Magazine Evaluation- Question Five

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted the audience by making the Front cover eye-catching and similar to current music magazines of the same genre (for example, Rocksound and Kerrang). I also used a front cover featuring someone playing an instrument, making it obvious that it is a music magazine with cover lines in bold font, making them stand out. I also carefully chose the artists to be featured on the cover lines, so it would appeal to people who like certain artists, and made sure they were a variety of styles of rock music making it appeal to the majority of rock fans. I feel having a young model on the cover would appeal to young readers who may feel as if they would be able to 'relate' or empathise with a young person rather than an older artist, who may be 'before their time' or 'old'. I also made sure to feature competitions featuring a 'popular' up-to-date young band (Bring me the Horizon), which would appeal to quite a young audience as it gives them the oppurtunity to meet band members who may be their idols or just their favourite celebrity. I also chose the colours of my house theme to be bright and eye-catching. My contents page is eye-catching as it features photos and lots of large brightly coloured text. My double page spread is also supposed to appeal to audiences as the pull quotes are large and interesting (I chose the most interesting excerpts of the article to use as quotes) and are also bright. My photograph is also appealing to the audience and eye-catching as it is large and the model is within the magazine's target audience age range so the readers would be able to relate to someone of a similar age.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Four

Who would be the audience for your media product?

I think that the audience for my media product would be 16-24 year olds who are into the genre of rock music. It will not matter what sub-genre of rock music they like because, like most music magazines it will feature a lot of different artists who play different types of music. I don't think it would appeal to a specific gender, but i do think it would appeal to certain types of people, for example, not everybody wants to regularly buy a magazine just because it features the genre of music they like. The audience would hopefully be brand-loyal to my magazine, and therefore buy it regularly, which would mean keeping the content standardised to keep them interested. I think it appeals to young people in general rather than any specific age group. The majority of the readers will be male, as the music magazine market is very male-dominated and therefore male-orientated too. However, it is not aimed at any specific gender so would hopefully appeal to both genders equally. The audience may not be the same as the target audience and there may be some older or younger readers too, but hopefully most readers would be aged between 16 and 24. I suppose the model featured in my magazine represents my target audience very well, as she is aged between 16 and 24 and listens to many sub-genres of rock music.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Three

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Some examples of media companies who may be interested in distributing my media product are Bauer Consumer Media (publisher of Kerrang!, Mojo and Q), IPC Media (publisher of NME) and Sonic Publishing (publisher of Rocksound).
However, as Bauer media is "Europe’s largest privately owned publishing Group" and already publishes "over 300 magazines in 15 countries", it may not want to publish another rock music magazine as well as Kerrang!, Q and Mojo.
IPC however, only publishes one music magazine, NME, which is more "indie" than rock, so they might be interested in my media product as well. Sonic Publishing publishes five music magazines, including Rocksound and 4 web-based online magazines. This suggests that maybe Sonic Publishing already publishes enough music magazines or that they may want to publish my media product online rather than in print. However, it may also mean that they would be interested in another print-based music magazine. Seeing as Rocksound is printed monthly, they may want to publish a weekly music magazine as well.

Magazine Evaluation- Question Two

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Some social groups presented in my media product. These are young people aged between 16 and 24 who like the genre of rock music. This may include such social groups as the "Young Alts", "Metalheads" and "Skaters" amongst other social groups mentioned on the website 'UK Tribes'. I also think that music magazines of this particular genre represent a male audience rather than females, even though some statistics say the reading figures of music magazines are that 60% are male readers and the other 40% being female. This is surprising as there are more female readers than you would expect, so therefore I think my media product represents both genders equally and that the genre of music featured is more important than specifically gender-aimed content. I do not think my product represents any particular socio-economic group, however, as most readers would be aged 16-24 and would not even register on a socio-economic scale.

Magazine Evaluation- Question One

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product uses some conventional themes often used by music magazines. For example, music Magazines in the 'Rock' genre often use distorted or distressed fonts for their titles. Their titles are also more often than not written in capital letters. Black and white are the two most common colours for music magazine titles, closely followed by red. I use colours and fonts similar to many music magazines.

My own magazine title is similar to the Rocksound and Kerrang titles in particular.



Also, all three titles have connotations of being about music. For example, straight away from the title 'Rock sound' we can tell it is about Rock music. Kerrang on the other hand is onomatapoeic and "refers to the sound made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar". My music magazine, 'Arena' is titled because an arena is a popular venue for rock concerts and festivals and is also a one-worded easily memorable word to use as a title. Other ways in which my magazine is 'conventional' include the layout of the front cover, contents and double-page spread, the 'Laid back' mode of address in my article and the fact that my contents page includes two live photographs taken from a concert I attended recently. The fact I have a large photograph in almost the middle of my double page spread is also conventional.

However, my music magazine also contains some unconventional features too such as having a girl on the front, whereas most 'rock stars' featured on covers are men, as 'rock' magazines are male-orientated. It is also slightly unconventional that the model is holding an instrument as usually the front cover consists of photos of the model posing and the photos of them playing instruments are either featured later on alongside the article about them or not at all.

Magazine Feedback

I have had a lot of feedback for my front cover and contents. Most of the feedback is positive but there was also some criticism.
For example, people have said:

"I like the font- it highlights the magazine's Genre"

"The barcode (On the front cover) is too big"

"There is a lot of free space- needs more cover lines"

"I like the pose of the model on the front cover and her hair colour (red) compliments the colours of the house theme."

"I like the colours used"

"The two fonts mainly used go well together"

"I like the house theme in general- the fonts really go well with the colours featured"

Double page spread example- Kerrang!