Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

                                                                                    The social group I represented with my magazine is teenage and young women. Within this, the main social group I chose to represent is Individuals. My magazine is based on mostly indie rock/pop music which is often a fairly individual style and doesn't always follow mainstream bands. This would appeal to my individual audience as it helps them stay individual and keep their own style. Inside the magazine are fashion pages which allows them to be inspired and for them to create their own fashion style. As the majority of my target audience are young they are likely to have their own style and want to be individual. I think the demographic profile of my audience would be single, living in a detached house (with or without parents), be well educated and to fall into the B C1,C2 categories on the socio-economic scale.I have tried to represent this audience by using an image of a girl reading a book. This implies that she is studious and educated like my audience. She is also a similar age to my audience meaning they will be able to relate to her.

The image above shows the differences and similarities between my magazine and another in a similar style. I chose to use a black and white image for my front cover as I thought it would appeal to my audience and they would appreciate the artistic side of the image. The magazine I'm comparing it to,  has also used a black and white photograph. It is similar to mine not only because of the colour of the image but also because the models who are in the photo. The models are looking away from the camera but all are smiling creating a positive mood towards the audience and the magazine. This may draw the audience in as they are intrigued to find out what the models are looking at. Another similarity is there clothes. They are all wearing smart dark clothes which adds to the dark tones of the image. Wearing dark clothes may help attract a slightly older audience as it is more formal and mature compared to someone wearing yellow. The distance and camera angle the photo has been taken at is slightly different but they are both long shots meaning you can see their whole body on both images. The locations are different. I chose to take my photo in a park as it adds to the artistic feel of the photo. The other is more basic with less going on in the background possibly drawing the audience's attention to the model's featured. I didn't use slang in my article as it is aimed to higher educated and higher class people which are less likely to use slang language.Also, I imagine my audience to be aspirers so they aspire to be intelligent and appreciate being addressed to like an adult. I haven't represented any race or class in anyway. However, i do expect a higher class audience to read my magazine and have tried to make it appeal to them. I may have stereotyped girls slightly as I used a pink colour for the title of my magazine making it appeal to my female audience. Also, by including fashion, I guess I could be stereotyping girls again as I assume they will enjoy this. However, I do not think that it is an unfair stereotype and comes across as positive in my magazine as these features would appeal to my target audience.

I think my magazine is slightly pro-consumerist as it contains fashion pages which would include names of shops and would encourage the audience to buy from there. It also includes a competition and a technology review allowing you to win/read reviews of different 'Apple' products. This may encourage my audience to buy some of their products as well as the adverts that would be included in  the magazine. 

Question 4:Who would be the audience for your media product?

The demographic profile for my target audience for my magazine would be females between the age of 17 and 30. I would aslo expect the majority of them to be single and for them to mostly be in ABC1 catergory on the socio-economic scale. The image above represents my target audience.

The physcographic profile of my target audience is likely to be either reformers and individuals as I expect them to want them to change the world but also be quite young and have an individual style. I also believe that they may be succeders as I expect them to have higher paid jobs or, if they don’t work, their parents to earn a lot of money. This could also make my audience fall into the aspirers catergory as they may want the luxury lifestyle after they have finished studying at college or university and aspire to get well paid jobs, which may be similar to their parents. I think that the majority of my audience would be single and have no children but some may be in a short-term relationship. I think that if they were living at home they are likely to be living in a large detachted house as I expect their parents to earn quite a reasonable amount of money. I’d also expect them to have family holidays skiing and to places like America as they would be able to afford to do this. I believe my audience may go shopping for clothes regularly and also keep up to date with the latest technology such as the newest model of ‘iPhone’.

I think they would buy my magazine because they will be interested in the artists that are featured in the magazine. Also, I think they would enjoy the other items in the magazine such as the fashion and the photography pages as these are likley to be some of their hobbies and interests.

I think their taste in music would be quite individual and they may listen to some non-mainstream artists. However, I expect them to listen to some mainstream music from artists like ‘James Morrisson’ and them to enjoy other indie style music. I can imagine them enjoying ‘chick flick’ films such as ‘The Holiday’ and ‘Love Actually’ as they areaimed at females and the content in the film would interest them.

The type of advertisers for my magazine could include shops like ‘H&M’, ‘River Island’, ‘Next’ and ‘Republic’ as I imagaine my audience being fashion concious but also having their own individual style. Also my audinece are probarly going to be middle class so can afford luxury items such as cameras, ipods and expensive mobile phones so I imagine companys like ‘Kodak’, ‘Apple’ and ‘Lg’ as well as ‘O2’ advertising in my magazine as my audience can afford and probarly own their products. I aslo expect Jewellery and perfume to be advertised as it is a womens magazine so company’s like ‘HSamuels’ and ‘Boots’ could also advertise. These products are luxury items which my audience would be able to afford. However, I wouldn’t expect to have shops and companies like ‘Primark’ and ‘New Look’ as they are cheaper shops and I can’t imagine many of my audience shopping there. Simarlarly I wouldn’t have advertisers such as ‘Tesco’ or ‘Asda’ because these companys often aim their adverts at older women or mother’s which the majority of my audience won’t be. I also wouldn’t expect to have adverts for men’s aftershave or football as these would not appeal to my target audience.

