Audience

Print Media in The Digital Age

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A Media Ecology or Ecosystem?

Starter Question…

How does a magazine aimed at young people survive in an age when its audience gets most of its entertainment, social interaction, information and personal identity online?

Answer – it doesn’t!

Case Study – Teen Vogue

In 2018 Teen Vogue stopped running a print edition!

What are the implications of this?

How does a magazine survive when a significant portion of its revenue comes from the sale of the physical magazine?

Analysis

In pairs explore the design and analyse the features of Teen Vogue’s online content and ask yourself – ‘how is the content working to engage the audience and how is it making money?’

Be prepared to answer the following questions:

  1. What is the colour scheme used in by Teen Vogue?
  2. What is the design of the Teen Vogue Masthead?
  3. What sort of issues and articles does it cover?
  4. What sort of images accompany the articles?
  5. What tone of voice does the headlines and copy adopt?
  6. What adverts pop up on their platforms?
  7. How does the content encourage clicks and shares?

Key Note Articles

Read through the article and use it to develop your answers and answer the following essay.

Follow up with this article from the BBC about winners and losers in magazine sales.

Essay (750 words)

‘New media will eventually replace traditional media.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement? You should refer to print media in your answer.

Structure the Essay
  1. Introduction and Context
    • Why are media institution moving online?
    • Name your case studies and identify the institutional context.
  2. Which online platforms are publishers using to reach an audience?
    • How does print media make its money and how does this change with the move online?
    • How is advertising placed and targeted in online platforms?
    • What is the importance of clicks, shares and audience participation?
  3. Why is branding still important online?
    • How is brand identity constructed online?
    • How is this integrated and coherent across platforms?
    • How are images and copy used to attract, interest and engage the audience?
  4. How does online content broaden audience appeal?
    • What sort of stories and issues are featured?
    • What ‘tone of voice’ do online publishers use in their headlines and copy?
  5. The Future of Online Publishing
    • What future do newspapers and magazines have in the online age?
    • Is there anything to worry about in terms of our freedom of expression?

My Audience Profile

Mrs CLeave a comment

Media Theory Reminder

In order to create a magazine for a specific audience you should understand what makes them tick, especially what reasons they might have for investing their time and money in your magazine.

A couple of theorists who considered this were Blumler & Katz, who suggested that there were four reasons collectively known as Uses and Gratification. Their theory describes an active audience and suggested four reasons for people to actively seek out and consume media:

USES AND GRATIFICATION

Information Self education to suit personal needs; advice on practical matters; information on events or issues of personal interest; curiosity or general interest
Personal Identity Media reinforces personal values; models of behavior; content explored to challenge, adjust or affirm sense of self
Social Interaction Identify with others to gain a sense of belonging; find basis for real life interactions; substitute for real life relationships
Entertainment Escape; diversion; emotional release; filling time; aesthetic enjoyment

Audience Theory Extension

Below is a slideshow on Stuart Hall and his ‘Reception Theory’. Consider what he says about audience.  He argues that an audience decode a media text through the filter of several things:

  • Demographics
  • Psychographics
  • Situation
  • Cultural competence.

Media Theory Booklet

Here is the Theory Booklet with all of Hall’s ideas on Pages 11 and 12.

RECEPTION THEORY

So…what am I supposed to do with all this theory?

TASK – Create a dating profile for your…

Perfect Audience Member

My Research Process

I have decided to make a magazine similar to Kerrang.

Of course I had to understand my audience and what media they consume and use this information to give me ideas for my inspiration search.

I looked at a number of back issues of Kerrang and used YouGov for artists that appeared on those front pages. I took snips of their audience’s demographics and their media consumption, particularly the other musicians/ artists / bands which cropped up. Here is my research on my audience and what media they’re into.

Do similar research for your target audience, and then decide on the following features of your audience:

  • Which other bands/artists your audience would be into?
  • What other media they would consume, fashion tastes, musical genre preferences?
  • What are their values, attitudes and beliefs they hold about what’s important in their lives and the world around them?
  • What demographics describe your audience?
    • Gender
    • Age
    • Education
    • Occupation
    • Marital status
    • Cultural background
    • What ‘communities’ do they belong to?
    • Where do they live, work and play?

HELP

Here is a handout we gave you earlier this year which describes different audience groups / communities which is helpful in reaching some conclusions about their values, attitudes and beliefs, and how to describe their communities and social groups.

Use Google slides to design a profile for your target audience which they might upload to a dating site.  You may want to use someone you know to model the profile on – although don’t use their name or photo!

Give your ideal audience an image, name, gender, relationship status, groups, status, likes, dislikes…all of this should be through the filter of music and should help describe your audience profile. Make it as detailed as possible – why not consider someone you know (do not actually use them) who likes the music, is a fan of that music/band and use them as inspiration.

Here is a template that you may wish to follow:

YOU MUST ALSO USE THIS WEBSITE: yougov.co.uk and mention it in your introduction or even better, take a snipping tool screen shot of the profile target audience for your performer.

KEY TERMS needed in your reflection

‘Preferred reading, encode, decode, oppositional reading, demographics, psychographics, cultural experience, uses and gratification, target audience, producer, target audience, entertainment, education, social interaction and personal identity etc.

