Target Audience

Previously, I have outlined the reasons to go with the 'mainstream/popular' music magazine - including the genres of pop, rock/indie and R&B. 

Now, I need to pick and outline the specific target audience that I am going to pick for my music magazine. 

Below is a PowerPoint which outlines my chosen target audience:

Chosen Target Audience from Dylan0akes

Brand Names with Slogans - Audience Feedback Charts

Finding the name and slogan is an important part of my music magazine as it shows my brand's values and ideologies which is important for targeting my audience. The name and slogan allow people to recognise the genre of the magazine too. By finding these, I can now tailor my planning more as I will have confirmed the genre, the name and the slogan. 

As part of my planning I have made a chart with the possible brand names (from my previous post) and also possible slogans that could match up with each brand name. I have also included a tally column so I can print this of and gain audience feedback from it, and I've also included a brief sentence which shows what my magazine is. Gaining this audience feedback is vital as it will allow me to evaluate the best choices and it'll allow me to pick the name easier, as I will know my audience's preferences and which ones they prefer. 

Below is the table containing brand names, slogans and a tally which I'm going to use in my audience feedback. Each person will pick 2 of their favourite names.

Possible Brand Names

I have chosen some possible names for my music magazine. To help me to pick one of the following names I will carry out audience feedback, which will allow me to see which names my audience would prefer. 

Below is a mind-map of 7 possible names:

• 'LOUDER' - linking to the volume of music.
• 'ONE!' - linking to the 'Number ONE!' for popular music information etc...
• 'FUSE' - show how the 'mainstream' genres have been fused and they're all present in this magazine.
• 'BOOM!' - relating to volume and 'Boom Box' and 'Booming music'.
• 'Non-Stop' - showing how the information and music news in this magazine is Non-Stop.
• 'Mix' - relating to the mixing of genres.
• 'Express' - for express news i.e. quick music news - maybe not as relating to music as much. 
• 'XPress' - same as above but abbreviated, more modern approach. 

Genre of Music Magazine

The genre of my music magazine is going to follow a mainstream style - including pop, R&B and rock/indie. 

Music magazines that follow this sort of genre style are magazines like 'Q' and 'Rolling Stone'. 

This is present in this example of Q:

This contents page shows that Q magazine has artists such as 'The Vaccines and Biffy Clyro' these artists are all part of the rock/indie genre. Additionally there is also 'Nicki Minaj' who is typically a rap/hip-hop artist. Furthermore 'Chase and Status' are also featured on this contents page, this group is part of the drum and base/dub-step genre.

This all indicates that Q has multiple genres but they're all 'mainstream' artists who are quite popular and well-known. 

Therefore, I am going to follow this sort of mainstream music style for my music magazine. I am going to try and use multiple genres but to make sure I do have a target audience, I will make sure the artists will be 'well-known' artists as a music magazine with no particular style of music are quite risky as most music magazines have a specific target audience to guarantee profits. 

Additionally, my questionnaire has helped me to decide this. Many people said that they liked these types of genres - pop, R&B and rock/indie.

So my target audience, genre-wise, will be 'mainstream' audiences who like popular music, chart music and music that is well-known which covers a few 'mainstream' genres. 

Industry Regulations

For my research I have decided to look at regulations of the magazine industry.
I have used this website to acquire the information: https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/index.html
I have done this as it allows me to acknowledge certain regulations that are in place when creating my magazine so I don't break any of the regulations.

What is the 'IPSO'?

• 'IPSO' stands for 'Independent Press Standards Organisation'.
• They regulate the magazine and newspaper industry. 
• They support the public where they think that 'the editors code of practice' has been breached. 
• They also believe in professional journalism. 
• They handle complaints from the magazine and newspaper industry as well as carrying out their own investigations. 

'Editor's Code of Practice'

• This states that all press need to follow this code, or risk punishments. 
• The clauses are copied from the website:

• This all indicates that complaints can come under different clauses and there is a clause which covers everything. 
• E.g. accuracy, children, privacy, harassment etc...

Examples of Complaints:

• The IPSO receive complaints about many things, quite a lot of them don't get 'upheld'.
• Underneath is a list of recent complaints that are mentioned on their website:

• Most of the complaints are from newspapers rather than magazines.
• They all refer to a relevant code of practice. 

MOJO Case Study

As part of my research I have done a case study into the music magazine 'Mojo'. This will help to identify how they're typically run, what they include and what sort of things they follow. 

I have presented this on a SlideShare: 

MOJO Case Study from Dylan0akes

Reception Theory

I have decided to research Stuart Hall's Reception Theory as part of my research. This will help me to allow myself to learn about how different audiences could view my music magazine in a different way to what I'd like it be viewed as. This will let me take this into consideration when creating my music magazine. 

What is it?

• "Reception theory is a version of reader response literary theory that emphasises each particular reader's reception or interpretation in making meaning from a literary text. Reception theory is generally referred to as audience reception in the analysis of communications models." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_theory

Preferred/Dominant Reading:

• This part of the theory suggests that the audience views the media content exactly how the producer wanted it to be viewed. This will lead to the acceptance of the dominant features of the text as the full intentions of the producer is fully accepted by the audience. 

