I have planned my agenda for my first photo shoot. It is really important to plan your shoots so that there is no confusion in what costumes are needed and who is bringing them and what time and place the shoot is taking place at.

Overall, my aims for this shoot is to get some good quality images of my models that I can use for my front cover and my double page spread. I aim to have my models in different positions with different facial expressions and I also aim to have some images of my models in different costumes to create a range of looks for my magazine.

Below are the costumes for my models:

In this task, I researched my competition for my pop magazine ‘Express‘ in order to see where the gaps are in the market and what I need to do to make my magazine successful. It is really important to do this research because it shows you what is conventional of your chosen genre and what you need to include but it also allows you to see what you could include to make your magazine unique so that it stands out to your target audience. Below is my presentation about my competition:

Please click on my image to view my presentation about my competition

Below I have made a presentation on a star from the genre that I think best suits my ideas for my music magazine. I chose Ben Platt because I think he captures the ideal image for my magazine and has a similar target audience. This is because, through Richard Dyer’s theory of ‘The Paradox of the Star’, Ben Platt is presented as extraordinary through his talent but also ordinary through his humble appearances on chat shows, being spotted shopping in Los Angeles and New York. He is both present on social media, constantly updating his feed and appearing on chat shows and absent in his concerts, interviews and the Netflix series that he features in. His metanarrative is portrayed through all the below topics:

• music – lyrics from songs
• performance – concerts, albums and music videos
• appearance – presence at events and chat shows
• articles – images on magazines
• social media – presence on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook

Please click here to view my presentation

Below is my images and ideas for my star image. I will have two cover stars – one male and one female. My stars will pose with a neutral and thoutful facial expression with a relaxed body language in order to fit in with the metanarrative of genuine, down-to-earth and authentic, also allowing the audience to relate to the artists because they are ordinary. I would want my stars to come across as friendly, caring and humble in order for my target audience to be as engaged as possible with my artists.

Please click on the image to view my full moodboard

Above, I have created a moodboard on Pinterest about the pop genre which can help me in times when I have a mental block; it will help provide ideas for my magazine. Whilst researching, I considered my audience demographic.

In my moodboard I have included:

• colour schemes, artists and fonts that are relevant to the genre pop
• layout and typography that is used in conventional pop music magazines
• mise-en-scene (lighting, costume and make-up)
• typical magazine front covers so that I can keep my magazine as conventional as possible, whilst also keeping it unique
• artists surrounding the genre

I also carried out further research into:

• music artists from 2000’s to present day
• pop music album covers and tour posters
• pop music magazines
• a suitable colour palette
• suitable fonts

Audience Demographic and Further Research:

I have researched a typical audience of the pop genre. To do this I looked on YouGov to find the demographic of bands from the pop genre (like Adele and U2). I have also researched my target audiences psychograpics.

From my research, I learnt that my audiences demographics are:

• are mainly female
• their ages are mainly based from teens (13) to adults (35) but there is an older generation that I should also address when producing my magazine
• are in the social grades A, B and C1

This means that I need to:

• think about the sorts of colours and images I will use that are appropriate for females
• make sure my magazine is easy to understand for a range of more intellectually bound audience to less intellectually bound audience
• look at the recommended artists and entertainment for my target audience in order to include the most appropriate artists

Dating Profile:

I have created a dating profile on a site that I have named ‘PopDating’. I have used my knowledge from my YouGov research to create a profile based on the demographics of my target audience. These are the kind of people who will be my target audience for my magazine ‘Express’:

Recpetion Theory:

I learnt about Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory which tells us how producers can encode information into the magazine, which the audience then decodes the magazine. The audience’s reception of the magazine can then be split into 3 different readings:

• Preferred Reading – audience accepts the values/ideas encoded in the text, they understand the text and agrees with the ideologies
• Negotiated Reading – audience accepts some of the values/ideas encoded in the text (conditionally)
• Oppositional Reading – audience rejects the values/ideas encoded in the text, they don’t understand the text

My music magazine is going to be called ‘Express’.  The word itself  means to convey a message or meaning which I think that music from the Pop genre does a lot. You can often find that the artist uses their music to express their opinion and their feelings and they create a certain message through their songs; I think it is a unique and suitable name for my magazine.

I have chosen to do the Pop genre for my magazine as it is a genre that I listen to on a regular basis and I have a passion for it. I like that style and the mood surrounding the music. I have come up with some of the connotations that surround the Pop genre and made a word cloud to help with my mission statement:

My Mission Statement:

‘Express’ is one of the top ten magazines for those that love Pop music. We cover your favourite Pop artists as well as upcoming stars, giving you exclusive interviews, top stories from your most-loved artists, new album releases and new tour dates from artists topping our charts daily. Express magazine inspires young people to fall back in love with Pop as the new-age of Pop drives the magazine forwards, allowing our readers to express themselves and become the best individuals they can be. 

The aspects that I have chosen to include in my mission statement satisfy Blumler and Katz’s Theory. My audience will be able to identify with the magazine, interact with their peers about it, be entertained by it, whilst also learning information about the Pop genre and their favourite artists.

After looking at audience profiles, this task has helped me to understand how every aspect of a music magazine cover contributes to the overall look of the magazine and the appeal for to a target audience.

Combining the skills of audience profiling and textual analysis will be extremely useful when creating my music magazine because I will be able to successfully be able to target my music magazine to the intended audience, making my music magazine as successful as possible.

For the magazine below, I was able to analyse that the target audience was middle-aged men. Once I had the basic information about the magazine from the audience demographic, I was then able to textually analyse the font, colour palette, images and language that were chosen to suit the target audience.

I deconstructed a rock music magazine cover which has helped me to work out its target audience, demographics and psychographics. This is going to be very useful for me in the future when producing my music magazine because it is extremely important to know your target audience in order to increase sales and for your magazine to be successful. You can use mise-en-scene to create the most appealing and effective magazine for your target audience to look at.

The demographics of an audience include:

• Gender
• Age
• Socio-economic group
• Disposable Income
• Ethnicity

An audiences psychographic includes their:

• Interests
• Personality Traits
• Values, Attributes and Beliefs

Completeing this task will benefit me when producing my own music magazine as I know that I will have the knowledge and understanding of my target audience to portray my intended narrative in the most effective way.

A technical convention is something that’s typical on the front page of a magazine and would be expected to be seen when looking at that magazine.

Conventions of a magazine are:

• Plug – something that advertises the magazine
• Masthead – the name of the magazine
• Pug – little bubbles of information, typically at the top of the magazine
• Captions – pieces of text that tell the audience extra information, for example, who is in the inset
• Main Cover Star – the artist who is captured in the magazine, is typically a close up
• Cover Lines – information about what else is in the magazine
• Inset – a smaller image of another artist, album cover, movie etc.
• Main Cover Line – the title describing who the main cover artist is
• Issue/Date – typically in the bottom right hand corner, tells you how often the magazine is released
• Price – how much the magazine is, located in the bottom right hand corner
• Barcode – located in the bottom right hand corner, used to scan the item in order to buy the magazine

After labelling the conventions of my magazine, I am now aware of what I need to include on my music magazine’s front cover to follow the conventions.