This graph shows that the majority of the people who buy the magazine are in the South which includes London. London is a central point for media and other things such as concerts and this could be why people felt the magazine sold better there.
Figure 2
The graph shows that 85% of the people who took my questionnaire who were trying to see who my magazine appealed to felt it was aimed at men instead of women. Only 15% of the people felt that the magazine could be read by women as well, which is of course the case and merely depends on someones personal preferences.
This graph shows how many felt the audience I was going for would be owning their properties instead of renting them. This could imply that many people are earning a lot of money, thus making my price around £3.20 which could be considered expensive to some people.
The graph shows that the dominanting age of people is around 20-25 which is a good sign because people feel that it appeals to that kind of age which is around the age I am looking to appeal to. I am pleased with the result of my age one as it shows that the magazine appeals to that kind of age.
In conclusion it appears that people who have view my magazine feel that it is appealing to the imaginary entity I created.
How many pages in total will you have? I will have around 120 pages in my magazine as I feel this is a substantial amount of pages for a magazine.
Percent of Advertising pages: The percentage of pages that will be advertising will be around 45% which is 54 pages of advertising throughout my magazine.
Cover Price: My cover price is £3.20, but this can vary depending on the content of the magazine
Is your magazine weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly? My magazine is monthly
What do you hope your annual turnover will be? I would like my annual turnover to be around £2.3 million, which accounts to around 60,000 people reading my magazine a month.
Advertisers
Name five companies which would be interested in advertising in my magazine?
·Calvin Klein underwear for men- fits in with the sexual bit, men looking to be attractive
·Jaguar- for the men who like to live life in the fast lane
·Davidoff aftershave- upper market, men looking good
·Clarins skin care products
·Rolex- liking the finer things in life
Offer one or two reasons why they should advertise in your magazine?
·They should advertise in my magazine because this kind of products appeal to the kind of guys I am aiming my magazine at. They would like to indulge themselves in the products which would be selling.
·As young men with hopefully a lot of money they’re likely to want fast cars such as jaguars to fulfil their lifestyle choice.
Who were my audience? The audiences allow media products to differentiate from other media products, i.e. a music magazine would be different to a gardening magazine because they are for different social groups and they would entail different aspects of the magazine, if you were to switch the audience for each magazine it is unlikely a avid gardener would enjoy reading about the next up and coming band.
For my magazine I wanted to ensure that the advertisements I would include if I were to, were aimed at younger people.
How many pages in total will you have? I will have around 120 pages in my magazine as I feel this is a substantial amount of pages for a magazine.
Percent of Advertising pages: The percentage of pages that will be advertising will be around 45% which is 54 pages of advertising throughout my magazine.
Cover Price: My cover price is £3.20, but this can vary depending on the content of the magazine
Is your magazine weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly? My magazine is monthly
What do you hope your annual turnover will be? I would like my annual turnover to be around £2.3 million, which accounts to around 60,000 people reading my magazine a month.
The companies I would most likely advertise in my magazine to entice my target audience and relate to them.
·Calvin Klein underwear for men- fits in with the sexual bit, men looking to be attractive
·Jaguar- for the men who like to live life in the fast lane
·Davidoff aftershave- upper market, men looking good
·Clarins skin care products- the new male way of looking after themselves fully
·Rolex- liking the finer things in life, looks good, upper class
My magazine uses signifiers to ensure that people know what gender, age and social class my magazine appeals to. My magazine uses a range of semiotics to ensure that it was clear that ‘UP’ magazine was aimed at men through the pictures and the articles which in most cases would appeal more to men rather than women. The gender of the magazine reader was shown through various ways which meant my representation of a man came across through this magazine. I used the images mainly to show who it was aimed at, such as the front cover is clearly aimed at men and many women would not want to read a magazine with a scantily clad women on.
Another aspect of showing who the audience were was to make clear was the age. I wanted to appeal to a young adult such as 18-29 and did this through the kind of information I put in there. The images and stories were based largely around a party lifestyle and for younger people. Other articles such as “Beats, Boobs and Booze” are more likely to appeal to someone younger rather than older which helps identify my audience. The articles were largely aimed to signify my audience, as were the pictures.
Finally my magazine aims to appeal to men within the ABC1 category, so people with a good salary would hopefully buy this magazine. The magazine uses “New York” as a chance to win which is an expensive place which would likely appeal to the people who I intend to read my magazine. Another signifier to the upper class is the price. The magazine is £3.20, for a magazine this could be considered more expensive. Many people with the C2, D and E categorisation would not be able to afford this magazine necessarily, and furthermore the advertisements would not appeal to them as they are largely designer or highly priced items.
