How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
There are a number of concepts that need to be addressed to answer this question fully.
- Who is you audience?
- How did you fulfil your audiences needs and expectations?
- What is meant by distribution?
- Who owns and controls magazine distribution
- How are real media texts distributed in the online age?
Audience
You must define and describe your audience in these ways.
- Demographics and Psychographics – audience segmentation
- You should also use your Yougov findings to explain what other media texts they consume as well as other information.
Uses & Gratification
- You should link specific elements of your magazine (contents, bands, representation, language, design (fonts / graphics) to specific uses and gratifications that you think your audience have. Refer to Blumler and Katz’ ideas and also AIDA:
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
Distribution – Lesson 1 + 2
- Complete this work sheet in order to explore magazine ownership & distribution. It is in classroom for you.
- In Groups, you will be allocated an article to read and summarise and then present to the class. The articles and sheet are in classroom on a presentation for your class. These articles will help you with an understanding of the business of magazine distribution and the challenges created by the internet & social media.
Research Articles – summary of the articles
- Article from journalism trade rag on decline in magazine sales.
- How print is surviving in the digital age.
- Facebook & Google – a digital duopoly?
- News magazines increasing whilst celebrity gossip decreasing sales of some magazines re news are going up whilst fashion, celebrity and gossip magazines are going down in popularity. Significance? – Readers are prepared to pay for valid, trustworthy journalism in traditional print.
- How Magazines will be changed forever– print editions have a different reader experience – not overwhelming or exhausting to read whilst digital editions are not always easy to navigate and encourage a ‘down the rabbit hole’ experience that can be distracting to audiences. Significance? – new and traditional media could co-exist
- How publishing has changed in the digital era certain print publications growing in popularity like Private Eye – readers value real journalism and not fake news – Significance? – readers will pay for good quality journalism they can trust.
- Print v Digital – what do readers prefer? Pros and Cons of digital magazines v print magazines. Can they actually work together? – Significance? – both types of media have their pros and cons.
Institutional (Distribution) Issues
- Audiences expect to get their media for ‘free’
- The younger audience don’t like to read.
- Quality (factual) journalism is expensive and so is traditional print and distribution.
- However, it’s hard to make money out of online content.
- Most of it goes to FB & Google, leaving everyone else scrabbling for the scraps.
- Exclusives remain ‘exclusive’ for about 10 seconds before it’s all over social media.
- How do you square this circle?