CONTENTS PAGE ANALYSIS'

In my media lesson we looked at some music magazine front covers and we found out that magazines such as the rock magazine 'Kerrang' had as little as 71 pages, lots of pictures and little text. This tells me that Kerrang's target audience are visual people who would rather flick through a magazine looking at the pictures, rather than read the information on it.

However, when we looked at a more hip-hop based magazine in 'Undercover' we found that it had 98 pages and a quite even mixture of pictures and text.

This would mean that for my hip hop magazine I would need to have quite alot of pages and use an even balance of pictures to text.

MUSIC MAGAZINE AUDIENCE RESEARCH

QUESTIONNAIRE

The following questionnaire is a study that I am undertaking for my media coursework, to see what people would want in a music magazine. Please tick the appropriate option.

1.       What is your age?

o   16

o   17

o   18

o   19

2.       What gender are you?

o   Male

o   Female

3.       What price should a music magazine be?  

o   £1.00

o   £1.50

o   £2.00

4.       Do you think a music magazine should have information about alternative things aswell as music?

o  yes

o  no 

5.       How often would you like to see new editions of a music magazine magazine?

o   Once a week

o   Once a month  

o   Once a year

6.       What do you like magazines to have more of?

o   Pictures

o   Text  

o   Mixture of both

7.       What colour scheme should the music magazine have?

o   Orange and silver

o   Blue and black

o   Red and black

o   Green and black 

o   Other (please specify) __________________

8.       What genre of music do you prefer?

o   rock

o   pop

o   hip hop

o   Other (please specify) __________________

9.       Do you think the music magazine should contain freebies and additional content?

o   Yes

o   No

10.    What genre should the music magazine be?

o   Urban

o   Gothic

o   Preppy

o   Other (please specify) ___________________

11.   Do you think the music magazine should contain advertising?

o   Yes

o   No

12.   Where do you usually read magazines?

o   At home

o   At school

o   On the bus

o   Other (please specify) ____________________

Thank you for your time, your opinion is appreciated.

TEXUAL ANLYSIS OF DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

The double page spread has a coloured photograph of a group of black men and one young black girl in a beaten up, deprived looking area, similar to a shanty town. One man in the photograph is striking quite a fatherly pose with the young black girl, whilst the other men are either posing or busy doing something else. 

Beside the picture there is a lyric from Movado which reads “Everybody wanna see, whats Movado gonna do? Who’s goin’ up against Movado? Who’s gonna die? This quote is in a bold red font, with each line in a different size, which makes it stand out from any other piece of text on the page. The rest of text on the page is in columns and is only sectioned off by green coloured subheadings.

The quote from Movado is obviously meant to stand out as it is unique in both font and sizes; however I am of the impression that the red also represents the aggressive nature of the lyric as red is a colour often associated with rage or anger, whilst the alternating font sizes could symbolise the tune in which the lyric may have been performed. 

In the photograph the attention seems to be on the man who is with the young girl. This is Movado an established Jamaican Reggae Singer who grew up in a tough Jamaican ghetto and often collaborates with hip – hop artists such as Jay Z and lil Wayne. The pose he is striking with the young girl suggests that she is a relative or at least close to him. This challenges the stereotype that people in the music industry are self – centred. In addition Movado seems quite comfortable in his surroundings which challenges the stereotype that celebrities forget their roots and only appreciate the finer things in life.

PROFILING MY AUDIENCE

This is a reader’s profile of NME magazine and it is of a similar genre to the music magazine I intend to produce. The NME magazines readers consist of 69% men and 31% women whom average out to 24 years of age. This supports the majority of sponsors they have as they will mainly appeal to men. E.g. Larger, Cars, Games consoles and jack Daniels (bourbon)  

NME also found that 94% of their readers use the internet which will encourage them to advertise online. Also they found that their readers spend £152 on footwear per year, £532 on clothes per year and £1229 on audio equipment per year.

All of this information tells me that I would need to target my magazine at an audience of 16 – 24 years of age and include information on the latest fashion trends, latest music and maybe competitions to win electronic items.