Magazine Key Concepts

Audience: People who read music magazines are most likely passionate music fans

who care a lot about their favourite music genre and also enjoy and prefer reading from a magazine, then searching for their own information on the internet.

The audience’s purpose for reading a magazine may be to learn or to enjoy- some readers like reading any form of magazine for the pure joy of wandering through a good writer’s brain. This would be related to magazines such as ‘NME’ and ‘Q’ were the writers produce lengthy articles about the artists who appear in the issue, going into detail and setting out a professional format.

The type of people who read music magazines could also have a desperate need to explore and read about all things music related. This way readers can keep up with further readers and fans of particular bands/artists about the latest news.

Even though the audience for music magazines are normally 20 and over, young people such as teenagers also continue to read these types of magazines as social networking is promoted throughout. Even though magazines are becoming a thing of the past because of the internet, they still include ways for the audience to connect to them through sites such as Facebook and twitter. This particularly appeals to younger audiences therefore these are the type of people who read them.

Representation:

Different types of music magazines are represented in different ways, according to their music genre and target audience. For example, an article based around a rock band might include an aggressive looking font or images inappropriate for younger readers. These might include alcohol or even angry facial expressions. However for pop magazines such as ‘Top Of The Pops’, more friendly looking articles are presented, including happy facial expressions from the artist and girly fonts are likely to be used.

However representation, especially in music magazines, can be seen as stereotypical and biased in the way they present their artists. This could give off wrong messages to the reader and also cause further problems within the music industry.

Clothes the artists wear are also a key aspect of representation. These clothes will vary depending on the music genre. For example the artists within the indie genre (which I will base my own music magazine on) tend to wear quite stylish and quirky looking clothes which normally catch the reader’s eye. I will take this on board when I go on to take pictures of my model so I know to use unique clothing as well as bright and vibrant colours. On the other hand, a pop magazine model’s style will be fairly casual.

Institution: Music magazines earn a lot of the money from the adverts they include

on their pages. These normally cost a lot of money to publish and are chosen wisely by the brand/company on whether they want it in the magazine or not. This is based on the target audience of both the product and the magazine (if both are similar then the advert will be successful). For example, in ‘Q’ magazine they include adverts suitable for their male target audience- e.g. aftershave, cars, beer, male clothes (their target audience are seen as quite stylish and enjoying going out).

Of course, they also earn money from the amount of copies they sell. The way a magazine itself is advertised and promoted is important. This is why magazines have their own websites and have recently got involved with more social networking sites as a way to get the word across about their magazine. Even though people argue that the internet is making magazine sales fall, it has also opened new opportunities for magazines.

Subscriptions also help magazine sales. Although the reader can purchase magazines for a cheaper amount, they have still made a deal with the magazine to keep purchasing future issues.

Furthermore a famous magazine such as ‘NME’ already has loyal reader and if they think they already gain a good product when they purchase the magazine, they will continue to do so.