How I attracted the audience
Attracting the right audience was essential to make the magazine appeal to them and help signify who the music was for. I used a number of ways to help attract the audience such as puff and plugs to help readers want to read my magazine. I used these because this makes readers want to engage in my magazine and if this were reality I would want people to be drawn in by my magazine!
One way I attracted the audience to my magazine, UP, was through the puff on the front cover which immediately entices customers. I used the phrase, “The magazine where you get it all”, which is a puff and draws the reader in because they may think they will be getting more in this magazine than they would be in any other magazine. It helps attract them because instead of just having one thing they get the whole package and many readers would be interesting in getting more for their money.
Another way in which I enticed the audience was through plugs. I have noticed that many people buy magazines if they offer something; I myself have brought magazines purely for their plugs. In my magazine I offered ‘Win a trip to New York’ which in many cases would be appealing to people and would make them want to try and win it. This plug applies to my target audience as it fits the lifestyle they most likely live and many artist produce music there. Plugs are a useful tool to try and get people to buy your magazines.
The font is another way I attracted the audience. I used a font which stood out, Stencil, as my main front throughout. The font was punchy and plain, but kept the consistency and was noticeable. The font is basic and allows the reader to read it clearly, thus making them more interested. The font colour is all the same as well which shows the colours relate to the theme.
Finally another way in which I enticed the audience was through the pictures I chose to use. I chose to use a sexual picture on the front cover to entice the male target audience I was trying to attract. The picture shows some skin and is enough to draw the reader in and make them want to draw more. The pictures areshows some skin and is enough to draw the reader in and make them want to draw more. The pictures are also helping to create the image of the magazine and creating the specific type of reader.
The representation is a great way for the decoder to figure out what kind of media product that is being sold. Using signs such as text, colours, pictures and editing is a efficient way to create the media product you want. In my magazine I have been keen to use signifiers to ensure the audience of my magazine is made clear.
The audience for my media product would be young males who like a lifestyle of ladies and other lavish things. The magazine is aimed at both their music tastes and their sexual desires. The target audience would like artists such as Rihanna or Kay Perry who are well known for sexualising their music and making it about the performance as well as the music. Many men are partially inclined to listen to their music and watch their videos because of the way they look. My magazine features an “artist” like this, who is sexualised.
The stories also help signify the target audience as well as the pictures. They are stories which are more likely to appeal to my imaginary entity than someone who enjoys classical music. Stories such as “Hannah Stevens: Being a Sex Symbol” who is portrayed as an artist who is also highly sexualised.
The audience of my media product is aimed at younger men who would like to read about music with a sexual twist, look at pictures of attractive women and read articles about ‘influential’ men.
My music magazine, like many other media products, follows the idea of using different things which fit into the genre. Many encoders often use specific things to create their media file in with their genre, i.e. in a romantic film the music, images and speech will all be anchored to ensure the genre is made clear. This is the same in magazines whereas music magazines are largely focused around music and fashion magazines focused on fashion.
My music magazine creates the idea of sexualised music. It has people in who would want to be with the girls or be the men. The magazine is set within a genre and I created this through:
I ensured the images were within the theme. My main front cover photo is a highly sexual photo which is seen to be in line with my magazine. The photo shows immediately that the magazine is largely based around men, music and their desires. The images on the double page spread also show a guy who is not a typical strong, muscular guy but a man that relates to men who are simply normal. The images show how anyone can do something they aspire to do.
·The written communication on the front cover is both aimed at music and guys who consider themselves ‘players’. The genre is a sexualised music magazine and captions such as “beats, boobs and booze- the party never stops” shows how both of the ideas are being combined to make the genre come through. The article on the double page spread is essentially about an artist who has a highly sexualised, ‘fun’ and in some cases young men’s fantasies. This helps anchor the genre and make the theme of sexualised music consistent.
·The colour theme is also consistent and red is usually associated with a sexual theme in many cases. Throughout the magazine I had the distinctive colour theme of black, white and red which shows the consistency in my theme.
As the encoder of ‘UP’ I was keen to keep the consistency of the sexualised music magazine and make it fit within the genre.
I looked at different magazines to ensure that some of the other magazines to see if my magazine had any of the same conventions that others did. I found that FHM had the same colour scheme as I did, with the red, black and white, and they also had the sexualisation of a women on their front cover to entice men to look at their magazine.
FHM front cover
The magazine front cover here is similar to mine, they have used a bold title just as I did. The title allows the magazine to stand out and ensuring it is bold means this is likely to happen. The colour red has been proven to entice men and is seen as a more sexual/attractive colour, therefore the use of red shows how my magazine and FHM is largely aimed at men.
I then looked at other magazines double page spread, I found one. I reallised my magazine was completely different, their double page spread was more aimed at a mixed gender I suppose. They had a completely different layout to myself, different colours and a different type of context. Originally this was worrying, however I had to consider that my magazine was aimed at a completely different audience to this one, therefore the forms and conventions would be completely different to eachother.
