My Reader Profile

My Reader Profile

Reader Profile Research

Reader Profiles

A reader profile in a magazine is what magazine companies/producers think their target audience is,  they use things such as percentage of males to females reading the magazine, favorite things like TV channels and hobbies and interests.

Example of a Reader Profile:

It is important for a magazine to know their target audience because they can then include anything that they think their target audience will like, so the magazine is more tailored to that particular group of individuals.

This particular reader profile is from a KARRANG! magazine, and their target audience is stated to be people 15-24 year old - the average age being 19 - and possibly from a punk sort of lifestyle. They must obviously be interested in the music the magazine promotes also. The gender ratio (male:female) is specified to be 60:40.  The gross consumption of this magazine would probably be from a middle class level or B.  By calculating these numbers and statistics this means they can model the contents of the magazine around them, e.g if the magazine was 80% read by males, the ads and articles would be predominantly male orientated.

I think my reader will want a lot of live band articles, possibly a gig review.

The purpose of a reader profile is to find out just what types of people read you magazine to give the production companies an idea of the best things to put in to the magazine to make the consumers buy more and subscribe to the magazine. My reader profile will do just this, it will help me choose what article to feature in my double page spread. 

Music Genre Research

Genre Research

What is a genre?

A genre is a type of category that we organize different types of media into, for example, films: some genres of films are action, comedy horror etc. This shows that we can group together specialized versions of different types of media. 

Examples of Music Genres:

1. Indie Rock
2. Classic Rock
3. Hip-hop
4. Rap
5. Country
6. Pop
7. Folk
8. Jazz
9. Blues (lots of different sub genres in blue)
10. EDM
11. House / Deep house
12. Garage
13. Grime
14. Acid House
15. Reggae
16. Caribbean
17. Funk
18. RnB
19. Trap
20. Classical

Four Main Music Genres I Focused on in my Research:

Summary of Conventions (Prezi)

Conventions Analysis of a Double Page Spread

LIIAR Analysis:

Language: The dark colours of  the picture in this double page spread suggests that the story in the article is quite dark, the artist, ASAP Rocky's, costume suggests he could be quite a dark person. Putting aside the fact that he is very famous and in a magazine article, his costume shows us that he is most likely to be very rich, we can gather this from his golden grills (mouth piece), chains, bracelets and rings.

Institution: The company that produces Q Magazine, Bauer Media, also create a lot of different forms of media, from magazines like Q, Heat and Karrang! to television channels like 4 Music and The Box. The fact that the company gets so much income is probably why they can satisfy their audience by putting very famous influential artists, like ASAP Rocky, in their magazines.

Ideology: In the article we see ASAP Rocky dressed in a way very typical of the black american youth, even if a person reading the article that doesn't know who he is could probably take a guess as to what type of music he makes. The way he is dressed and his body language also raises the stereotype of a mischievous gang member, with his hand gesture being interpreted as a gang sign perhaps.

Audience: The audience that this article targets is that of a younger group, however as most of the artist's music will be explicit the age range would not be too young it would probably be people around 16-25 years old. Q magazine usually features musicians of all genres so that the magazine has something for everyone, however this approach could be problematic as people may not pay around £5 for just one article that they are interested in.

Representation: The colour scheme for this article is mostly black, this suggests representations of darkness within the artist's music. It is also quite stereotypical of the hip hop genre to wear a lot of black - as seen with many other hip hop artists - and using a lot of black in things like music videos, posters and album artwork.

Conventions Analysis - Contents Page

Language: The use of the picture of the american president Barack Obama could have an influence on the audience in terms of making them want to buy the magazine because it makes the magazine look presidential, making the audience want to buy it simply because the president is in it. The way that the pictures are arranged shows that even though the president is in the magazine it may still not be the most "must read" article in the magazine.

Institutions: The Rolling Stone institution is world famous and it will have a lot of money, this means that they could afford to conduct interviews with all the famous people that are featured in the magazine and the can even afford to do this presidential article. The institution is so popular it talks about the U.S's affairs with "The GOP comeback", talking about U.S politics shows that it is very popular in the USA because it shows that they have a large audience if they are willing to talk about things like that in their magazine.

Ideology: The ideology given by this contents page is that the magazine can be serious as well as being entertaining with stories about gigs and artists' lives but also with stories and articles about political issues and current affairs etc. There is also a mixture of seriousness that also talks about a popular artist, the story about "Eminem's Road Back From Hell" this is about how Eminem made his recovery from being a drug addict to blossoming as a huge music icon, this evidences that the magazine can have a serious side and a fun side.

Audience: Also with this mixture of genres and stories in the magazine means that there is a lot of content for all different types of people, this also means that the magazine will have a very large target audience simply because there is so much variety, if the stories were just about politics for example, the audience may be a lot smaller, the same could be said for if the magazine was just a particular music magazine but because the Rolling Stone is a mixture of the two it creates a much bigger target audience.

Representation: The representation of the colour scheme on this contents page is fairly contrasting to its genre, this is because the red, white and black colours are conventionally used on indie rock magazines but here the music used in articles in Rolling Stone magazine is again a mixture of genres for example on this contents page Taylor Swift, who is a country/pop artist is featured as well as Eminem who is a rap/hip hop artist.

Conventions Analysis - Front Cover

LIIAR Analysis:

Language: The photo/main image was taken how it is because it shows them as a unit so it reinforces the connotation that they are a band, this image also that they look fairly reserved reinforcing the title that says that they 'Come Clean' suggesting that they have something important to tell the audience. The masthead and the main title are in the same font and the size of the main title is a lot bigger than any of the other writing on the front cover, this shows that it is the main story in the magazine as well as the main image of the band, this could also link the two (main image and main title)

Institutions: IPC is the institution behind the NME magazine, the fact that the magazine is very big worldwide is probably the reason behind a very popular/famous band like Kings of Leon is on their magazine cover.

Ideology: The band in the picture are positioned very closely, this could suggest that they are all very close, as the consumer reads on they could find out that the band are all in fact family.

Audience: The audience for this particular magazine would indie/alternative rock fans aged between around 16- 25, the target demographic for NME would probably be from C2 to E as the magazine is affordable for unskilled low paid workers, students and unemployed people.

Representation: The colour scheme for the front cover is quite interesting with the use of beige and red. Red is very stereotypical of indie rock magazines especially in NME magazines, it also connotes a sense of danger and the contrasting use of beige and red is effective as the colour beige is stereotypically known for being plain and boring and red is quite bold and loud.