WHAM!My music magazine By Emily Courdelle

Social groups

I’ve aimed my magazine at young females aged 15 – 21, and therefore tried to include an article that they would find interesting and be able to relate to in some way. The artist featured in my magazine is also a young female who had been involved in drugs and alcohol, which is a big problem in young people nowadays. I want the people reading my magazine to get the impression that she is fun and rebellious, but also a role model for young people. The readers should view her as a role model as she had sorted out her drug addiction and overcome her problems which can be very hard to do. The things she said during the interview should make the readers realise that although she is very serious about getting help with drugs, alcohol, etc. she is also fun and jokey which should appeal to my target audience.

Overall I think my magazine represents young people in a negative way, although it would depend on different peoples opinions. Some people may view it as being represented positively, as she has managed to overcome her drug addiction and focus on her career. Where as I think most people may view it as young people being represented negatively because it’s a good example of what so many young people get involved in and there are ways you can avoid it.

Attracting my audience

There are many ways that I have tried to make my magazine attractive to my target audience and make them more likely to purchase this magazine in the future. The main way I think it is appealing is the over all appearance of it. I’ve used a house style that is consistent throughout the magazine, which are quite girly colours, but also look smart and professional. Such as pink, yellow and black. I’ve also used interesting and bold images which stand out well and would draw in the reader.

Also, the masthead of my magazine (We Have All the Music) would appeal to anyone looking at it on the shelf, as it should make them think that the magazine contains a lot of modern music that there may not be in other music magazines. I also tried to write in a way that would be appealing to my target audience and that would make them feel more connected to the magazine. As my audience profile is young females who are into modern pop/hiphop music, I tried to write in quite a sophisticated way, but also quite ‘girly’ and fun. Such as “she’s brought out her own clothing and perfume brand and is a fashion icon to many of us girls.” This is aimed to make the readers feel more involved in the magazine. I have also put other artists who are featured within the magazine just above my title, which are artists who would appeal to my target audience and therefore make them want to purchase it.

Media institutions

There are many magazines which target the same audience as mine. An example of one of them would be Teen vogue. The publishers of this magazine are called Condé Nast Publications. They publish a lot of women's and fashion magazines, such as Glamor, Allure and Vogue. Although none of these are music magazines, it targets the exact same audience as mine (young females aged 15 – 21.) This would be good as they may want to start publishing a music magazine with the same audience profile. Most of the magazines they publish seem to be distributed online as well as in printed form. This could also help as the internet is a great place for advertising and they could advertise my magazine. Also, teenagers/young people tend to use the internet a lot, and therefore it would be easier and cheaper to publish it online, as well as increasing its popularity.

Technologies

In order to create my music magazine I had to go through a planning process. This included looking at other music magazines that are already available. This was one of the most important parts or my planning and research stages as I could look at the way they present things, the language they use, and the overall view of a modern music magazine. Lots of the things I saw and read have been added into my magazine, such as the layout of the contents page, the images featured inside, and the amount of text to add. Another very important stage of the planning was creating the audience profile. This was my first step to creating my magazine after I conducted a questionnaire. My audience profile would affect my whole magazine and the contents of the article. I decided on creating a profile for females aged 15 – 21 who listen to modern pop music/hip hop. I thought this would be a good idea because I fit into that profile and therefore it would be easier to know what people of this category would like to see in a magazine. After creating the audience profile I had to decide on the colour scheme, fonts and the mast head designs. This was quite easy as I had already seen the fonts that current magazines had used so I was able to use those in my magazine. The last stage was creating mock up pages. This would help me decide on how I was going to lay things out in my magazine and also get a rough idea of how my magazine was going to look.