Question 4 & 5

Who would be the audience for your media product?How did you attract/address your audience?

My target audience for my magazine is both genders aged between 16 – 25. I used my focus group on Facebook to address and get their opinions. They gave me feedback on my production on how people that fit into the age group would like to see it. By aiming my magazine at both male and female it allowed me to maximise my audience, I did this by using neutral colours and using male and female models in my production. I didn’t want to potentially deter anyone from my magazine by abiding by gender stereotypes.The class of my magazine was meant to be well rounded, as it is affordable by most and therefore means most people will be generally attracted to it if they are attracted to the electronic music genre. The nature of my audience would be to generalise the electronic music magazine and I didn’t want to create anything too niche that would limit my customer base. I covered everything in my magazine, such as up and coming artist in order to attract everyone I possibly could. I conducted some primary research and found that 80% of the males in my class said they would be interested in reading my type of magazine, where as only 25% of females said they would be interested. This therefor highlights how my magazine is generally based at a male audience, thus why I have featured a male on the front and used dark colours on my front cover. As dark colours are usually associated with a male audience. I have used such features such as colours, lots of image’s and social networking in order to captivate a younger audience. As all of these features are what is most desired by the 15-25 age gap.

To attract my audience, as well as using the focus group for input and feedback. I concluded common conventions I found within my research, of magazines with the same age range. The codes included bold texts, imagery and no crowding within the layout. The nature of my magazine is mainstream for electronic music, and isn’t particularly niche. Also with phrases like ‘Mixer presents’ the entices the young audience as they are interested in what knew in the industry.The images I used were eye catching, to attract my audience. For example the bright galaxy production onto my double page spread, this made the image bold and eye catching and attracted the young audience.The direct mode of address in the front cover gives the model a blurred face, thus giving the ideals that an unidentifiable model could potentially be anyone.My front cover image relates to uses and gratifications theory of how specific things create attention such as personal relationships and personal integrative needs. My initial image draws readers in, where I have positioned my main model (Liam McKewan) to create a direct mode of address, which fills the readers cognitive needs. Therefor allowing me to give a preferred reading. Concerning the mise en scene, the models were dressed in clothing similar to what would be worn by the target audience, thus giving them a motive to relate to them. The simple clothing is due to the main focus of the magazine is the music and not the model, thus why I have also blurred his face.