5. How Did You Attract/Address Your Audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted/addressed my audience by using my research into music magazines and the genre I selected for my own music magazine production, this helped me to chose the right use of language, images and layout etc.

I used a formal type of language as this is what is seen in most music magazines, by looking at different music magazines throughout my research this showed that the type of language varied from genre to genre, I then decided on a more formal approach on my use of language to appeal to everybody interested in my magazine.

I used a simplistic font for the main article of featured on my double page spread. This is because it is a common convention that the majority of my audience will be able to associate with. This is only seen in my main feed of relative research, ‘vibe’ magazine. Therefore I used a similar type of font for my music magazine article; I also made the first letter of my article bold the same as the ‘vibe’ magazine.

I decided on a similar font to ‘vibe’ for my masthead and titles across my music magazine production. This is because it is bold and stands out to the audience I was aiming to attract.

From my research on ‘vibe’ magazine and other music magazines, it showed that they based that edition of the magazine to the artist featured on the front cover, this meaning that they are the stars of the front cover, contents page and then there is an article about them on a double page spread. Therefore to attract my audience to my product I made the contents similar to other music magazines making it familiar to the audience, making it what they are used to. I made my music magazine about one band ‘girls affliction’ and then featured them across my entire music magazine, similar to what is usually seen in most music magazines.

The ideas I used for my images where to attract the audience visually. I noticed within my research that most music magazines show bright colours on the front cover, I think that this intrigues the audience into wanting to see what the product is about etc. I then took this convention from my research and used it within the images I took. I especially noticed that within ‘vibe’ magazine, there is usually a colour scheme present and is consistent throughout the product. This helped me to decide that I wanted a particular colour scheme that would be consistent throughout my product through the use of my images. Also, I wanted my images to have a fun, girly theme to appeal to female audience but the sex appeal of the images to attract male audiences. For example, the colours from the ‘Nicki Minaj’ issue, have a consistent bright colour theme throughout the images, this along with the sex appeal shown in her clothing and body language.

I used a big bold masthead in my music magazine production; this was to attract the audiences as it stands out and is clear to read. Using a large font, in bold, helps to catch the eye of the potential buyer of my music magazine product. My research of music magazines showed that most of them have fairly large and bold mastheads featured on their front covers, so to attract my audience I decided to follow that convention and use a bold black font against my white backgrounds.

I used a simplistic layout for my music magazine as it makes it appealing to the reader as it makes it easier to find main articles etc. This was the main aim for my contents page but also on my front page I wanted to make it informative but not give too much away so that they are intrigued to buy and then read my product.

My audience is based on male and female audiences, I done this by using a sex appeal within my images for the male audience and then the girly theme for female audiences. My initial research had a huge impact in the decisions I made in the production of my music magazine product, I use my research a lot to make sure I was making my product appealing to my audiences, I mimicked similar conventions from different music magazines to make my music magazine attractive to audiences.

4. Who Would Be The Audience Of Your Music Magazine?

Who would be the audience for your music magazine? 

I targeted my magazine to people who enjoy the music genre of hip-hip/RnB music. Through my audience research through ‘Find Your Tribe’ I came to the conclusion that the people I would be targeting would be ‘blingers’ as they named them, I thought that this would be a good target audience for my music magazine as it helps to contribute to the niche market of hip-hop/RnB music magazines, as there are currently a rare few including ‘Vibe’. The ‘blingers’ are seen to be high spending; glossy type people who I think would be the core buyer of my magazine.

I think that because of the sex appeal image of the hip-hop/RnB genre overall, there would be a higher percentage of males to females, however, females are not to be forgotten and men are also seen with a sex appeal in this genre, usually with their top off revealing their extremely toned torsos. The hip-hop/RnB genre originated from young afro-Caribbean Americans with their luxurious lifestyles and love of hip-hop/RnB music and bling. They like the top quality brands and the glossy image.