Textual Analysis of a Magazine Front Page

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KEY TERMS: represent, connote, infers, implies, suggests etc

Task

Complete a thorough textual analysis of a music magazine from the previous class slideshow (some of the research will already have been done for you).  Choose a different one from the one you did an audience profile for.

The analysis should include the following:

1) A description of their target audience.

  • To help you, you should use yougov.co.uk site and the profiles section
  • Another way to help you understand the target audience (of a commercial media product) is to look at the adverts within it.
    • Not the ads on their websites, (those are generated by cookies that help web companies follow you and give you personalised adverts), but the adverts they put inside the magazine (if you can find those).
    • You should also refer to the attached audience segmentation document to help identify a suitable classification for the target audience.

2) You should also explain their brand, which is defined in their mission statement.

(If you understand the audience and the brand this will help you unpick the design. The designers and editors will have had the audience and brand at the heart of their decision making and so should also be at the heart of your textual analysis.)

3) Use the correct terms for the technical conventions when talking about the design elements attached to them i.e. the masthead represents, the plug language connotes, the cover lines font infers etc…..

4) Consider how those design elements are shaped to communicate meaning, which will reflect the brand and mission statement – look for the signs, symbols, colours, fonts, framing, MES, facial expression, body language, language etc that have been used to convey a narrative, to represent a genre, to sell a brand).

Here is an example from a previous student that includes some very detailed observations:

This is the format we would like you to follow and use the sub-headings included. Some of the sections can be bullet pointed or lists, but others will require some analysis to include the terms: represents, implies, suggests, signifies etc when doing a textual analysis.

Use this link so that you can take a copy of the slideshow and insert your own image and do your analysis.

Magazine Audience and Brand Identity

Mr GLeave a comment

KEY TERMS:  DEMOGRAPHICS, PSYCHOGRAPHICS, SEGMENTATION, COMMUNITIES, TARGET AUDIENCE, USES AND GRATIFICATION – B and K

What is the first thing you notice about a magazine cover on the shelves? Image or Name (Masthead)? Probably both, but the image and the masthead are vital design features to catching the reader’s eye and standing out amongst all the other titles on the shelves.

Together they form an instantly recognisable BRAND.

You can see from these mastheads how different they are in size, typography, language and tone. They are clear codes and connotation as to what the magazine is going to contain, the genre or music and therefore attractive to a certain target audience – a certain demographic. This is its BRAND IDENTITY and should be obvious from the front page of the magazine.

Masthead and Brand Identity

Click to see a range of Music Magazine Mastheads

You will be allocated a music magazine cover from the slideshow and it is your challenge to do some research about that magazine’s intended target audience.

TASK 1

Using the yougov.co.uk site and the profiles section, find the magazine (or the band from the main cover line / image) and insert the audience profile by using the snipping tool.

TASK 2

Then do some research as to the mission statement of that magazine. (google it)

TASK 3

Use this audience segmentation sheet to see if you can allocate a certain group to the intended target audience of your magazine and explain why in your annotations.  You will have to apply your ideas.  Reflect on who the target audience is and the evidence you have for this.

You will have to research typical fans for any of the artists on the front cover or inside. This too will give you an idea of who the audience is.

TASK 4

Embed the slide in Audience Profiling and reflect on what you have done, why you have done it and where it will take you.

Resources

Your teacher will share an editable class copy of this slideshow in classroom for you to to complete one slide of.

My Media Consumption/Prosumption Collage

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Get into the habit of reading up about your next  Media Lesson. It will be interesting to see how many of you actually logged in to our website this weekend, as requested, to have a look at it.  If you are reading this, then well done. This is a really good sign.

In Lesson 1 you will be creating a collage with a minimum of 15 – 20 pictures that illustrate what you read, watch and listen to.  In other words what media do you consume? When you watch, listen and read, you are called a CONSUMER.

Also, what media do you contribute to?  What apps, blogs, social media do you add texts, status and click and likes to?  When you interact and contribute to the media, you are called a PROSUMER.

Here is the exemplar we showed you in class: Click on the thumbnail to get a bigger version.

collage

Here’s a snazzy new and improved for 2019 example – WITH some ideas about Blumler & Katz – bonus.

Then in Lesson 2 you will use the Uses and Gratification terms from Blumler and Katz, indicate which of these media you use for ENTERTAINMENT, PERSONAL IDENTITY, SOCIAL INTERACTION or  EDUCATION AND INFORMATION.  Just add in a E, PI, SI, I – remember some of them you engage with for multiple reasons.

This is an example of Mrs C’s media consumption, prosumption – and what she gets out of it.

You only need about 6 of these to show that you understand how media is used for various reasons.

You should complete the collage using a google slide and then save it as a pdf – it will be your first blog post!

BLOG POST INTRODUCTION AND REFLECTION – click to see how to blog

Remember always to introduce the post but do not be tempted to start ‘in this task we did….’. Try and weave in some personal observations, reflections and most of all some terms to show you ‘get it’, you understand why you have completed this piece of research and what you have learnt from it.