Model Reader/Reader Model

"A reader model is an idealised, or simplified example of an intended reader, that is, a member of a target audience."

I have created a reader model by representing everything that I believe my target audience would appreciate within a magazine.
This is my key demographic because it will help to increase the buyers by gaining more of the target audience's attention with colour schemes and house styles that best suit the genre to attract them.
The target audiences conventional likes and dislikes have been both challenged and reinforced because the background of the photos I would like to have as the main section of the magazine is white and usually in an Indie/Rock genre magazine, the colour scheme is a mixture of dark colours although, I don't think the background colour matters as long as it isn't really bright and doesn't distract the reader from the artist featuring on the cover. The house style of the magazine has been kept similar to other magazines with the same genre because this way new readers will know what to look for as they each have a similar look.

"The reasons why you conform to conventions is to appeal to your target audience.
If you have deliberately subverted conventions, this might be because you know your target audience will appreciate it."

Risk Assessment

I carried out a risk assessment of where I took my photos.
I made sure there wasn't any wires stretching across the floor that could be hazardous. Schools tend to hide wires so that they are constantly kept away from students, so this was handy when taking the photos as there was nothing that could have potentially been dangerous for both the photographer and the person having the photos taken of them.

The photos were taken inside so the weather wasn't an issue although, the heating within the school couldn't be too high as the person I chose to be in the photos was wearing a jumper because it was an Indie style piece of clothing so they couldn't be too hot when wearing this.

There was a minimum amount of equipment used to produce the photos such as a camera and lighting. The camera used was actually on an iPhone 5 so it was good quality and quick and easy to install onto a piece of software such as Pixlr. The lighting used was both natural and artificial because I used the switch lights within that area of the school and took the photos near a window so that as much of the features were shown as possible and I liked the way the light left a glowing effect on the photo. These types of equipment were completely risk free because they wouldn't have caused any damage and they are easy to use.

Recce

This is my reconnaissance of possible locations for taking my photographs for my magazine pages.

I wanted my photos to have a white or black background so I have chosen a painted wall at my school to have as the background. The wall is slightly cream so I aim to edit the colour using a software such as Pixlr to make a more prominent white final background.













I didn't really want any other background apart from the white for this artist because I didn't think it would fit what I was trying to portray her as, which is Indiemy genre such as having a pink background would look very Pop style and using black would have made it more Rock stye.

Also, by having a white background it connotes innocence, which is ironic as the magazine genre is the opposite to this. It also, makes the artist stand out as being the main attention on the cover, so there is no distractions away from the artist.

I don't think that the location is very conventional because the photos were taken at a school whereas most Indie/Rock photos are taken at concerts and gigs because many don't like the idea of posing for photos. This suggests that although my magazine is the same genre, it will have certain aspects that are unconventional to the usual genre style images.

 I took these photos in a house garage where there was enough room to it the band instruments and equipment to make it look more like a gig event.
I wanted it to look dark so there was no lighting or natural light and I used the flash on the camera.
I wanted a black background so that they looked like a Rock genre band so that there was a mixture of Indie and Rock in my music magazine.

Social Groups and Music Magazines

Self-Categorisation is a social psychological that people will perceive themselves and others as a group and it is a general analysis of they way people react to different genres of music.
Self-Identification is the views of the qualities of what a person thinks.

Positive Distinctiveness is when individuals strive for a positive self-concept

Social Identity Theory - Individuals are motivated to achieve positive distinctiveness. That is, individuals "strive for a positive self-concept". This helps self-esteem.
Individuals may be defined and informed by their respective social identities (as per the interpersonal-intergroup continum) it is further derived in social identity theory that "individuals strive to achieve or to maintain positive social identity."

An Ingroup is a social group where an individual can identify as being a member.

An Outgroup is a social group where an individual can't identify themselves with a group of people.

My own media text for my magazine will enable groups to self-define themselves as there will be genre fitting artists based inside with interviews on them so that the target audience gets more information on them, which makes them feel like they have a more personal relationship with them.

