Target Audience

When I make my magazine, I aim to follow many of the conventions that are often used in music magazines, but to make my magazine also slightly unique. Through my research I have found that there are many types of music magazine. Kerrang and NME magazines are generally for a younger audience. They use conventional “music photography” with bands and plain portraits of musicians whereas magazines such as Q and Rolling stone are generally for an older audience. The articles, artists covered and photography they use is more edgy and sophisticated. The photography used by these magazines is more similar to fashion photography, which is why I want to make a magazine which closely follow the conventions of Q and Rolling Stone.




I aim to target my magazines at young adult readers, but I want to challenge some conventions of music magazines. Often, music magazines are seen as targeted for men so I am aiming my magazine for a more feminine audience as well. I believe this gives my magazine an element that there is room for in the current market.


The target age of my magazine will be mostly university students, young adults and adults very interested in music. The socio-economic groups targeted could be anything from C1 to E, as some sophisticated adults could read it also. I want to use live music photography as well as posed edgy photography, similar to fashion photography. I plan to use a few different friends for my photography – those who look quite similar to the models and musicians that are commonly shown in magazines (conventional “beautiful people”)! I also aim to attend some music events before completing my magazine so that I can include some live photographs, which would make my magazine look more professional and realistic. I do not plan to use any photography that is not my own.



Above: Examples of fashion photography and typical 'band photographs', both of which I wish to incorporate into my magazine.


The music that I would feature in my magazine would include those similar to Q - the most popular and successful in the industry, which would help to attract readers and also up and coming indie music which is extremely popular among university students.

My focus on my target audience (what this will be and how i will attract them) disagrees with the hypodermic needle theory as I believe that this theory is outdated and each reader takes a different meaning/interpretation from the text. This is why I aim to advertise the particular interests of my target audience, such as festivals, fashion and the appropriate genres of music.

My magazine will include the functions that Lasswell proposed for audience reception, using uses and gratifications. The reader will use the magazine for surveillance in the form of news and gossip pages about musicians and celebrities. Entertainment will be present in the form of articles and reviews from witty journalists who compel the reader to engage further in the magazine and puchase it again. Cultural transmission is a function in my magazine due to the inclusion of certain things which particularly apply to young adult music culture. These include aspects of costume and prop to report/reflect on modern fashion and news of approaching trends in music. In every aspect of these functions, I will use editing appropriately to highlight what the reader is attracted to, such as bold fonts, attention grabbing colours and 'edgy' costumes and props.

My target audience would decode my signifiers in different ways, which is why I aim to create every aspect of my magazine which applies to the conventions of music magazines as appropriately as possible.