Negotiated Reading:

• This section of the theory suggests that the audience chose whether or not they accept the dominant readings as their own. They may accept some/all of the dominant values in the media content. As well as this they will still have their own opinions or values which will come into play when they read the content. Therefore it being 'negotiated' as they mix their own readings with the preferred meanings. 

Oppositional Reading:

• This part of the theory suggests that the audience will completely reject the preferred meanings of the text. They will reject the dominate code and the social values that surround it. Usually the audience will recognise the dominant reading but accept it due to an opinion and you will no longer be able to get the message across to them as they will have already made their mind up about the reading. 

Applying it to a Music Magazine:

• This 'Rolling Stones' music magazine can indicate how the audience may follow the reception theory when viewing this front cover.
• 'Rolling Stone's' preferred meaning of this cover was most likely to have a bit of fun with the play of words of 'smokin' christmas' and the picture of snoop dogg smoking a candy cane. A teenager may agree with this preferred reading that 'Rolling Stone' is just having a little bit of fun. 
• The oppositional reading of this could be viewed from a parent. The parent may class this as a bad role model to children as they're technically promoting smoking. They will recognise the dominant value is to have fun with it, however they will completely reject it as they will think it is offensive as promoting a bad lifestyle.
• The negotiated reading could be of someone who doesn't agree with smoking. They will accept the dominant reading of the cover to be funny. However, they won't agree with smoking so they may have their own opinion of it being slightly bad. However, they won't totally disregard the dominant value as it can be seen as funny and a play on words. 

The sources I used were:
- http://image.slidesharecdn.com/theorytheorists-130909144713-/95/theory-and-theorist-for-media-studies-a2-17-638.jpg?cb=1378738333
- https://mediafort.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/reception-theory/

Desensitisation Theory

I have done some research into the Desensitisation theory. This is relevant as it allows me to explore how the audiences of music magazines see things and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable when creating my music magazine. 

I have presented this information on a PowerPoint which I have uploaded to SlideShare:

Desensitisation theory from Dylan0akes

I acquired this information from these sources:
- http://www.slideshare.net/05lewis/desensitisation-theory
- http://michaelwaltersalevelmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/soap-theories-desensitisation-theory.html

Genres and Sub-Genres

As part of my research, I've researched different genres and sub-genres. This will allow me to acquire broader knowledge about different genres and will also allow me to select a possible different genre depending on whether I wanted to pick a mass or a niche genre. 

To acquire this information I have used this website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popular_music_genres

I have presented this information on a Mindmeister mind map.

The information I have presented is just a few of many genres and sub-genres. There a thousands of more genres and sub-genres, I have just picked these genres to demonstrate.  This mind map shows that they're main genre such as pop, rock and hip-hop. Within those genres there a sub-genres and within some of the sub-genre there are also some sub-genres. 

Click on the image to enlarge and read clearer. 

Questionnaire Results & Analysis

I have taken a photo of some of my completed questionnaires...

Using meta-chart.com, I have created 8 pie charts which show what results I gained from my questionnaire. 

Most of the people that took part in my questionnaire was 0-17 year olds (mainly 16 year olds) as they are a likely target audience for me and I wanted to find out their habits. 

This indicates that there is no real correlation to whether people use celebrities as icons. Some people do and some people don't. 

This helps me a lot for creating my magazine. This shows that people expect to see (mainly) interviews with artists, an incentive and a fairly simple layout. People want to see other things too but these are the most common. 

This just indicates that I gave a questionnaire to 10 males and 10 females to attempt to get an equal and fair response. 

This can definitely help me a lot for picking my target audience. This pie chart shows that most people like the Indie/Alternative genre. This means that I could use this as my genre as many people like it. 

When creating my music magazine, I will need to include a price on the front cover as it is a conventional feature. This indicates that most people will expect to see a music magazine around the price range of £2.51-£3.

Another conventional feature to include on my music magazine will be the frequency of the release of the music magazine. This pie chart indicates that most people will expect to see a music magazine to be released every month, with quite a few expect it every week. 

This can help to identify what my aim of music magazine is so I can apply it throughout the magazine. This indicates that music magazines are used for a wide range of reasons. Most people use it for entertainment, information or 'just for fun' with a few people using it for escapism. 

All of this information which I have gathered extremely helps for my music magazine. Doing this questionnaire will allow me to apply my knowledge from this questionnaire to my own music magazine. 

Action Plan Completion So Far

Looking back at my action plan, I can see what I have completed and what I still need to complete. Reinforcing this will allow me to know what else I need to do and it'll also make me complete the things I have not yet completed. 

The crosses on my action plan mind map mark the things I have done. 

Archetypes

I have decided to research different archetypes. This helps in my research as I can now incorporate this into my music magazine by either aiming my target audience as a certain archetype or using characters that fulfil a certain archetype.  

I have created a video using PowToon and uploaded it to YouTube. 

Questionnaire

As part of my research, I have decided to do a questionnaire to find out some information about what the audiences expect from a typical music magazine. These questions can help me to form an effective music magazine which will suit all the needs of my selected audience. 

This will help me to apply my findings to my own magazine. For example if I know the most popular genre, I could consider doing my magazine of that genre. 

Research & Planning Feedback

I have received feedback from myself and my teacher about my research and planning so far. As I have not yet completed my R&P the feedback is feedback relevant to the posts which I have posted so far only.

This feedback is extremely helpful for me. I can now improve my previous research and also take on-board this feedback for my future posts.