Key Concepts applied to a Music Magazine

1. Key Conecpets applied
to a Music Magazine

2. Magazine History
 The word magazine originates from the French word
‘magasin’ which means ‘storehouse’. This is
appropriate because magazines tend to store
information about a certain topic.
 The first ever magazine was ‘The Gentlemen’s
Magazine of London’, which first began in 1731.

3. Magazine v Newspaper
There are many reasons as to why magazines are very
different to newspapers, these include:
 Magazines are thicker, printed in colour on glossy
paper.
 Magazines are published less frequently than
newspapers, e.g. once a week/month.
 Don’t consist of the previous days events, they don’t
usually break news, they tend to feature material about
newsworthy people or events.
 Newspapers are up to date with current world affairs.

4. Magazine Genres
Magazines cover a huge range of genres and the range is
widening all the time, 20 Men’s magazines did not exist.
Different example of magazine genres:
 Music
 Fashion
 Cookery
 Sport
 Gossip

5. Magazine Audience
The magazine market has seen a high degree of
audience fragmentation. The publishing costs for
magazines are very low therefore very small readerships
can be catered for at a profit. For example, there are not
just music magazines, there are different genres within
music magazines.

6. Front Covers
Front Covers are so important for magazine brands so
that they are able to create a recognisable identity for the
magazine and so that they are able to diffrenetiate from
their competitors.
The genre of the magazine needs to be clearly shown on
the front cover so that the target audience will be attracted
to it.

7. 4 Key Concepts
Representation
Institution
Genre
Audience

8. Representation
Representation shows how the
magazine is being presented.
The magazine shown on the right is
shoeing what they believe
tween/teenage girls should be
reading about. However this could be
viewed in a negative way because it
does not give any insight into real life
occurrences.

9. Institution
Institution is all about who made
the magazine.
The magazine on the right was
made and published by a large
conglomerate ‘Bauer Media’

10. Genre
Genre relates to what to magazine
is mainly about.
It is clear to see that the magazine
on the right is the rock genre. This
can be realised due to the name of
the magazine, the main image and
the artists on the coverlines.

11. Audience
Audience is about what type of people would read the
magazine.
The target audience for a pop magazine would typically
be females ages 15-18.
Whereas the target audience for a Rock magazine would
be males ages 19-30.