In some ways I challenged the forms and conventions of a typical music magazine by making it more sexual and fun. I used many different aspects of convey the message of sex and music, so that the reader would be fully aware of what the magazine was about. I ignored things such as using lots of different fonts as I wanted my magazine to have a certain consistancy so people could differentiate that font from others and possibly associate it with my magazine.
After recieving response on my magazine cover I have decided to change my magazine cover completely. I have made it more catchy and less boring, it has more to look at.
Double page spread
The double page spread is made to be aimed at guys who want to be like a stud, someone who is a player. In the article he tells of his wild adventures with ladies but also combines coversation about his music. It is intended to have a mix between the music and the player lifestyle.
Contents page
My contents page has the silouhette of an lady which shows immediately the magazine is sexualise.
Due to my magazine being aimed at young men and being done in the theme of the sexuality of woman and the type of men being players, I have been conducting some research into a magazine which kind of relates to my magazine however in a more hardcore sense. I am researching Playboy magazine which is a soft porn magazine which is also fairly upper market due to the price of it.
The Playboy magazine and what it has become.
The magazine was founded in 1953 by a young ambitious man called Hugh Hefner, he founded it through $1000 dollars he received from his mother. The magazine started off as just that, however in the years up to now it has become one of the best known brands with not only a magazine but different products coming off it such as clothing, TV series, nightclubs and websites. All of this falls under the name Playboy Enterprises INC. The circulation of Playboy magazine is around 4.5 million each month worldwide which is a lot considering the price of the magazine. The circulation varies because although it is 4.5 million usually, in some additions it has gone up to 7.1 million with different people who are on the front.
The magazine is not going down, they have however recently adapted their magazine to an app which could suggest their sales are becoming higher through technology. The magazine still however does sell 4.5 million on average every month, however other magazine such as Loaded which is another men’s magazine has dropped in sales leaving them selling 49,000 copies a month which is a 30.8% drop since it started in the 1990’s. Playboy has not had a drop so big, however they have obviously overcome the need for an app or online interaction for their magazine. Although this is a clear indicator that Playboy are managing to keep high sales figures throughout the world.
Playboy magazine did not have a rate card for it anywhere online, however they did have one in South African currency but that was not appropriate for what I was looking for. However I did find out some of the other information about it.
Magazine publisher and size of the company
The magazine is published from within its own company which is Playboy Enterprise which is all under the founder of the magazine, Hugh Hefner. He owns the company and publishes it too. The company is a large company and owns a lot of media such as magazine, TV shows/channels, Radio channels and websites. The company owns a lot of media and is well broadcast throughout the world, you can access most of their products in the UK as they work within the UK as well as America. The company is a global company and I broadcast throughout the world with different versions for different countries.
Convergence and Synergy
Playboy magazine uses convergence to interlink it magazine with things such as the internet, apps and radio. They promote it all and link the ideas and theme throughout all these. They have their company in many different industries, their magazine being prodominantly their main industry though. They use synergy by making nightclubs and resorts which are coming off of the magazine ideas, they have used the idea to make it an experience you can actually do.
Technology convergence
Playboy have an online presence where you can view the things in the magazine online, you can also view multimedia online too such as videos. They also have an app. The relationship between the magazine and the internet it quite strong because as it is a mens soft porn magazine they are more enclined to possibly want more than pictures, i.e. videos. The online website gives you a chance to look at more than just the magazine, and offer more things. If you go onto the magazine section you’re able to view the articles that have been in the magazine and videos which may have been advertised in the magazine.
The magazine is promoted online with options to subscribe to the magazine and become a member of it. They offer you the chance to subscribe with links to click on which is in the view of the reader, they are given it so that the magazine gets more buyers. There seems to be a direct link between the internet and the magazine as they both promote each other.
Relationship between encoder and decoder
The relationship between the encoder and decoder is very much based on the decoder. The encoder has a clear view on the general type of reader and what he would like to read about or view. The pictures and articles are aimed at young men who have a want for the ‘jet set’ lifestyle with articles talking about fast cars and beautiful women.
The website also allows the user to comment and offer their opinion on certain articles which allows them to feel part of it. They are able to comment which can help the encoder get ideas or advance on their original idea.
Content
The magazine is aimed at the target audience who like women, the finer things in life, exhilarating and fun things and the things that stereotype young guys like. The magazine and internet have the theme of sexual things which are fun and nice throughout the magazine and internet. The design with the colours is actually fairly similar to how I am doing my magazine with the colours of red, white and black. The magazine does not offer videos but online you’re able to view videos of interviews, photo shoots, etc.
