Sinead Penney AS Media Studies

My music magazine 'Sound' is aimed towards people between the ages of 16-30 years old. This is because from research I have noticed that the age group currently most interested in the indie rock genre (and therefore more likely to be attracted to my magazine) are between the ages of 16-30. My target market also consists of both males and females as my magazine is not gender specific. Due to my target audience predominantly being on the younger side, it means that most of them will be in full time education at either school, college, university (or done a further degree at university such as a masters). Therefore, they will not be earning a lot of money and some might have a part time job on the side to support them through their education. Furthermore, the people who have not long graduated from university will be saving a lot of their money for important things such as, their first home, car, and any bills they may need to pay. In consideration of this factor I have kept my magazine at a reasonable price of £2.50 to ensure it is affordable for everyone.

In terms of my target audience's values, they would value spending time with their loved ones such as their family, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends. They would also value going out and enjoying their life while the level of responsibility they have is not massive. Therefore, they will spend lots of time out at clubs/raves, restaurants, cinemas, shopping centres, and parks. Since majority of the target audience will not have massive responsibilities (in terms of money/bills) they will be spending money on themselves. This will be on items such as clothes, footwear, and stuff revolving around media. The stuff revolving around media are items such as DVD's, headphones, subscriptions to Spotify premium, iTunes cards, records etc. This is because people within the age range of my target audience have grown up around media products and therefore will be spending money and time on it.

Predominantly people within my target audience will have access to smart phones as they are extremely common phones to have in this generation. This is because smartphones such as iPhones and Samsung phones have various uses. By this I mean they have apps, the internet, mail, social media, music, calendar, clock etc. The younger side of the target audience would most likely have been provided their smart phone by their parents as younger people are more dependent on their family. Due to pretty much all of the audience having access to smartphones and all of the different features on them, it would be beneficial for my magazine to have social media accounts on websites like Twitter and Facebook. It should also have an app to advertise the magazine in order to have the opportunity for interaction with the readers of 'Sound' magazine. This would allow a wider audience to become familiar with the magazine. In addition, I think it would be beneficial for 'Sound' magazine to have a playlist on Spotify. This is because it would allow the readers to follow the playlist and listen to the indie rock music that the magazine has featured on the magazine. This would include music from artists such as Catfish and the Bottlemen, Kaiser Chiefs, and Foals for example.

My target audience is 16-30 year olds. This means that the younger side of the target audience from around 16-21, will most likely be classed in group E of the JICNAR scale because they are students whether it is at school, college or university. The people on the older side of the target audience would be in a slightly more stable position than the younger side as they would be getting full time jobs and starting their careers. Therefore, they would range anywhere from group E to group C1 of the JICNAR scale. However, in my target audience of 16-30, some people might be living with their parents who might be funding what they buy. Therefore, in terms of the JICNAR scale they could range anywhere from group C2 to A. In result, this means I partially have a secondary audience of the readers family (parents, siblings) as if the reader is being funded by their family they might want to know what they are reading or take an interest in it as well. Furthermore, the fact that my magazine incorporates both new and older bands/artists it allows both the reader and their parents to enjoy the magazine.

I created a questionnaire which I gave to four people from my target audience. Two of which were males and two were females in order for the survey to be equal. I did this survey in order to find out what my target audience of 16-30 thought of 'Sound' magazine. This gives me an idea of whether the magazine would be a successful product. These are the results: