Music 42,810 (45,144)*
Classic FM 32,534 (35,751)*
Classic Rock 71,242 (70,301 / 70,188)
Computer Music 17,427 (18,261)*
Future Music 10,862 (10,860)*
Gramophone 32,313 (34,628)*
Hot Press 18,394 (19,387)*
Kerrang! 41,125 (43,253 / 52,272)
Metal Hammer 41,777 (46,004 / 50,269)
Mixmag 26,116 (30,159)*
Mojo 98,484 (97,722 / 100,507)
NME 38,486 (40,948 / 48,459)
Q 94,811 (100,172 / 103,107)
Terrorizer 11,641 (13,786)*
Top of the Pops 107,576 (119,739)*
Uncut 75,518 (76,526 / 87,069)
Word 26,555 (34,280)*

Empire 194,236 (194,016)
Sight and Sound 19,842 (19,733)*
Total Film 81,029 (85,031)

After reading these  figures I realised that the most popular genre of music magazines are Rock and R&B, therefor I am going to carry out a research on the top 40 downloads to help me investgate which musc genre is most popular.

Analysing a magazine article

I chose to analyse this article from a music magazine as it has all the conventions of a article/interview that would be in a music magazine. It has been spread on a double page as the first page has her photo on and the second page has the article. The interview has been typed up into 3 columns, this is how I am going to layout the article for my music magazine as this is a important magazine article convention. This article also has a title and subtitle, the heading title introduces the artist to us (the audience) it is written in capitals and bigger size font than the rest of the writing on the page so it stands out and grabs the audiences attention straight away making them wan to read on as Madonna is a very famous singer, so a lot of people would want o read about her. The subtitle helps to give us an idea what the article is about. Under the main heading it also acknowledges the names of who the article has been done by. There are also bits in this article which are written in bold this has been done on purpose to emphasise the point that these are important points of the article to the readers. I also like the way they have made use of pastel colours for this article as different shades of blue's are used for the title etc and the background for the article is white, and the photo also doesn't have a lot of colors as tin this photo she isn't wearing much make up, they might have done this to connote innocence and the type of songs she sing's eg: if this article was about nelly maybe hey would use dark colors and colors which connote teenagers, violence etc. This photo also looks attractive this is done so females look up to her and read the article and so male audience find her attractive and read it.

Analaysing a contents page

I decided to analyse this content page as it is from the magazine Vibe and I am aiming to make my magazine like vibe, therefor this contents page should help me to decide how the layout of my magazine contents page should be. However I think this contents page looks very dull and boring as it's mostly Grey and Black therefor its not eye catching, the font is also very small and black which I don't think will make the readers want to read it, I think they should have used less text for the information about what is on the pages  as this will make the audience read it as it would look less boring. However I like the way they have put subheadings like "features" and "fashion" as this helps the audience to find what there looking for quicker as they can simply look under that subheading. I also like the way they've put a famous celebrity from that genre on the page as people who buy this magazine will be his fans as his famous for singing in that genre. They have also made him stand out by placing a red heart where his heart should be, this really stands out as it's the only bright colour on the page, and the way they have a hand coming out from the back on top of that makes it really stand out to the audience as this is something unusual and the person behind isn't shown only the arm is therefor it makes it really different and engages the audience. I also think the way they've stuck to the theme of this magazine being vibe is really good, as they have kept the letter "V" in  big bold font this reminds the readers which magazine they are reading, however they have covered it slightly with the celebrity, this shows the picture dominates the page.

When I make my contents page I think I will be using this layout, as I want to keep a picture that dominates the page and the pages information on the side with subheadings, however I am going to try and make my contents page look a bit more attractive by using a lot of attractive colours and a few more pictures.

Analysing Magazine front cover

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I decided to annotate this magazine cover, as Vibe is a music magazine from the same genre of music that i want to make my Magazine about. 

The masthead is written in big bold white font this is done to make it stand out from the rest of the text on the page. The page is dominated by a very famous singer, Chris Brown, this helps the audience to understand what kind of music this magazine will be about as Chris Brown is famous for singing R&B songs. It also helps to attract people towards this magazine specially female audiences, as they could find Chris Brown attractive.This picture covers up part of the masthead which helps it to stand out, as it looks like the most important thing on the page, however its not covered the masthead up to much, so we are still able to read it and recognize which magazine it is.  They have made good use of colors on this magazine cover as they've used colours which stand out on the background they've used. They have also used a theme of colours green and White throughout the writing on this cover as it's like they've gave the words turns to be green and then white then green again. However to make the important text on the cover stand out from the rest of the text they have used other colours which don't combine with this theme, this helps them to emphasise the point that these texts are ment  important to the audience. It also uses direct addresss "i'm still a virgin.. in your eyes", it uses the word "your" therefor it's using direct address which helps to engage the audience. They've also made use of questions in the front cover to engage the audience "is that Chris Brown?" this engages the readers as they'll want to know the answer for which they'll have to read the rest of the magazine, so it will help sell the magazine to people. Also the bit of the question where it says "Chris Brown" is done in big bold capital letters, this is to make it stand out as Chris Brown is famous and people will have a lot of interest in him, by reading his name they will think the magazine has a lot of information on him and so will go onto read the rest of the magazine it hooks people to it.