Evaluation Q4

By Oliver Midgley

Who would be the audience for your media product?Judging solely on the cover page I would determine the primary target audience for my music magazine to be ABC1 16-24 year old males. I will go into more detail as to how I came about a decision for each the characteristics of this demographic.

Firstly, by analysing the cover I have arrived at this conclusion that the target gender is men as the models used are both male and it is conventional for magazines to directly represent their target gender through their models as it will have, in this case, more appeal to men who can more easily identify with the subject due to this similarity. The manor in which the models are presented (no sexual nature or intention) it is likely to be for those of the same sex whilst female models could appeal to men if sexualised. Also if you look closer at the content of the cover lines you will find that the semantic fields present are mainly male orientated with themes such as the volcano ‘Vesuvius’, ‘Second Heist’ robbery and wanted criminals. I would consider these to be stereotypically of masculine interest as they infer some kind of action/adventure.

Furthermore, the two models are also both quite young looking, so once again the audience is being directly represented. While it is viable for a young person to be interested in older people as they can become a role model, the opposite cannot be said as it is unlikely that older people would be interested in something to do with young people. Another reason I believe it has a young audience is that they are advertising Spotify which is a music streaming app particularly popular amongst a younger demographic (18-24 year olds account for their largest share of users) so the opportunity to win free premium membership would be most likely to entice them more than anyone. On the contrary, the classy colour scheme and smart layout could suggest not only a higher class of customer but, contrastingly, a more mature age too. I have ruled out the possibility that this older age bracket is the actual audience because of the other points to do with the young models and the fact an incentive for to buy the magazine is a chance to win Spotify. All of this is why I have aged the audience at 16-24.

With regards to class, on top of the sophisticated design, the price of the publication could indicate the socio economic group too- it is £3.99 which is quite expensive for a magazine. You expect the middle/ high class to have more disposable income to for one, be able to actually afford it and two, be willing to splash out. Whereas it is unlikely that someone in the working class would spend this much on an indulgence that is a music magazine, especially when there are cheaper alternatives such as gossip magazines which pack stories that offer the reader escapism onto the cover. Generally speaking the middle class and indie culture go hand in hand as they have a greater appreciation for stylish, more mature things. It could explain why it has a smart finish despite the seemingly young demographic. There are certainly other apparent indie influences that support my claim such as: the black and white filter (very commonly used by followers of this social group), and the emphasis on new music shown in the tagline as well as the cover line regarding upcoming artists. It might be worth mentioning that the Indie culture is also predominantly white which could explain the lack of diversity of the models. It is likely some ethnic minorities will be deterred, so this contributes to the overall increase of higher classes buying the product. This is because there seems to be a correlation between race and wealth. Subsequently this is for the middle class ABC1.

Analysing the contents page brings a similar outcome. There are two male models again showing this is targeted mainly at the male population. They are also Caucasian which to some extent could unintentionally leave any ethnic minorities feeling excluded (the whole Indie genre is white dominated anyway). By looking through the features, with acts whose gender can be identified through the name and pronouns in the small description, you find that they are all males (e.g. Jack Garratt, Raleigh Ritchie, Samu.L.Bond, Joe Shepherd). It's more likely that men will want to read about men rather than females simply because it is easier to identify with your own gender, so I have no doubts this is for a primarily male audience.

Coming back to what I believe the age of the target audience, at the bottom there are links to the magazine’s page on various social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter) as well as the URL of the magazine’s own website. This inclusion is definitely something that would be of more interest to a younger audience as 14-29 year-olds have the highest usage and does not feature on a large majority of other magazines so their fan base must be heavily involved in social media for it to warrant a spot on the contents page. Models can also give clues- here the main model on this contents page is difficult to assign an age to as his face is covered so I cannot reach a conclusion from that. The only other person to appear is on the front of a featuring album cover and is roughly in his late 20’s. You may therefore assume it was that same kind of age they are targeting however as I mentioned previously it is feasible that an audience would be interested in reading about someone older than themselves as a kind of role model. The Q&A with one of the artists and the caption competition are quite fun relief from the intense music articles so this could appeal to those with a shorter attention span i.e. teenagers. Consequently, I deduce from looking purely at the contents page that it is for an audience of 20-29 year olds.

