Evaluation, Representation

The demographic profile of my target audience is the psychographic profile of mainstream teenage girls and boys this is because they are 40% of the normal teenagers. They will be aged between 14 and 20 and belong to the social group working class or lower middle class, as this group of people will be most appreciative of the bands and artists that I have features in my magazine, they will also be able to afford my magazine as it is only £4.00 per month, where as if this were a weekly magazine then the price would be less but in the long run it would be more expensive, so I think that this is more beneficial for the magazine to be published monthly opposed to weekly. My target audience will get up in the mornings at around 11 o’clock, unless they have an alarm clock which means that they have to get up for something important, such as school, college or work. But sometimes they will have to get up early to earn their weeks money for petrol for their moped, by doing a paper round. My target audience would live in an urban setting, this is because they will be more aware of their surrounding and be interested in all of the latest music releases because they are constantly surrounded by it in their everyday life. For breakfast my target audience will have some crisps and some Coca-Cola, this is because mainly because these are convenience foods and these things are high in sugar and fats, they will be ready for the day ahead as their body will be filled with caffeine. After that they might watch their favourite programmes on the television, these might include the ‘X Factor’; which is very popular between working class teenagers, or they may watch ‘Celebrity Juice’ which is very crude but this age group would find very entertaining. My target audience will shop in shops such as ‘Super dry’, ‘H&M’, ‘New Look’ and ‘River Island’. All of these shops are very popular s they hold affordable fashion in the high street. They will see celebrities on the television and in magazines who are wearing similar things to what they have seen in the high-street.


The image on the front cover of this special issue of NME is similar to my main image on the front cover of my magazine in several ways. Firstly the images have both been taken in black and white, this is good because it draws the eye to the viewer as the light is more visible on the faces of the subjects, so it draws the viewer’s eye to the faces of the subjects in the image. Another similarity is the fact that there are five people depicted on the front cover, this is significant because it shows that a band with five people is normal for people to see on the cover of a magazine, therefore it doesn’t look out of the ordinary. Another similarity is that the people in both the images have been grouped together, so they look closer together as a band. In both magazines the subjects are all looking directly at the camera this makes the audience feel more connected with the people featured on the front of the magazine, this will then draw the audience into buying the magazine. All of the people on both of the front covers are male, some people could read this as being sexist, but in my magazine I think that it gives a really good representation of male teenagers as they are often perceived as being stereotypically put into groups (chav, thief, smoker,) so the representation of the male gender in my magazine is good because it will create these people as a role model for the people who read the magazine and see the it is ‘cool’ to do something with your life.

The main difference between the two images is the fact that the NME magazine image has been taken as a long shot, so the viewer can see the whole of the people depicted, whereas in my magazine I have taken the image as a medium close up as the viewer can only see the faces of the people featured in the image. Another different feature is the subjects themselves, in my magazine the band looks a lot younger than the mature band on the cover of NME. But this is a good thing because the target audience for my magazine and NME are very different; I have photographed people of the same age range as my targeted audience.

I think that my magazine has a pro-consumerist stance as this magazine will rely on advertising for a considerable part of its income, this is so it will have enough money for some issues to have a free gift, this money would also pay for the competition prizes, and salaries. Therefore this magazine will promote the products featured in its pages for the readers to buy. I think there will be a limited number of advertisements in this magazine as people don’t pay their money to look at adverts; there will be no more than twenty adverts in my magazine as it has to be cost effective. We will only advertise products that we feel will appeal to the target market, such as Super dry(very popular high street shop, this will create the company lots of customers), HMV ( where young people go to but reasonable priced DVDs and CDs), chocolate bars/sweets( as this food is quick and easy for teenagers to buy), fast food (this is unhealthy but tasty food which is available 24/7), and iPhone apps (most teenagers will have an iPhone, iPod or iPad so this will be a good advertisement for the companies which make these apps to advertise them to their target market) .