Audience Theories

"Audiences are not blank sheets of paper on which media messages can be written; members of an audience will have prior attitudes and beliefs which will determine how effective media messages are." - Abercrombie 1996, 140

1. Dominant reading: 

Dominant reading is where the reader shares the programme's code (its meaning system of values, attitudes, beliefs and assumptions). It fully accepts the preferred reading, a reading which may not have been the result of any conscious idea on the part of the programme creators. 

2. Negotiated reading:

When a reader partly shares the programme's code and broadly accepts the preferred reading but modifies it to reflect their position and interests, this is called negotiated reading. 

"No audience member will interpret the media message in the same way..."

3. Oppositional reading:

The reader doesn't share the code and rejects the preferred reading, offering an alternative interpretation. 

Learning these above theories, I will make sure to include recognised codes in my music magazine to grab the audience and reader's attention. I am now aware that codes are all interpreted differently so I can consider this when my product is completed and expect a mixture of views and opinions. 

Initial Ideas - Mind Map

Questionnaire - Results

Above are the results from my questionnaire that I created on surveymonkey, which I have presented in pie charts and taken screen shots of the last two, as they are harder to transform into this style of graph. Also, by doing this it allowed me to see the percentage of answers, making it clearer to establish the largest vote for each question. I mainly aimed this questionnaire at my target audience of young adults and teenagers, as it appears that over 50% (68%) fitted into this age range. However, I included people over the age of 21 to participate as to gain a range of responses and possibly more views that I can take into consideration. 

I firstly asked whether or not Pop-Rock music was something that interested them, and gained a mostly positive response with 67% of people answering 'yes'. Upon further investigation I found that among these 67%, many fell into the category of my target audience as they were below the age of 21. Furthermore, those who replied 'no' were those who were over the age of 21. From this I can conclude that although there were some who did not find interest in my chosen Pop-Rock genre, those who did remain in my target audience of younger people, giving me confidence that I have selected an appropriate genre for my magazine. Next, I asked which of the Masthead names worked best with this Pop-Rock genre, and the vote clearly went to 'Fusion', which I can't help but agree with working in a music magazine. I can now take this into consideration and contemplate using this as my final title. I can also see from the feedback that most people would be willing to pay between £2.00-£2.50 maximum, so I will also bear that in mind when displaying the price of the magazine on the front cover. 

Most people (21/25) voted for articles on their favourite artists being an important factor that persuades them to purchase music magazines, so I will therefore try and make my double page spread as appealing as possible to make people want to read it in this way. The next important factor was that of images, with 11 votes out of 25, which encourages me to take care with the pictures I take and choose to use in my magazine, as they grab the target audience's attention right away. The last question I included as primary research for the type of artists I could incorporate into my magazine such as The Script, Coldplay, and John Mayer, and this questionnaire confirmed that they will appeal to my target audience. 

Finally, perhaps one of my favourite questions was to investigate what appeals/doesn't appeal to people about my chosen genre. Looking at the responses I can see that most people within my target audience found Pop-Rock music to be catchy, diverse, fun, memorable and interesting, which inspires me to create a magazine that captures all of these key ideas. 

Overall, I'm very happy with the results of my primary research, as they have, and will continue to help me throughout the creation of my music magazine, and have given me a further insight into the view of my target audience and reader. 

Advantages and Disadvantages - Questionnaires

As I am in the process of carrying out my own questionnaire/survey in order to collect primary research for music magazines, I have decided to investigate the many advantages and disadvantages this type of research includes. 

Advantages:

The responses are gathered in a standardised way, so questionnaires are more objective, certainly more so than interviews. Generally it is relatively quick to collect information using a questionnaire. However, in some situations they can take a long time not only to design but also to apply and analyse (see disadvantages). Potentially information can be collected from a large portion of a group so you gain a bigger insight into your target audience.

Disadvantages:

Open ended questions can generate large amounts of data that can take a long time to process and analyse. However, you could limit the space available so the responses are concise or to sample the group of people and survey only a portion of them. Respondents may answer superficially especially if the questionnaire takes a long time to complete. Finally, some people may not be willing to answer the questions fairly.  

Overall, questionnaires clearly have their own strengths and weaknesses which I need to take into consideration when reviewing my data. By creating a survey I'm hoping to gain useful data and information including opinions and suggestions to help me to produce a successful music magazine. 

Questionnaire

In order to carry out a piece of general primary research, I decided to design an online questionnaire on surveymonkey to gather information about the readers of music magazines.  I created a variety of open and closed questions so that the person can give their full, anonymous opinion, giving me more useful feedback that I can use for my own music magazine. Such questions involve the potential title, artists used, and price of the magazine, where I can inevitably review the results that will influence the choices I make to do with this magazine in the future development. 

Music Magazine Survey:

Poster Deconstruction Task.

Task: Present a deconstruction of a poster of your choice. 

In a recent presentation I completed a deconstruction of the movie poster for 'Taken'. I received the following feedback: 

"Firstly, it was very impressive you applied the new terminology of Z read, having only just learnt it, well done! I really like your link to the James Bond poster, now try to consider why they have done this. What might this suggest? This was a very detailed presentation, which certainly looked closely at the poster. Well done for considering the writing and linking it to the poster."

Target/s:

• Keep up using the terminology. 
• Consider how this poster may pose a problem for the reader - he has the makings of a bad guy, but we know it's his daughter who is missing.
• Why is it symbolic there is a single man in the foreground?

 Task: Present a deconstruction of the NHS quit smoking advert.

In another presentation, this time on a poster for an NHS smoking campaign, I was given more feedback:

"Hannah, this was another excellent piece of analysis - well done! You made some really insightful comments about the set up of the picture - particularly the way the background forces the woman to be even more in focus - now consider why they wanted this to be the case. Good thoughts on why the advertisers used this idea; I agree it was probably a shock tactic."

Target/s:

• Keep up the excellent level of analysis.
• Start to consider why an advertiser would want to use shock tactics - who does this appeal to?
• Consider who this poster is actually aimed at - the smoker or their family?

Initial Research Task.

With over 3,000 consumer magazines for sale in the UK, the music magazine market is very competitive at just under 200 different types that cover the many different genres. These include anything from Classical, Country, Rock, Reggae, to R&B, and even sub genres such as Blues, Contemporary and Teen Pop.

I have chosen 3 of these particular music magazines which you would generally find in different genres to analyse for my initial research, two of which I have my own copies of so I can get a real look at the covers for myself. 

The first is a copy of Q Magazine where I observed the fact that this cover conveys a general pop genre, which is not usually the case with all Q issues. 

 For the second magazine, I analysed how this Top of the Pops Magazine uses many techniques and devices to relate to the target audience of fans of the teen pop genre. 

Lastly, I deconstructed this Mojo Music Magazine to show a contrasting cover that portrays the classic rock genre. 

As a result of this initial research, I have decided to narrow down my chosen genre for my own music magazine and create a pop/rock magazine. This enables me to incorporate key elements from different music magazines I have analysed previously that have inspired me and can help me with my own.

Q Magazine Cover Analysis.

Here is my front cover analysis that I completed on a special edition of Q Magazine for my initial research.