Reader profiles are used by the media industry to promote their product to potential advertisers. They are also really useful to writers and contributers to assist them in targeting their features to ensure they are of interest to the target audience.
You can often download the information from these magazines that give you loads of info about the target audience but you have to look carefully for it. The info is usually found in the advertisement and/or marketing section and is sometimes labelled 'media pack'.
Observer
OK Magazine
NME
You will find a good example here of a mood board for a reader profile, it would be very useful for you to design your own.
Note how the magazine publishers refer to their products as 'brands' or as Wikipedia would say, "cultural accessories and personal philosophies'.
Monday 28 September 2009
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Work to do by Tuesday 29th September
1. Create an Audience Focus Group. You will show them all your ideas for both the student magazine and the music magazine. Find at least 4 people, who are moderately reliable and won't mind being interviewed.
2. Put their profiles up on the blog, you want to find out about their media consumption habits and in particular, to do with magazines.
3. Create an audience questionnaire that you will distribute amongst your target audience. You need to find out their opinions on student magazines & their thoughts about school/college involvement at this point.
4. You should also find at least 2 more examples of student magazines to annotate and put onto your blog.
5. Read the articles on this blog, they are your reading matter and you should make notes on them.
Remember, the more cross-platform, multi-modal (singing & dancing) your blog is, the better!
2. Put their profiles up on the blog, you want to find out about their media consumption habits and in particular, to do with magazines.
3. Create an audience questionnaire that you will distribute amongst your target audience. You need to find out their opinions on student magazines & their thoughts about school/college involvement at this point.
4. You should also find at least 2 more examples of student magazines to annotate and put onto your blog.
5. Read the articles on this blog, they are your reading matter and you should make notes on them.
Remember, the more cross-platform, multi-modal (singing & dancing) your blog is, the better!
Audience Research
You need to conduct first hand research about your media text. The most important aspects of audience research to bear in mind are:
1 Asking members of a sample audience about their experiences with similar products
2 Product testing on an audience sample, post-production
You could take a sample of say ten to fifteen people from the designated audience sample, however you need to remember that it is just a small sample and therefore not guaranteed to be fully representative.
Existing Products and practice
You need to show that you have investigated the market place, and/or competition. You should include an analysis of at least two existing products that are relevant for your chosen media.
1 Asking members of a sample audience about their experiences with similar products
2 Product testing on an audience sample, post-production
You could take a sample of say ten to fifteen people from the designated audience sample, however you need to remember that it is just a small sample and therefore not guaranteed to be fully representative.
Existing Products and practice
You need to show that you have investigated the market place, and/or competition. You should include an analysis of at least two existing products that are relevant for your chosen media.
Analysing Magazines
Some useful prompts to think about when analysing magazines.
Consider the title of the magazine: Why is it called that?What are the significant words?What connotations do they have?
The publisher of the magazine: Who publishes the magazine? What other magazines (if any) does it publish? What other media interests (if any) does it have?
How much does the magazine cost? How often is it published?
What is its circulation/readership?Does the magazine have a website?
The target audience for the magazine: What type of reader is it targeting?
How do you know this (i.e. types of articles and advertisements)?
How does the reader ‘interact’ with the magazine?
The cover of the magazine: Analyse the images on the cover; the types of facial expressions, body language, clothing, etc used.
What do they tell us about the target audience for the magazine? What else appears on the cover?
Why are particular typefaces, types of graphics, colours, etc used? Why are particular items in the magazine featured? Does the cover look similar to other magazines? If so, why? If not, how does it look different?
The ‘style’ of presentation of the magazine:What do you notice about the magazine’s presentation? Does it look cheap or expensive? How does it compare with other similar magazines? How does it use colour, print style, artwork, etc, to convey an overall effect?
The ‘mode of address’ of the magazine: How does it address its reader? How and when are readers allowed to address the magazine?What types of articles/features does it contain? What subjects are covered?
The advertisements that appear in the magazine: What are the main types of products being advertised? What is their price range? Who are they aimed at? Why are these products featured particularly? How do the models featured in the advertisements relate to the target audience?
Representations in the magazine: How are men and women represented? (look at both the images and the text) re there conflicting representations? If so, why is this? How do these representations relate to readership? Is there a limited range of representations for men and women? If so, what are they and why?
What groups do not appear in the pages of the magazine? Why?