The media text will create positive distinctiveness because the target audience will be shown interviews and images of and about their favourite artists within the genre that the magazine is based around. This will make the readers want to try and act how their idols are acting because of the positive outcome it has upon them and this will encourage the target audience to be more selfless, which inevitably will give a positive feedback back to the magazine.

The 'In Group' are mainly between the ages of 16 and 30 and with a common interest in Indie/Rock genre music, they will be in a social group where the individual can identify as being a member by reading this magazine.

The 'Out Group' will be anyone not between these ages and who don't tend to listen to the Indie/Rock genres of music. This means that they won't be able to identify themselves with a social group that is based around this genre such as people who read this magazine.

Applying Gratifications Theory to the consumption of these magazines

Diversion
NME is a well-known magazine produced in London that portrays a different reality to the person reading it. The content inside displays nothing about the latest news stories, so when the target audience is reading through the magazine, they will feel happy and relaxed because there is only stories and photos of artists and events that they are interested in, which makes them forget about reality for the short time they are reading the magazine and this makes them want to buy the next issue.

Personal Relationships
The news displayed inside this magazine is about the Indie/Rock genre music making the reader popular because they will have knowledge on the latest news about the artists within this genre. This helps companionship because by talking about the content of this magazine, the reader may discover that some of the people the know like the same artists as themselves, which will form new friendships.

Personal Identity
"The 18-year-old enemy of the X Factor" connotes that NME are trying to portray the artists 'Jake Bugg' as having a similar personality to the reader, which gives the reader a sense of relating to their idols or the celebrities due to the personal opinions they have.

Surveillance
NME have snippets of stories on the front cover that give a small insight on what was discussed in interviews or events that will be happening soon. This helps to give the reader as much information as possible. "Story of the moment" is key for selling magazines and the target audience buying this edition of NME will want to know anything that is new in Jake Bugg's life.

Diversion
The target audience of teenage girls will forget about anything in their real lives for the amount of time taken out to read this issue of Top of the Pops because they will just be given information on the lives of One Direction, which makes more of their target audience buy this issue because it is an exclusive and isn't the same as the house style that the magazine usually displays.

Personal Relationships
Top of the Pops know that by having an issue dedicated to One Direction, their magazine will sell really quickly not only to previous readers but also fans of One Direction that don't usually buy this magazine. Readers think that by having this magazine they will become popular because they will know all the gossip and this will intrigue a pass along audience because they will read the magazine after their friend to get an insight on the gossip too.

Personal Identity
Magazines such as Top of the Pops have factors like relating the reader to the celebrity on the cover because it makes them feel like they have a chance to be like their idol and this makes them buy the magazine in the future as well because they want to keep finding out what is similar about them and the celebrities they inspire to be like.

Surveillance
The reader of this magazine will be wanting to know the "story of the moment" of their favourite artists One Direction and want to know anything new thats happened in their lives that they can talk about with their friends.

Media Institutions

Magazines are produced by institutions which are companies that produce, market and distribute texts.
There are two main music magazine publishers in the UK:

This produces magazines such as
Kerrang!
Q
Mojo
The company was founded in 1875 and has been privately owned by the Bauer family themselves.
It's headquarters is in Hamburg, Germany and it is operated in 16 different countries worldwide meaning that 38 million magazines are produced each week.
Bauer publishing started up in the UK in 1987 when they launched Bella magazines and from then on Bauer publishing became the third largest publishing house in the UK. Also, for further expansion within the UK, Bauer bought Emap Consumer Media as well as Emap Radio back in 2008 and this had the publishing house on track to being the biggest publishers in the UK.




Originally called International Publishing Corporation, IPC publishes magazines such as NME and Uncut and sells of 350 million copies each year. The headquarters are based in London and the publishing house was founded in 1958, when it was dominated by a group of companies that fought against one another for market shares within an extremely competitive marketplace.
In 1998 the company was renamed IPC and the company was then sold to Times inc.
In April 2012, IPC won an aware for "Best Production Team" from the Professional Publishers Association Production and Environment Awards.

"As the UK's leading consumer magazine publisher we engage with 26m UK adults - almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men. Our award winning portfolio of websites reaches over 25 million users globally every month."

