Task 1 for coursework

1. Task 1
Music magazine research and
planning

2. 1. What is a music magazine.
• A music magazine generally covers a specific genre or sub-genre of
music.
• The main purposes of a music magazine is to inform , entertain and
persuade.
- The primary purpose would be to provide entertainment for the
audience.
- The second primary purpose would be to provide information.
- The secondary purpose would be to persuade. The purpose of an
advert would be to buy a CD or to go for a gig.
• The audience of music magazines would be to music listeners and
lovers. They would mostly be interested in music. Also, they could
be aspiring musicians and be interested in the latest gigs and news
about that specific genre of music. The music magazine would be
targeted at the core audience of the genre of music and tailored for
them rather than trying to pull people from other genres in.

3. 2. What content would you expect to
find in a music magazine?
• The types of articles include interviews with
artists, reviews of albums and concerts and
posters (to give away)for an entertainment
purpose.
• For an informative purpose there could be tour
dates and concerts dates provided and also
historical retrospectives looking back at different
careers .
• For a persuasion purpose, there could be profiling
for new artists or songs.

4. 3.What images would you expect to
find in a music magazine?
• Artists such as bands and individuals
• Upcoming events such as venues
• Studios – behind the scenes and “VIP” access
• Instruments – depending on the genre. For
example, it is probably more likely that in a
classical music magazine you would see the
instrument compared to a pop music
magazine. Merchandise

5. 4. Identify general
characteristics/features that you
would expect to find in all music
magazines
• The language would be specific to the genre and the audience. There
would certain jargon used.
• The frequency of the publication can vary from weekly, biweekly and
monthly. Generally, the more expensive and popular ones would be
monthly.
• The cost normally ranges from £2.50-£4.50
• The paper would be glossy and thin for less expensive magazines. NME,
for example, had a thin newspaper type of paper for the older audience.
• There is online presence so people know what is going on for example the
music magazine might have a twitter page or a website. The importance
and popularity of the music magazine differs the amount of online
presence it has. However, for example, NME only exists online now.
• (Talk about sans serif and masthead aka typical conventions)

6. 5.Identify the features/characteristics
they all have
• Main image of a well known artist in that genre with
usually the main coverline about them and big font size
for their name. This sells the magazine by selling
important faces as the audience of that genre would
recognise and identify with the artist.
• The masthead of the music magazine would tie in with
the certain genre and style of the magazine to appeal
to the audience. For example, the magazine “TOP OF
THE POPS” even has the music genre of “pop” in its
masthead.
• The coverlines include the main article , artist names
and then other topics of interest.

7. 6. Why are these features present on
all of the magazines? Why are they
important?
• Through the main image, the audience would
see an artist you recognise especially for that
genre the audience would know. This would
therefore mean that the audience can relate
and identify themselves with the artist.

8. 7 & 8. Take one of the magazine covers
and say what type of music magazine
it is and who is the target audience
• The genre of the magazine is pop. This is
because there are bright colours and the
artists shown are currently in the charts
and are mainstream.
• The main target audience for pop
magazines would be young girls. This is
shown through the fact that there are
mainly images of men , the bright pink and
yellow colour scheme and the hearts.
Hearts connotes romance which is
commonly linked with girls.
• Through the words “YOUR FASHION
FUTURE” this further implies that it is a pop
magazine for girls as fashion trends and
appearance would be an important aspect
of pop music as well as for young girls.