How did you attract/address your audience?

In my media publication, which assumes the name of Insurgence, the magazine features mainly young music artists male and female (with the majority being the latter gender to combat stereotypical representations of women in the music industry) along with relatively new musical bands and artists correlating to the indie/alternative rock genre.

Multiple codes and conventions were used as well, including a clever pun that I utilised for my main headline, a barcode (complete with price and publication date), beautifully shot photos of artists in suitable environments, and magazine offers to signify subscription and a bargain for money.

The male gaze, a concept coined by Laura Mulvey in 1975, was employed in the double page spread to attract readers towards the featured article, since these codes and conventions marked the presence of professional magazine composition and style. The purpose of the gaze is to present how an audience perceives a character through their line of sight.

However, to challenge the stereotypical view of a woman from a man’s perspective, the artist, Shereen, is looking DIRECTLY at the audience, not them looking at her.

Codes and conventions Features of magazine composition included undertaking media photoshoots

to ensure that appropriate photos in a variety of locations were shot and chosen for a beautifully crafted publication to post to my Foundation Portfolio to address my target demographic.

As my publication questionnaire suggested, I had to word the questions carefully so that they would be suitable to answer in terms of age group and valid responses. Since receiving my audience feedback I recognised that the most important feature of my magazine to conform to magazine codes and conventions was the contents page.

By keeping the house style similar (I used red, blue, black and white for the primary colours) and basing the layout upon other music magazines such as Q, potential music audiences would get attracted to a fresh new music publication with an original ambition to ascend the ranks of music.

I also researched media institutions such as Time Inc. UK and Bauer Media to examine which brand they published and how famous were. The extent of media exposure to average audiences was the key to finding out which institution was suitable for selling my publication to the right demographic.

In the end, I chose Insurgence to be sold under the Time Inc. UK institution as it was less universally recognised than Bauer Media in terms of publication fame. The latter, however, indulged in mainstream audiences through media publication access through various different platforms.

Ultimately, if I chose Bauer Media, Insurgence would not live up to its meaning by attracting a mainstream-based audience. Too many recipients of the magazine would indulge in its contents and regard the artists as ‘not-so-indie’, therefore breaking the rule of conduct for Insurgence Music Magazine.