For my own magazine I would like to use one of these institutions because they produce similar magazines with the same sort of house styles to my own magazine. Also, each magazine they produce sells really well and this will mean that they will be able to sell a magazine such as mine, where the genre is Indie/Rock instantly.

First Draft Comparison



This is a comparison between my first draft and an actual magazine.
My magazine has dark colours, which is similar to the NME magazine because this best fits the genre it is trying to show - Indie/Rock, which can't be colourful. This makes the front cover quite simple with basic information of what to expect inside and one image to show an artist that is featured in this months issue.
Both magazines have the image of the artist in the centre of the cover. I did this because every music magazine I looked at when researching music magazines, focused on the artist on the front to attract their audience.
The barcode on both magazines is placed at the bottom of the page at either side because this isn't of any use to the reader so they don't want it to be placed near anything that could determine whether someone buys the magazine.
I liked the white text because it stands out when placed on top of a dark colour background and by using a maximum of three colours the cover isn't as bright and bold as a typical Pop genre magazine.
In my final piece, I would like to use the artists head to cover part of the title because I have seen other music magazines do this and it makes the magazine look professional because it shows that regular readers don't need the entire title to be on show as they are familiar with the general house style so would be able to find it easily among other magazines when place upon a news stand.

Independent Publishing Alternatives

If a magazine is likely to have a narrow, specialist appeal it may be published by an independent publisher.

Sales will be lower, but so will overheads. The magazine producer can also focus on an area that would not be covered by major publishers.

For example, Shindig! is published by Volcano Publishing. The publishing company states that "Shindig! is the quarterly music magazine that overflows with vintage psychedelia, garage, folk rock, sunshine pop, freak rock, power pop, acid folk, progressive rock and myriad other strains of underexposed, near-forgotten pop music."

'Shindig! reaches an audience that loves their music and the culture associated with it. With its main focus on music, Shindig! also covers art, fashion, architecture, film and TV. According to the latest survey, 82% of Shindig! readers are in the ABC1 category. Men make up 83% of the readership and women 27%. With its dedicated subscribers and worldwide sales, Shindig! achieves a circulation of 26,000.'

If the magazine is published by an independent publishing house, it may mean that it won't be as well known or as popular as others similar to it. As an independent publisher may be a smaller specialised company, it may not have a big marketing budget, therefore the advertising budget would be small meaning the magazine would only reach a small audience, which is why when I create my own magazine, I would prefer to go to a better known publishing company.

Uses and Gratification Theory

This theory by Blumler and Katz tries to interpret how and why people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. It is based upon an audiences approach of understanding large scale communication. It suggests that users of media have an imperative part to play in selecting and using the media. The theorists add that media users look for the best possible media source to suit their situation. 

There are four basic needs that the user of media needs and these are:

Diversion - This is the need for escapism, for instance, the need to shy away from reality and become lost in the media source such as coming home and watching T.V dramas religiously everyday after work.

Personal Relationship - This is using the media to fulfil the need for companionship. Also, it is using the media to form relationships with others and to socialise like going onto FaceBook where the user has to become part of the social group. 

Personal Identity - This is where someone uses the media to find out about themselves for example, watching documentaries about their home country where they can get great knowledge on its history.

Surveillance - This is when people use the media to find out about events going on near to them, such as, the latest information on celebrity lifestyles and mishaps. A lot of people find it interesting to look up on what their "idols" and favourite celebrities get up to when they aren't doing their normal job and being directly in the spotlight.

Socio-economic Group

The Socio-economic groups are how people are catergorised according to income and occupation.
A magazine is a luxury item so it's important as a producer of a magazine to convince the target audience to buy it because they don't necessarily have to have it. For my own music magazine, my target audience is 16-30 year olds so I will base it on the subsistence level E of students and C2/1 for people who are no longer in education and are working class and lower middle class. This is because the age range that the magazine will reach to fits these categories and any further up the classes tend to be an older generation and the magazine will have the latest artists within this genre that higher classes don't tend to listen to.