Their psychographic profiling can sometimes be seen in a negative light as they can be seen to be violence by carrying guns etc and dealing in illegal doings making them Strugglers. But overall most are involved in the music that they believe in and think of it as their dream to make it mainstream which therefore makes them a Succeeded/Explorer. This is the image that I would want to project onto the institutions that I wanted to distribute my music magazine. In my music magazine I would make it steer away from negative stereotypes of some aspects of the genre and glorify the positive luxurious lifestyle that they endure. I think that my audience would fall into the C2 socio-economic group as they would be average working class people wanting the lavish lifestyle that their role models live and they would be looking up to follow their role models as part of their dream of success.

3. What Kind Of Media Institution Might Distribute Your Music Magazine And Why?

What kind of media institution might distribute your music magazine and why? 

I think that the magazine institution IPC would be a suitable institution to distribute my music magazine, they currently publish music magazines such as NME and I think that my music magazine would fit in nicely into their portfolio as my music magazine targets a popular, ‘blinger’ style audience.



Another magazine institution BAUER would also be a suitable institution to distribute my music magazine as it currently produces music magazines such as Q  magazine which is a popular music magazine targeting a mixture of audiences.

My music magazine would be seen as more of a niche market as it is not widely available as there is only one main hip-hip/RnB music magazine being ‘Vibe’ magazine. So I definitely think that there would be a gap in the market for my product to be in. I think if either of the institutions distributed my music magazine it would definitely be something different for them, however, BAUER, already offers a variety of music magazines in its production which offers a variety of choices of music genre to its audiences.  This therefore means that BAUER has more experience in distributing a variety of genres where as IPC only offers one music magazine which includes more of a rock/alternative genre of music. I think that the institution EMAP would not distribute my music magazine as it specialises in business magazines which does not relate to my music magazine so therefore they would not distribute it.





2. How Does Your Music Magazine Represent Particular Social Groups?

How does your music magazine represent particular social groups?

In my product I tried to make my social group that I represented appeal to my genre audience. As I chose for my music magazine to be a hip-hop/RnB magazine I tried to make my models look more like ‘blingers’. ‘Blingers’ are a social group that listen to hip-hop/RnB music and like expensive clothing and jewellery, ‘bling’. By creating a girly mise en scene to my images this created a fantasy like theme which is seen in other hip-hop/RnB music magazines such as ‘vibe’, also by using the props of lollipops, fluffy pillows and dresses further created my mise en scene. I based this on the front cover of ‘vibe’ magazine with the artist Nicki Minaj on the cover with an animated background and a fantasy feel.

By dressing my models in short, tight dresses I made them represent ‘blingers’ by looking at my research of ‘vibe’ magazine I could see that the female artists featured on the pages were showing a lot of skin from their costumes, mainly their legs, therefore I decided to show this in my products to show the same sex appeal as in my researched music magazines.

I used a bright lighting in the studio to make the images bright and the background a plain white, I done this to make the colours stand out more and to also make the images look ‘glossy’ this was to represent how ‘blingers’ are seen in actual hip-hop/RnB music magazines. By using the studio, I was able to create my desired light effect, I researched into some ‘vibe’ magazine images from shoots from the animated type article from the cover and this helped me to decide on the lighting I wanted and that I wanted to use a studio to achieve more ‘glossy’ looking images seen in hip-hop/RnB music magazines.

I used quite simplistic language throughout my product as it related to the research I had done on ‘vibe’, they base their product on the main image and less writing. I also made my language very straight to the point not to confuse my audience in any way.

I made my models relax in their photo shoot to make their expressions slightly more natural than the ones seen in ‘vibe’, however I still based my images on the poses and expressions seen in ‘vibe’ just less forced. I used girly, genuine poses and body languages but including the sex appeal and the fun theme that I decided to use through my research.

In my image used for my double page spread there is slight attitude present in the model on the lefts face, this is seen a lot in hip-hop/RnB music magazines such as ‘vibe’. I think it’s an important part of the representation of the ‘blingers’ as a social group as they are seen to have an attitude in images of them.