2. Genre and Target Audience.
My music magazine is targeted towards young teenagers aged around 12-16 years of
age, with the main focus being around females. It consists of promoting new and
current pop artists as well as challenging some of the conventions of normal pop
magazines.
The pop genre tends to be full of life and is surrounded by high levels of creativity in
terms of the actual music itself and the videos which accompany it. As my target
audience is generally young female teens, they are known to look for the latest trends,
gossip and seek social stimulation. By including fashion in my magazine it represents
young girls as very dynamic and up to date with fashion; further showing that they are
constantly developing in terms of creativity and social status.
3. Mise en Scene and Images.
By selecting the outfits my ‘artist’ wore on the cover page shows how my music magazine
projects the latest trends in fashion and helps to encourage young teens to read it.
However it also represents my target audience as it includes the type of clothes they look
for which is skirts, blouses, jeans, dyed hair and many other elements. By including these
aspects it shows that the social group I aim for are often known for seeking inspiration from
celebrities and magazines as they believe that this will help them develop socially in life.
The kind of styles achieved here further support the type of urban aura my social group
comes from. This is because many of the clothes can be brought from local clothing brands
and often high-street stores, therefore suggests a middle class as they clothes are
affordable and neither too expensive. The use of the brick wall with some graffiti on it in my
cover image further shows an urbanised area instead of a higher class scene. This helps my
target audience identify to the setting seen in the image and creates a personal attachment
to the magazine.
Another key aspect of the image used is the fact that I included a race other than someone
who may be Caucasian. This is because it challenges the stereotypical association of white
people and pop and enables me to branch out and appeal to all kinds of ethnic groups.
4. Language.
The use of language included in my magazine addresses young teens as it rejects any
explicit content and overly formal language, however does not embrace slang terms as
such as they are still quite young.
In modern society young teenagers are known to use informal texts and short
sentences which are visible on my double page, as the answers are simplified to keep
the attention of the young audience. On the other hand slang is not something which
is encouraged in young people hence why I had rarely included it throughout my
magazine.
5. Colour schemes
The colour schemes used throughout my music magazine tends to be white, pink and
very little black for the texts. This is because the colour pink is often included in many
aspects of young teenagers lives, majorly females. It represents the idea of being
youthful, girly and fashionable which is one of the reasons why there was so much
involvement within my magazine.
The reasons for not including much black in my magazine is due to the fact that it is
often linked to punk rock and ‘screamo’ music when excessively used. This is not the
image I am trying to perceive and would seem as though I am directing my magazine
towards ‘emo/scene’ type of people rather than people who listen to pop.
6. Conclusion
Overall, I believe that the majority young female girls are very creative, dependent and
dynamic. This is because they love being stylish and are inspired by clothing styles
most celebrities wear. I represent this idea through the use of fashion in my magazine
images throughout each page.
They are very dependent in the sense that they look up to multiple artists and almost
try to mimic their actions in order to develop socially in modern society. In order to
represent this I used coverlines suggesting interviews with different artists so that they
could read the articles and gain some outlook of the persons life, as this is one of the
common ways in which young teenage girls gain information on a certain celebrity.
What is also common in young teenage girls is the girly, youthful stage seen through
the colours they like and the way they speak which is very immature and gossipy. In
order to represent this I made sure that there were no explicit content in my magazine
as well as pink and white colours to imply the associated gender which is female.
7. Future Improvements
Even though I have paid a lot of attention in regards to adjusting my magazine in order
to appeal to a particular social group, I feel as though I could have made more
improvements to make it more professional. For example:
• Including thumbnails directed to social networks within my spreads. This is
because they are increasingly making an impact on young teenagers lives; whether
it is updating statuses or posting pictures of their days- it is seen as a necessity in
modern society. Therefore by applying this in my magazine I would be able to
create a personal connection to my target audience which is the younger
generations (12-16 years) and would be representing how our current generation
uses social media in everyday life.