Audience Pleasures

Double Page Spread Draft

This is my first attempt at a double page spread for my own music magazine. I decided on an interview with an artist that fits the genre of my magazine because when I researched into what music magazines put inside, I discovered that most such as Kerrang! use their double page spreads for interviews with a popular artist of that time.

The artist I chose was Jake Bugg because I knew that he has been a main focus this year with his 'Indie' style of music and this is one of the genres that I have based my magazine on. By using him on the front as well as having a double page spread of him, this will not only attract the original target audience that I wanted but also fans of Jake Bugg's music that wouldn't usually buy this magazine.

To get more information on the artist and to decide what the best thing to write about him was, I watched a collection of YouTube videos of interviews he had done previously and chose to talk about how he first started playing the guitar and what the true meanings were behind some of his most famous records. I felt that this was the most interesting subject at that time because it was different to the usual generic questions an artist tends to be asked such as "Where do you see yourself in ten years from now?"

The colour theme is similar to the front cover draft I produced to keep the house style throughout the magazine and the black text over the stage setting in the background creates the Indie/Rock styled look that needs to be clear so that the readers know that the genre will never change and the magazine will always be unique to their favourite genre. The added purple text makes the page more noticeable and when researching I found that this was often used in various other magazines to display an important point made by the interviewee. Moreover, I used same Sans-Serif font on the double page spread as I did on the front cover to stick to the house style I desired and used the Italic version of the same font when the text was the artist own quotes. This makes the reader more aware of facts that the magazine has included and the actual stories that the artist is providing.

First Draft of Magazine Front Cover

 

This is a rough draft of what my ideal front cover would look like. 

I used V!ntage as the title because the music magazine is based on Indie/Rock and that style of music is seen as different and 'vintage' makes the magazine seem a high quality due to vintage accessories generally being expensive. I changed the wording slightly by putting an exclammation mark where the letter 'i' should be. This makes the magazine appear less formal and slightly rebellious and this way the target audience will be reached because teenagers like to think they too are modern and this fits in with the Indie/Rock genre as they want to seem like they don't abide by any rules.

The image of the artist on the front takes up the entire background and the text is on top. I would essentially like the artist to cover a part of the title as this is what I have seen other magazines such as Kerrang! do and it makes the magazine look as if regular buyers don't need to see the whole title to know which one it is and it will also look professional and like its been running for many years to new audiences.

The strap line I have used is - UK's most obscure music. This is because the audience that wants to read this magazine don't always want to listen to music that everybody else listens to, so by using words such as 'obscure' it conveys that the magazine has music that is unknown to anyone who doesn't read it and makes the readers feel unique, which will make the continue to purchase future issues.

The colour of the text I chose is orange because it stands out against the background image. Also, being an Indie/Rock magazine, it has to appear 'different' to the usual Pop genre styles so by using bold colours like white it styles the genre before the music inside is even known. The orange text is a pull quote from an artist and I have used a different colour to show this because all the text in white is giving information about stories inside or events so by using this colour it doesn't just flow in with what the other parts say. The image on the front is of the person who is being interviewed inside and this may attract other audiences who weren't initially the target audience but are fans of the artist to buy the magazine and this will hopefully encourage them to buy future issues and gaining the magazine a wider audience.

For my final magazine front cover, I would like to have a Sans Serif font that better suits the genre and style of the magazine and perhaps have other images around the sides to show different things within the magazine, which will make the front look more interesting.

Audiences

The target audience that I would like to reach out to when producing my own music magazine would be between the ages of 15-25 and for both genders. Younger generations are easier to sell to because they like to have what other people their age has and if the magazine was to sell quite a few copies, others are going to want to buy it so that they aren't missing out. Also, there may be a 'pass along audience' where other family members at home that haven't bought the magazine might read it if it is left in the house. 

I think that the magazine will appeal to both genders because there is a variety of artists that fit into the categories of Indie and Rock that many people will enjoy listening to.

I would like my magazine to be based on selling to the ABC1 category because this way more copies will be purchased meaning that its popularity will rise within a wealthier class of people.

Genre

Genre is the style or category of music that determines which artists will be displayed in a music magazine.

