Target Audience

Media - Target Audience

Magazine ideas survey

Click here to take survey

I created a survey on SurveyMonkey which would help me get ideas for my magazine. I constructed 10 questions ranging from the genre of a magazine to the type of social media people often use. I then generated multiple choice answers to the questions and I chose the answers which people were likely to choose.

I made every question multiple choice because I thought it would help people in answering the questions as they have an idea of what to answer for the question. Also it makes it easier for them to answer as there are some answers which they are likely to choose so they don't need to type it out.

In addition, for some of the questions the answers I have provided may not be what people want choose, so I made an ‘other’ choice with a blank box so they can type their answer. This is so that they don’t feel restricted into choosing one of the answers I made available. This therefore would help me as the answers are more specific which may give me an idea for my magazine.

Finally I decided not to make the questions compulsory as I think that if some people want or don’t know what to answer, they are likely to choose randomly. This would therefore affect my results as some of the answers may not be truthful.

3 Music Magazine Double Page Spread Research

Media - 3 Music Magazine Double Page Spread Research

Production Diary 3 - Proposal and target audience

24th September 2013

This week we started on the real task. The very first thing we had to was the proposal. In the proposal we wrote about our ideas on our magazine such as the music genre, audience, promotion and features in it. After that we did the target audience; we wrote about the typical reader of our magazine.

Before I started writing my proposal, I first looked at previous students’ proposals so I have an idea of what to write. I then checked the survey results which I had conducted in the previous week and considered them when writing my proposal. Although I didn’t get many results but for some of the questions it was clear what most people preferred and therefore I decided to go with that idea e.g. I found that people would prefer to read monthly magazines.

 

After that I started on the target audience. The first thing I did was a brainstorm which included ideas about my typical reader including: characteristics, hobbies, appearance etc. This helped me in writing the scenario of my typical reader as I know roughly what my typical reader is like, therefore I can turn this information into a scenario.

Secondly, I did a scenario for my typical reader. Q magazine wrote a scenario about their typical reader which included a good amount of information about the reader and can help us to visualise the type of people who will read their magazine. We thought it was a good idea because it gives a lot of information about the typical reader in an interesting way, therefore we decided to do a similar thing.
I first wrote the basic information about the typical reader of my magazine (name, age, gender, occupation etc.). Then I wrote about the details such as what they do and what they like.

Finally I added in some images which relate to my target audience such as things they like, what they would do and what they may typically look like.

Proposal Feedback

This is the feedback I received from Geeta:

Preliminary task videos

 

These videos demonstrate the procedure of making the front cover and contents page. I made these videos on CamStudio Recorder which is a program that records the actions on your screen. I first pressed the record button and then selected the region I wanted it to record. Afterwards, I slowly brought up all the layers on In Design by pressing the button which toggles visibility. I hit the stop button when I finished and then saved it.

I then uploaded it on YouTube so that I can embed it on my blog as I could not just upload the video as a file.

Proposal

The genre of my magazine will be a variation of rock and pop. I believe that it will be successful because these two genres often overlap and so audiences who like both of these genres will like to read my magazine. Artists such as Avril Lavigne and McFly are the type of people that will appear in my magazine because they are rock/pop artists.

I will make my magazine a monthly magazine as in the survey I conducted I found that most people preferred to read monthly magazines rather than weekly or fortnightly. I believe they do so because firstly it will have much more content and secondly it probably won’t cost them as much as they would old purchase it once a month.

To increase the amount of readers, I will have freebies frequently occurring in my magazine and they will vary from CDs to artist photo books. I believe these will attract more people to purchase my magazine as it seems to be more worth it if there is a freebie rather than nothing as many people like the idea or free things.

To promote my magazine more I will setup social networking pages such as Twitter and Facebook as these are well-known, especially among the youth nowadays –who are my main target audience, therefore it can help to gain awareness of my magazine. Furthermore in the survey, I found that many people often use YouTube, for that reason, I think it is a great way to interest my readers by having a behind-the-scene video of the photoshoot of every issue’s interviewed artist.

I also consider it to be important that readers interact with the magazine as we can have an idea of what the readers think. In order to make the readers feel good, my magazine will have a page dedicated to the readers where they can ask questions and make comments about the magazine. They will submit these through our online website or through social media. The readers will not know which questions we picked and will therefore have to look out for their questions and our replies in the magazine.

For the main article of the magazine I will have a mixture of question and answer type of interviews as well as informative articles where the artist will be introduced to the readers, as I found that people like to read these types of articles the most. To make it interesting to the readers, some of the questions will be asked by the fans themselves who will submit their questions through the website. This will make people buy the magazine as they would like to know if their question got submitted and the answer to it if it did.

Some features I will have in my magazine will include: top downloads, popular music videos, reviews, world music and new artist profiles. These are informative and would be useful to the readers as they would want to know what people are listening to and any new artist they may not know about. An interesting feature I will include is about world music because people may not know about other similar genre artists around the world and therefore it is a good way to inform them about it as it may interest them.

Extra details after I received feedback:

The target audience of my magazine are aged between 16-20 who likely to still be in education. They will be actively using social media such as Facebook and Twitter as they are young and will like to use it to socialise with people.