Are celebrities featured in the magazine? If so, what kinds of celebrities? Why have they been chosen? The competition for the magazine: What other titles are in competition with it?What are their circulation/readership figures? How much do they cost? What are the similarities/differences?
and finally...
What do you think are the reasons for its popularity (or otherwise)? What does the magazine offer its readers? What ‘values’ or ideologies are implicit in the magazine?
Consider the title of the magazine: Why is it called that?What are the significant words?What connotations do they have?
The publisher of the magazine: Who publishes the magazine? What other magazines (if any) does it publish? What other media interests (if any) does it have?
How much does the magazine cost? How often is it published?
What is its circulation/readership?Does the magazine have a website?
The target audience for the magazine: What type of reader is it targeting?
How do you know this (i.e. types of articles and advertisements)?
How does the reader ‘interact’ with the magazine?
The cover of the magazine: Analyse the images on the cover; the types of facial expressions, body language, clothing, etc used.
What do they tell us about the target audience for the magazine? What else appears on the cover?
Why are particular typefaces, types of graphics, colours, etc used? Why are particular items in the magazine featured? Does the cover look similar to other magazines? If so, why? If not, how does it look different?
The ‘style’ of presentation of the magazine:What do you notice about the magazine’s presentation? Does it look cheap or expensive? How does it compare with other similar magazines? How does it use colour, print style, artwork, etc, to convey an overall effect?
The ‘mode of address’ of the magazine: How does it address its reader? How and when are readers allowed to address the magazine?What types of articles/features does it contain? What subjects are covered?
The advertisements that appear in the magazine: What are the main types of products being advertised? What is their price range? Who are they aimed at? Why are these products featured particularly? How do the models featured in the advertisements relate to the target audience?
Representations in the magazine: How are men and women represented? (look at both the images and the text) re there conflicting representations? If so, why is this? How do these representations relate to readership? Is there a limited range of representations for men and women? If so, what are they and why?
What groups do not appear in the pages of the magazine? Why?
Are celebrities featured in the magazine? If so, what kinds of celebrities? Why have they been chosen? The competition for the magazine: What other titles are in competition with it?What are their circulation/readership figures? How much do they cost? What are the similarities/differences?
and finally...
What do you think are the reasons for its popularity (or otherwise)? What does the magazine offer its readers? What ‘values’ or ideologies are implicit in the magazine?
Friday 18 September 2009
What you have to do:
Print
Preliminary excercise : using DTP and Photoshop, produce:
1. The front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead.
2. A mock-up of the layout of the contents page.
3. Main task: the front page, contents and double age spread of a new music magazine.
All images and text used must be original and produced by you. You must include a minimum of four images.
4. Blogging: Presentation of the research, planning and evaluation should be done in the format of a blog. This MUST be kept up to date. It should be as multi- platform as possible, for instance, you can film your focus group & interview them about magazines. You could film your photo shoot. Scan your flatplans & include those. You should include screen shots of links & quotes to research sources. Try nimating your mood board & include background music. You could keep a video diary of your progress through the work. You can create powerpoint presentations & upload them to slideshare to include on your blog. You can record a podcast of you answering the evaluation questions.
The more imaginative and multi-modal, the better!
Assessment:This unit is marked out of a total of 100 marks: 20 marks for presentation of the planning and research; 60 marks for the construction; 20 marks for the evaluation
Preliminary excercise : using DTP and Photoshop, produce:
1. The front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead.
2. A mock-up of the layout of the contents page.
3. Main task: the front page, contents and double age spread of a new music magazine.
All images and text used must be original and produced by you. You must include a minimum of four images.
4. Blogging: Presentation of the research, planning and evaluation should be done in the format of a blog. This MUST be kept up to date. It should be as multi- platform as possible, for instance, you can film your focus group & interview them about magazines. You could film your photo shoot. Scan your flatplans & include those. You should include screen shots of links & quotes to research sources. Try nimating your mood board & include background music. You could keep a video diary of your progress through the work. You can create powerpoint presentations & upload them to slideshare to include on your blog. You can record a podcast of you answering the evaluation questions.
The more imaginative and multi-modal, the better!
Assessment:This unit is marked out of a total of 100 marks: 20 marks for presentation of the planning and research; 60 marks for the construction; 20 marks for the evaluation
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