Question 5: How did you attract/address your audience?

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One of the main selling points of my magazine is that it is aimed at a female audience which is often unlikely for a music magazine as there are not many already on the market that are purely aimed at just women. Another unique selling point is that it contains art/photography pages and fashion pages which are unusual for a music magazine to include. However, I included these as I knew it would appeal to my target audience. My magazine is also based around one genre indie rock/pop. There are a few music magazines which include this music genre but no magazine that focuses on just that e.g 'Q' magazine includes other artists like 'Muse' whose genre is just rock and would not fit in to the genre of my magazine. I decided to keep the genre of music magazine to just one after the positive feedback i had from the initial idea.

The adverts expected to be found in my magazine would include adverts for fashion shops and technology shops as my audience would have an interest and would be able afford these products. There would also be adverts for the latest Gigs and festivals of artists that come under the genre of my magazine as I expect my audience to be interested in seeing their favourite bands live and to enjoy festivals. 

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

I chose not to go with the publishing company Dennis as their magazine’s they publish include ‘Viz’ and ‘evo’ which are both targeted at a middle aged/older male audience which is the complete opposite to my target audience. However, going with a smaller but fairly well-known publisher may be an advantage as they do not publish any magazines that would be competition to mine. Also, they publish ‘Health and Fitness’ which is a women’s magazine but the average age of their target audience is not the same as mine. This is also the only female targeted magazine they publish where the majority of their other magazines are targeted at a middle age male market, therefore I don’t think it would be very promising if I chose to publish a magazine with a company like them.

Another option is to self-publish my magazine like ‘Clash’ but that would involve a lot of money from printing and distributing and if my magazine wasn’t successful a lot of money could be lost. It is likely that I would need a website to sell my magazine from but also to help me distribute the magazine across the country. This would also increase the cost as I would have to pay postal charges. However, it could be at an advantage as I wouldn’t have any competition within the company. But, it could make it harder for me to compete with similar mainstream magazine’s like ‘Q magazine’ and ‘NME’ because they are owned by large publishers who can afford to advertise where I couldn’t making it a disadvantage. Also I would struggle to get my magazine into large retailers and supermarkets because of the cost. Instead I would only be able to put it in small retailers like local newsagents resulting in a lower publicity and a limited number of areas it is available.

                Bauer could be a potential publisher as they are a massive company and are the biggest privately owned publisher in Europe. They would be good to publish my magazine as they are a well-known company and also publish magazines with a similar target audience to mine. They would also be able to put it into major retail stores like ‘WHSmith’ meaning I would have a large publicity of my magazine and it would be available nationwide. Although, it would mean I would make less money from the magazine as they are likely to take a large share of the profit. But, if my magazine didn’t make as much profit as I’d hoped I would be losing very little and the large successful company would be able to recover from their loss from profits from other magazines.  However, they already publish ‘Q magazine’ which is a very similar genre to my magazine which would create a lot of competition. IPC media would also be a good publisher for me to use as again it already publishers many magazines that have a similar target audience to mine. However, they publish ‘NME’ which is again a magazine with a similar genre. 

                I came to the conclusion that Conde Nast publications would be the best publisher to publish my magazine. This is because they don’t produce a magazine that would be competition to mine. Also, they have magazines that have a similar target audience so my magazine might appeal to them. Their magazines include ‘Glamour’ and ‘Vogue’ which are heavily fashion related and are aimed at women. I expect my target audience to appreciate fashion and art so I believe this publisher would be ideal for my magazine. It also publishes very popular and well-known women’s magazines such as ‘vogue’ which may help the sales of my magazine. Also, as the audience is similar they could advertise my magazine in their existing magazines.

Images for my music magazine

I used the images shown ( under images I used ) because I thought they would help me attract my target audience. However, I didn't use others because I didn't think they were suitable for example one was blurred, another too distant.

Finished Front Cover

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product

In the making of my magazine I learnt to use a lot of new technology. I used photoshop Cs4 and Cs5 to edit my photos and to construct my whole magazine. This was a new experience for me as I had never used photoshop before. At times I aslo struggled to use it for example, cutting around some of the text. However, I know how to do this now and am confident in using it again in the future.

Another technology I used was Blogger. I used this to put my work online and evaluate my work. Again, I had never used this so it was new to me. It also came with disadvantages such as not being able to upload images straight away, trying to organise the layout of each post and internet connection problems. However, after getting around these issues it was no problem and easy to use.

Another technology i used was Flickr. I only used this briefly for my preliminary task. The reason I only used it for this is because it was quite hard to use because of the internet connection and it took a long time for the images to load and sometimes they wouldn't load at all. Once the images were loaded it wasn't too bad to use but I prefered using blogger as it was quicker.

I also used Serif drawplus x2 to create small cartoon images for my double page spread. This too was new to me and it also had some disadvantages, like transferring the image into photoshop. However, I enjoyed using this program and would like to use it again.