Like with the cover page, this contents follows the same colour scheme- an elegant mix of black, white and red. The indie culture is also present yet again through blatant mentions of the genre (“Indie Festival Guide”, “Devoted to Indie Pop/ Rock” and “Spotify’s Top Indie Songs”), there is also a focus on alternative music. The quirky appearance of one model who covers his face with a sheet of paper is far from an oddity too as it goes to somewhat personify the term ‘Individual’. This Indie label can almost always guarantee a higher class of customer simply because Indie followers are normally middle class. Some of the vocabulary I have included is quite complex with lexis like “auspicious” and an artist named “Subterfuge”. To understand the meaning of these words, especially when considering the seemingly young age, a fairly high level of education would be required. It is likely those who are better off would have a better education and therefore would be more invested in the page hence I believe it is for an ABC1 demographic. Bringing all of these factors together means the contents page has a primary audience of ABC1 20-29 year old males.

This whole Double Page Spread focuses on only one person and he is a male and the only picture across the two pages is of him too. It is to be expected that this will attract more males than females although it would not be unusual for women to still be interested in reading the article as Indie fans are stereotypically liberal so this shouldn’t deter them. This means they are more concerned about the quality of the music rather than who is producing it. In fact other than this large hint, it is not clear if it is meant for a specific gender. I feel this because there seems to be more of a focus on emotions than you might conventionally expect for a male targeted article. For men, a fact motivated piece is usually more appropriate. This emotion is shown firstly through the model’s pose- his closed eyes during singing shows a great passion for his work. It is not uncommon for a male artist to express himself when it comes down to performing his music as the best music is often built on strong emotional attachments. However, he discusses a new change in feeling too and his refreshingly positive outtake on life. This open, sensitive side may therefore be more for the consumption of females. Although, the Indie influences found in the previous pages (and this one too, to be mentioned later) could explain it as the culture is known for being open with their emotions including men. There are still some factual parts too and a censored expletive too. Fact and swearing are stereotypically connected to males. In conclusion, this could be for both genders but slightly tipping towards men.

The DPS is about the same artist who appears on the cover as the splash image. We could assume from that, and certain from this, he is the main feature of this issue- conveniently flagged up by a tag stating this is the ‘Main Feature’. Whoever you choose to have such a label has got to be someone a lot of people will be interested in seen as he is basically one of the main selling points of this particular issue. Since he himself is a teenager it is likely that the bulk of the magazine’s audience is teenagers as they are, as an age group, more likely to be interested in him. It does seem unusual for an article to do with important things in life to appeal to teenagers as firstly they’ve barely experienced life and secondly the majority of that life has been spent without any real responsibilities however it is been said by a teenager so it must be applicable in some circumstances (it does partly relate t his fame which of course most of us haven’t/ won’t experience). This is for teenagers aimed 16-21.

The syntax and vocabulary used in the article is of a high level with words like “antipathy” and “begetting”. It shows this is meant for a well-educated audience and this in turn commonly is associated with a higher class too. I have already established the Indie social group is concomitant with the middle class, so when various Indie festivals (WE ARE FSTVL for example) are included and reference to dark emotions captured by some of his previous work named “Shadows”, “Euthanasia” and “F*** This” is made, it is safe to assume this appeals to the Indie social group and therefore the middle class. To assemble these factors, the resulting target audience for the DPS is ABC1 16-21 year olds of either gender.

I have decided an age for each of the respective pieces of text however a magazine’s audience is judged as one demographic (rather than by each page) so I will combine my results to find a fair average. There is certainly a slight deviation of the audience’s ages which I have gained over the media texts with the contents page suggesting a slightly older audience than the others at 20-29 year olds (compared to the 16-24 and 16-21 ranges) - it is nothing drastic as the ranges still overlap. There is no doubt about the social classification with all of them pointing towards ABC1- this is partly down to the fact that the indie social group is represented in my magazine and they automatically bring a higher class. The gender did have some slight variation but it was so miniscule it was insignificant- the cover and contents page showed it was aimed at men outright but the DPS could have appealed to both. Overall I conclude the primary target audience of Outskirts is ABC1 16-24 year old men.