UNIT 6 LO : How Media Producers Create Products for Specific Audiences

Unit 6 LO2 Understand how media producers create products for specific audiences

 For this task the magazine i will be analyzing is the well known magazine called 'New scientist'

 You need to analyse a magazine title and decide
:how the target audience is identified for the magazine
:define the magazine as niche, mainstream or alternative
:how the magazine publishers present and layout the magazine to that target audience (discus use of content, pictures, fonts, captions)
:identify any codes or conventions used in the magazine (linguistic, visual, symbolic, technical)
 
Task 1
Analyse The codes and conventions that magazines use
: visual: pictures and imagery used in the magazines    give examples. i.e. live shot of football games in four four two magzine or pictures of men holding fish in Angler magzine
: lingusitic: the language the magazine uses based on it's target audience the language used in GQ will be different form the language used in Kerrang give examples.
: construction of content: articles, features, anything that is written about in the magazine. 
: layout and selection of content: words, images, colours, fonts, captions  You can make comparisons between similar magazines Hello & Womans Weekly have similar content etc
 
Choose a magazine to analyze, it can be any title you like,  a magazine you read often is probably a good idea.
 
You'll mainly need to analyse the cover and contents page but you can highlight any other points about the magazine that help
 
Task 2
Construct a short survey for at least two people about your magazine that 
: Hypothesizes the magazines target audience i.e. do you think that asian brides magazine is aimed at 10-15 20-30 or 30-40 yr olds
Use a mixture of Quantative and Qualitative questions. Write questions that will help you establish what you think the target audience is for your magazine.
 
: How is the target audience identified i.e use of focus groups, audience panels, trialing and testing, reviews, complaints
How do magazine publishers use these methods to define and refine their target audience. GIVE EXAMPLES You can use the National readership survey to help you  
 
Task 3
Put your findings into a powerpoint presentation that explains the findings of your research questionnaire. 
You can use a lot of the research you have done for Unit 6 to help explain the findings of your research questionnaire. There are opportunities to link your findings to different audience theories (hypodermic etc) and different types of audiences active and passive.