Conventions, Producer and Target Audience of my Text

In my magazine I plan to keep the majority of the key conventions present in my magazine. As mentioned in my Main Task Proposal Table, I will be including major conventions in my magazine such as: keeping the masthead at the top of the front cover page, including a few sell lines (as well as a main sell line) on the front cover to attract readers and give them an incentive to pick up the magazine and purchase it based on the articles featured. I will also be including essential information, including a barcode and issue date in the lower-right corner of the main cover. On the contents page, I plan to place the heading 'contents' somewhere on the page (usually placed on the top, next to the masthead). The list of contents will be placed on the right hand side of the page. For the language used, I intend to include a moderately serious tone to the magazine but not too serious as to not leave the reader feeling uncomfortable in reading the text. For the colour scheme, I intend to use a grey/blue/black colour scheme that will stand out in comparison to many existing magazines that I have previously researched. Finally, I plan to use a sophisticated font style throughout my entire magazine. By using simple and effective fonts such as Times New Roman or Arial, I will be able to produce easy-to-read articles as well as keeping the font style moderately serious. Times New Roman also produces connotations with a professional-quality magazine, meaning that this font would be a sensible choice. I do not plan to change any of these conventions as I still hope to achieve an effective magazine feel through my magazine.

 

I have previously researched institutions that may potentially distribute my magazine. These institutions deal with the publication of various different magazines. The various different options included IPC Media and Bauer Media (the two largest music magazine publishers, with the former publishing ‘NME’ and the latter publishing ‘Q’ and ‘Kerrang magazine’). I decided to opt for Bauer Media, as this is the institution who deals with the publication of ‘Q’, a music magazine from which my own magazine takes some inspiration and conventions from. Judging by the success of ‘Q’ and ‘Kerrang!’, I can assume the company is capable of dealing with publishing more than one music magazine at the same time effectively. The demographic which is usually associated with reading the two magazines published by Bauer Media is not dissimilar to the demographic which I hope to aim for with my own magazine, meaning that by picking Bauer Media to publish my magazine, they are already well experienced with the target audience which I hope to aim for (the 16+  year old audience).

 

I was able to gain information as to what different people’s preferences were towards different ideas after carrying out research on a group of random survey participants. I stated that my poll was a ‘music magazine’ questionnaire, and the age range of the people who took the questionnaire was 15 to 34, which allowed me to see that publishing a music magazine with that age range in mind would do rather well. Based on the audience research, I decided upon not targeting my magazine towards one specific gender, as feedback from my research showed that 35% were male, and 65% were female – indicating that there was no one specific gender that would be interested in reading a music magazine. I also found that people listened to numerous different styles of music, however this was exclusive to the popular music spectrum. This lets me know that by making Rock/Pop the primary style of my magazine, I can reflect the demands of my target audience.

 

For the platforms on which I would like to make my magazine available, I am inclined towards making it available on as many platforms as possible. The number of magazines made available in other forms other than physical copies is rising quickly and because of this, publishing the magazine in other formats than the one expected will enable the magazine to attract a wider audience. This may also possibly allow more people to subscribe, which was one of the most key factors I realized when conducting my audience research. Very few people stated that they had subscribed to an existing music publication, meaning that by publishing the magazine in an unorthodox manner, it will indicate to the audience that the magazine is not the same as the other music publications that are present at the current time, giving them an incentive to subscribe to something new and original.