These are a couple of magazine front covers that use the same genre to what I would like to use when I produce my own music magazine;

Indie

Rock                                                       

                The genre I have chosen to make my own music magazine is Indie/Rock. 

For the Indie section, the magazine will feature artists such as;

Jake Bugg

                                   

                                                                          Tom Odell

Lorde

The different styles of Rock artists that could feature in the magazine might be;

Rolling Stones

Jimi Hendrix

Linkin Park

Creativity

I have created a prezi slideshow to represent the different housestyles that appear on different genre magazines to determine what layout I would prefer on my own music magazine. Each magazine that has a certain genre has a housestyle that they know will appeal to their target audience and this has given me an better understanding of how to style my own. I think I will use a style similar to 'Rolling Stone' because the genre I have chosen is a combination of Indie and Rock and that is similar to what 'Rolling Stone' provide. By having the artist at the centre of the cover, it will appeal to more consumers who don't necessarily buy the magazine usually.




On most of the front covers, the images are a mid shot, which is the first part of the magazine the reader looks at when they pick it up from the news stand.
The camerawork that the photographer uses is to try and attract the target audience and make the magazine look expensive because of the clear and high quality images it presents within it.
The fonts used within a magazine represents the type of audience that they want to read it. Sans Serif tends to be used when addressing a teenage audience because it is similar to their own handwriting and therefore a younger generation can relate more to the magazine. Another common font is Serif and this is used more when a magazine wants to draw in an older audience as the font tends to appear more old fashioned and formal.
Sell Lines are used on the cover to help sell the magazine. Above the title on "Q" magazine it says 'UK's biggest music magazine' and this definitely helps to increase sales because people who don't usually buy music magazines might prefer to buy "Q" rather than another one because they trust that this particular one must be the best.

Prototype of my Magazine

Jake Bugg Special 

Jake Bugg was one of the many up and coming artists of last year, and now he's here to tel
l us how he came about becoming a musician. 

"I was born in Nottingham and grew up in Clifton on a council estate. I was introduced to the guitar by my uncle at the age of 12 and have played it ever since. I would say some of my main musical influences growing up were Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Oasis and Jimi Hendrix."

His different perspective and individual approach to music as an indie rock artist got him a place on the introducing stage at the Glastonbury Festival back in 2011 at the age of 17, which led to a record deal with Mercury. His songs began to be played on BBC Radio 1.

Jake Bugg's album - 'Jake Bugg' - features his own songs that he wrote and some of these have a significant meaning to him personally.

"'Seen It All' is based on a past experience and it is basically about doing certain things that aren't the right things to do, which inevitably didn't end well. The intention of the song certainly wasn't to promote doing these things but probably more don't do them!"

"'Two Fingers' is also about a personal issue when growing up and I just wanted to express how I felt about growing up where I did and the experiences I had with my family and my life in general. I wanted the song to be as detailed as possible, yet I also had to please the label and keep it up to a certain standard, which is actually quite difficult to do!"

Technology

These are the types of hardware that I would use when researching, planning and constructing my own music magazine.

1. A MacBook for constructing the pages due to it being quicker because of the speed of the graphics card and processing. This will ensure the magazine images are to the highest quality.








2. I will use both a digital camera and an iPhone camera to take photos for my magazine as these are readily available to me and also create clear pictures.

3. I will use a memory stick to save work onto that I can then transfer to another device easily. This will be a quick process rather than emailing work from home to school.






These are the different types of software that I will be using to help create my magazine.

Pixlr - for editing the images that will be used throughout the magazine.






Slideshare - I can use this when researching for information to help create the magazine because it shows a range of different techniques which are used in media and help broaden my knowledge of this particular software.

David Carson - Ray Gun

David Carson is famous for being a graphic designer with his best known work being in magazine designs and experimental typography. The most famous magazine that Carson had his art designs used on was "Ray Gun"(a music and lifestyle magazine) which he was hired for by the publisher Marvin Scott and on this he portrayed the typographic style he is known for. 

