Audience Pleasures

Socio - economic groups

Audience pleasures are what will please the audience or make them happy and what the magazine think the audience want, this could be a free gift or an exclusive interview.

Therefore it is crucial that I follow a set of techniques in order to persuade my audience to buy the magazine and to maintain readership. 

When I am thinking about my targeted audience it is extremely important that I consider their Socio - economic group in order to be successful in meeting the expected criteria and in selling the magazine itself.

Socio - economic groups are how different audiences are categorised according to their income and occupation.

Group A - This is the group often referred  to as the 'landed gentry'. This type of audience are usually wealthy and aristocratic, typically accomplished big- business owners and/or archbishops.

Group B - This category is often the 'professional working people'. For example headteachers and teachers of schools, doctors, lawyers and soldiers.

Group C1 - These are the 'professional admin workers' such as people working in any form of junior management and supervisors.

Group C2 - This group is often specific to the people that do more practical work such as plumbers, carpenters, mechanics and builders.

Group D - People that fall into this category are mainly considered to be the 'unskilled workers' 

Group E - Lastly, this group is identified as the unemployed. However the majority of students also fall into this group due to being unemployed while studying.

It is important to consider these various audiences when producing any magazine because magazines are not so much a necessity but more of a luxury item, therefore as a producer it is vital that I convince my targeted audience that they want to buy my magazine.

Despite the distinct categorising for each type of audience, it is not exactly law for the assumed group to only be allowed to purchase a particular kind of magazine. In fact the whole idea of categorising audiences may only be considered as a brief guideline for music magazine producers rather than a set rule. 

 

What I would like my msgazine front cover to look like

Here is my draft of my frist magazine front cover.

Music Mood Board

Here is my Hip-hop style Music Mood Board.

I decided to include artists that are highly associated with Hip-hop music as this is the path that I would like my final music magazine to follow. Some of the main artists that I have included are; Kanye West, J.Cole, Beyonce Knowles and Tupac Shakur. I thought that it would be best to use images of new and upcoming artists as well as classical singers and rappers that have been well know in this sector of the music industry for a while. Many of the faces that you can see on the mood board were at the 'Billboard 2013 Music Awards' which is why I decided to circulate the photos around this as my main feature. Hip hop music as a genre is highly inclusive and does not relate to one specific group of people, the genre also has both singers and rappers as opposed to only having one or the other. I think that Hip-hop music applies mainly to people at the ages of 15-30 years old and to both sexes. The equal range of female and male artists reinforces this sexual equality as it reflects on the listeners/followers too.

Magazine Article

Here is my first magazine article, a questions and answers interview with Beyonce.

I think that using Beyonce Knowles as the main focus for my magazine article is applicable because her music fits in with the genre of Hip-hop style music, which is the pathway that I would like my music magazine to take. I decided that it would be best to use a responsible image of the star (smiling with success at her Grammy award) as I would like the article to be represented in a positive and respectable light as opposed to using an erotic image, that could represent the icon in a less honourable way as I have illustrated in some of my previous posts. I also think that using this sexual type of image would  have been hazardous as I am not in favour of conveying Hip- hop music as a genre to be highly affiliated with the typical stereotypes such as women being viewed in the male gaze style. I would like my magazine to embody Hip-hop as a type of music that can be followed by a wide range of audiences, rather than a niche audience.

I think that urban followers of hip-hop in particular like to get to know every detail about the artists that they listen to, as this has a huge impact on the way you feel about the music produced. Hence, I decided to use a question and answer in my article as I feel that this is a good way to allow the audience to get an in depth understanding of the vocalists that they are concentrating on. As the article is supposedly part of a magazine, I did not want to make the interview too long or formal, as I feel that this could make the audience uninterested and not want to comprehend/recognise the full depth and understanding of the artist, or even the article itself. Unsurprisingly, I wanted to make the article itself come across approachable and uncomplicated so that the readers of the magazine do not resist observing the product. Therefore I used a bold font to make it increasingly clear about the separation between the questions and the responses.

I would like to continue performing these skills so that they can be carried out successfully onto my Hip-hop magazine.