I will also have a radio which will be linked to my magazine as I believe it can help me to increase the awareness of magazine. Furthermore I will also have annual awards for my magazine which would be voted by the readers. I believe this will make a lot of people aware of my magazine as the fans will want their favourite artists to win so they will share the information to other fans.

3 Music Magazines Contents Page Research

Media - 3 Music Magazine Contents Page Research

Preliminary Task Evaluation

I believe that the house style of the magazine is good as the colour scheme I used is from the Haydon logo which makes it look like they belong together, rather than using contrasting colours such as orange or purple. I also think the font I chose to use is suitable as it is a sans serif font which is suitable for the readers -who are young- because it is more modern looking, unlike serif fonts which are traditional and more serious looking.

I think the main image I used on the front cover is effective and suitable because it displays positive expressions which as a school magazine, is very important because you would want the readers of the magazine to know about the good news within the school. Also I think I that the size of the two students in the image are just right as I was able to fit sell lines around it comfortably without it being too crowded or too empty.

In addition, I think I did a good job with the sell lines because they are interesting and they vary which makes it suitable for students in different years -as there must be one which interests them. Also I made them white and yellow so that they matched with the Haydon logo, which makes it look professional. What’s more, I feel that having an image next to the sell line will interest people as they can get a glimpse of the news before reading what it’s about.

For the contents page, I believe that the layout it is very good as it is organised which makes it easier for the readers to read and find what page it is on with the corresponding page numbers on the left. Also the images on the page are fairly colourful which would draw the reader’s attention and therefore lead them to be curious of what it’s about. Furthermore the use of social networking sites is very useful as the main target audience are students who are likely to use one of those social networking sites listed and therefore can get them updated on news within the school.

However, I think I could improve on the quality of the images as for this task I only used my phone camera which is fairly low quality. Another thing is that the text on the front cover is slightly hard to read so I could improve it by adding an outline or shadow so that it stands out more and doesn’t look camouflaged. Furthermore the contents page looks a little plain and boring so I could perhaps add a background colour or image to make it look more appealing.

When I do the real task I will consider what I learnt from this preliminary task to ensure that it is made to a good quality. I will also use some of the elements which I thought I did well in, in the real task e.g. the layout of the contents page.

Preliminary Task Front Cover and Contents Page

Production Diary 2 - Finishing preliminary task and audience survey

17th September 2013

This week we carried on and finished working on our preliminary task and started thinking about ideas for our proper magazine.

I finished off making the front cover and moved onto making the contents page. On the contents page, I first inserted text which said ‘contents’ and placed it at the top of the page. Afterwards, I added in the list of things which are in the magazine and then added the page numbers. I moved the text around and aligned things up so that it looked neat. I also changed the colours of the text so that it fitted in with the colour scheme I had established when creating my front cover. I then chose some of photos which I took before to use on the contents page. I added a page number to each picture so that the readers know what article it is about. Finally I added in a box which had the details of the social networking sites of the magazine.

We also setup a survey on SurveyMonkey (a website which helps you make a survey by collecting the questions and answers you put in) to help us have an idea of what our target audience would want in a magazine. We put in questions like: ‘What type of articles would you like to read?’ and ‘How often would you read a magazine?’ These are more useful than asking about the colour scheme for example as they help you understand what people want whereas the colour scheme is something which the producer of the magazine should decide on. It was interesting to use because it is something new but at the same time it’s very easy to get used to. I found it useful that they had many different options for the answer people can put it as it can help you get better results e.g. you could make a question starred so that people have to answer it or for the answers you could have an ‘other’ option which then tells them to comment on it.

Next week we’ll be starting the planning of our magazine. We will collect information from our surveys to help us decide on what our magazine will include.

3 Music Magazines Front Cover Research

Media - 3 Music Magazine Front Covers Research

Production Diary 1 - Starting the preliminary task

10th September 2013

This week we started to work on the preliminary task, which is to make a school magazine.

We first collected some photos -which we will use on our magazine- by going around the school and taking photos on our phones. We then transferred them onto the computer so we can use them.

We used Adobe In Design to make the magazine front cover. This was my first time using this program so I was not familiar with how it works but with the guidance from my teacher I was able to use it comfortably after a while.

In Adobe In Design, I first imported the image I wanted to use as the main image of the front cover -which was a photo of Geeta and Alina smiling with their thumbs up. I decided to use this image because the headline of my magazine is to do with students who are satisfied with their exam results.

Afterwards, I found an image of the Haydon school logo and then saved it and imported it into Adobe In Design. I resized it and placed it in the left hand corner of the page.

Then next to it I inserted text which said ‘HH’ and ‘Haydon Highlights’ as this is the name of my magazine. I changed the colour, font and size so that it suitable for my magazine. I chose to use blue and yellow because these are the colours on the logo.

Next week I will be finishing off the front cover and I will start the contents page.

Preliminary task design ideas

Media - Preliminary Task Design Ideas

Course outline for AS Media

The course introduces students to Media through a mixture of theoretical study and practical work

The department follows the OCR specification.

Coursework (50%): Unit G321 – Students will produce a piece of practical work consisting of a new Music Magazine. Student will display all work on personal blogs and will evaluate their work using a range of multi-media methods

 Exam: Unit (50%) G322 – Students will be required to analyse a moving image text (TV Drama) as well as a question based on the study of the film industry.