His designs appeared abnormal to readers as they were different to any other magazine usual house style. The title wasn't always in the same place and on various occasions, images and text have been displayed side ways, diagonal or in more extreme cases, upside down. These designs made him quite famous and he gained a wider audience who were now intrigued by his work and he was even featured in The New York Times at the peak of his fame.

I think that Carson's work is unique and therefore stands out to anyone when displayed on a news stand alongside other magazines that have a typical house style. For instance, this "Ray Gun" magazine front cover has a completely different title so readers would be unaware that this was an issue of "Ray Gun" as it could be mistaken for another magazine. 

Moreover, the image is displaying the bottom half of the model rather than the typical mid-shot or close-up camera view that most magazines tend to use. There are also no straplines or taglines or even any snippets of whats inside on the cover, which usually help to sell the magazine and this makes it unusual as this type of layout doesn't tend to catch an audiences eye, although Carson made it work.

Active vs. Passive Audience Theory (Readings)

Active audience theory argues that media audiences do not just receive information passively but are actively involved, often unconcsiously, in making sense of the message within their personal and social contexts. Decoding of a media message may therefore be influenced by such things as family background, beliefs, values, culture, interests, education and experiences.

Other theories and models are compatible with active audience theoy, including the encoding/decoding model and the uses and gratifications theory, which states that audiences are actively involved in determining what media thy engage with and how, in order to gratify specific needs or desires.

Uses and Gratification Theory
This theory tries to interpret how and why people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. It is based upon an audiences approach of understanding large scale communication. Instead of the question asked by other media effect theories - "What does media do to people?" - Uses and Gratification Theory suggests the question "What do people interpret from media?".

Encoding/Decoding Model

This is an active audience theory that was thought of by Stuart Hall
which examines the relationship between a text and its audience.
Encoding is where a text is constructed by its producers.
Decoding is where an audience reads, understands and interprets a text.
Hall claims that texts can be read in different ways by different people due to the differences in cultural knowledge and opinions.

Hypodermic Needle Model

This model was formed in the 1930's and suggests that a message within the media is directly received and accepted by the receiver i.e. the passive audience who are automatically affected by the message. This model states that the audience can be easily led by the media because at that time there was a limited amount of communication tools. As more research was made, it became more obvious that the media had selective influences on people. One of the most famous examples of this model was the 1938 broadcast of 'The War of the Worlds', which had a massive reaction of panic among its American audience. This model is discredited today due to this incident being the cause of deeper research being made by Paul Lazarsfeld and Herta Herzog, which goes against the ideas of the hypodermic needle model and Hadley Cantril stated that the reactions towards the broadcast were in fact mainly to do with the audiences attitudes and the situations they were in at the time.

'Print' Media Terms

Media terminology is essential when writing about my own music magazine. 'Print' media terms are used in magazines to make them look professional.

Bleed
This is a printing term, which refers to printing that goes beyond the edge of the sheet before it's trimmed off. Bleed is on the side of the document that will allow the printer to have a small space to account for any movement of the paper or design effects such as background colours, which can stretch into the 'bleed' area. The bleed ensures that there is no unprinted edges in the final trimmed document.


MIRA
This is a textual analysis and will help me to understand what my target audience want in a magazine.

                                          M - Media form - This describes what you're analysing.
               I - Institution - This asks who made it.
                              R - Representation - Who or what does it show.
A - Audience - Who is it for.

'Pass Along Audience'
This can be family members or other individuals that share a magazine without each buying a separate copy of it meaning that more people read a certain magazine than purchase it. This means that publishers may not be able to accurately view the exact amount of readers they have because it won't be the same amount of copies that they have sold although, it will increase reading numbers.

Advertorial
These are advertisements that appear like articles. Sometimes the magazine uses terms such as "special promotional feature" or "special advertising section" to present the advertorial. These are usually printed on a smaller newsprint than the rest of the magazine.

Gutter
The gutter is the middle section of the two pages where they both join to form a double page spread.







Strapline
This is a subsidiary heading or caption in a newspaper or magazine. It is a slogan used to identify brands so that consumers know what magazine is on the news-stand because they link the strapline with the title of the magazine. I could include this into my own magazine to make consumers remember the magazine easier because it will be more recognisable.










Tagline
A catchphrase or slogan used within advertising that is often repeated to make readers of the magazine remember the product each time they see or hear the tagline.








Pull Quote/Call Out
These are quotations from an article that are usually placed on the same page to entice readers into an article or to make them more aware of a certain topic. These are good to put into a magazine because consumers are more likely to be intrigued into buying the magazine which will increase the reading numbers.

Pug

This is the small bits of text that are around the masthead and it is usually about whats inside the magazine. 

This would be a good media term to include on my own magazine front cover as it makes it look more professional and gives the reader more of an insight of the magazine making them more prone to buy it.

History of Music Magazines

Q magazine is a British music magazine which is published monthly. Its founders are Mark Ellen and David Hepworth and the editor is Andrew Harrison.
The magazine was originally called 'Cue' for "cueing a record" but was changed so it wasn't mistaken as a snooker magazine. Also, single-lettered titles stand out more on the new stands making more sales.
The first issue published was in October 1986.
It has a review section inside the magazine which covers new releases of music as well as reviews on film, live concerts, radio and television which star rates them and this tends to be added to the album ratings on print or on television advertising in the UK and Ireland.
The audience is both genders with 68.3% being male and the rest - a total of 31.7% female. In total there are 35% of readers that are between the 15-24, 26% between 25-34, 19% are 35-44 and 17% 45+. The  magazine used to target the over 25's, which allowed the magazine to be slightly higher priced as an older audience can generally afford to pay more than younger audiences. Although, now more of the younger generation read Q making the magazines audience increase. It has been suggested that Q has a niche audience because the magazines main focus is music although it can be represented as having a mass audience as it is a well-known music magazine so more people trust it enough to purchase it.





Q magazine tries to put a range of artists who perform different genres of music on the front so that it reaches out to more people. This could influence someone who doesn't usually buy the magazine to purchase it due to the person on the cover, which inevitably gives Q magazine more readers. This means that more social groups will know about Q because there is a wider selection of music genres displayed on the magazine.
The housestyle is similar on each issue with the title being in the same place in every edition. Moreover, the background colour is beige in every copy with the writing different depending on what artist is on the front. This makes it easier for buyers to find the magazine on new-stands as it will always look the same.

History of Music Magazines

Rolling Stone magazine was founded in 1967 in San Francisco, California by Jan Wenner - who today is still the magazine chief editor and the magazine moved locations to New York City in 1977. The main content of the magazine focuses on Politics and popular culture and is published every two weeks. In the 1990's the magazine changed the set up due to a younger generation having a bigger impact on which bands became popular.  The name "Rolling Stone" was originally named after the blues singer Muddy Waters song "Rollin Stone" produced in 1950. The first issue was published on November the 9th in 1967 and inside was a message from Jan Wenner which read that "The Rolling Stone is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces." Print format of this magazine has changed over periods of time. The first copies (1967-72) were initially in the form of tabloid newspapers with black ink and a higlight colour which changed each issue. In 1973, it had a different newspaper size which was done on a four-colour press and by 1979 there was now a bar code on every edition. It then became a glossy paper in 1980 and by October 2008, Rolling Stone was a standard format size so decreased in size.

 Various artists have been featured on the magazine more than once and some of these covers have

become iconic such as The Beatles who have featured on the front cover over thirty times as a band and individually. It has also had appearances from political figures and actors such as Bill Clinton and Blake Lively.
The first ten issues had appearances from people like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding
 and had an issue on the Monterey Pop Festival. The typical reader of the 'Rolling Stone' varies depending on who is on the cover. A lot of the older generation read it due to it being a magazine that has been well known for many years and the politics within the magazine reaches out more to older readers.

'Rolling Stone' magazine has a similar housestyle in every edition with the image taking up most of the space on the cover. The colours fit together and the title is always in the same place (across the top) which makes the magazine look organised.

The social groups presented within the magazine are unique and some bands that are displayed inside are only listened to by people that like a certain genre of music. They tend to put someone on the front cover who is popular at that time because that makes more people want to buy it widening the target audience.