Music Magazine Research

2. I have looked at a wide variety of magazines for my research. I have looked at ‘Rolling Stone’, ‘Top of
the Pops’ and ‘Q’. I have noticed that women are usually objectified. I also have noticed that the
content is a lot more celebrity gossip rather than about musicians. The magazines are generally
targeted at a young audience as the majority of artists featured are quite young with a large teenage
fan bases. The colour schemes of the magazines aimed at middle to upper class individuals tended
to stick to around 2-3 colours to look sophisticated. The magazine aimed at a lower class, younger
audience had a variety of very bright colours with an extremely crowded front cover. Observing and
evaluating a variety of magazines has helped me have a greater understanding of how I will set out
my magazine according to my target audience.

3. Analysing ‘Q’ Magazine
The cover image is of popular R&B singer, Amy Winehouse. The image is not
objectifying to women, which is unusual for a magazine. This shoot shows
mainly Amy’s full face, showing that the magazine is mainly focusing on her as
a person rather than an underdressed woman used to sell the product. I think
the reason that this particular shoot was chosen was to reflect and remember
her as the ‘voice of our time’. Most shots of Amy published before her death
by the media were portraying her in a negative light. It is sad that only after
her death that the media decided to publicize her for her talent and
personality. This is an example of how bias the media can be portraying
someone to be a bad person by only focusing on the negative aspects of
them.
The text creates a sympathetic approach towards Amy’s death. It says
how ‘we lost her’, implying that we all loved and cared for her. All of
the text is spread out around the cover image and the image even
covers part of the masthead. This implies that Amy is the main focus of
the magazine and demonstrates that she is the most important aspect
of it.
The magazine is thick and glossy.
By being a good quality magazine,
it aims for a target audience who
are willing to pay extra for it. This
shows the social classes that ‘Q’
aims for are upper-middle or
middle class, as these people
would be most likely to have
money to spare (as they would
have higher incomes), therefore
wanting good quality products to
get their money’s worth; this is
further demonstrated by it's high
retail price of £4.50.
The text which is used to draw in the reader is in re. This is to
make it stand out and be eye-catching so that the potential
reader will be intrigued and want to buy the magazine. The
exclusive is in a bold red box to also stand out and advertise
the ‘Amy Winehouse tribute CD’. These features will
encourage people to buy the magazine as it stands out. It grabs
the attention and interests the customer. ‘Q’ magazine
manage to do this well as the magazine is not too colourful and
tacky, yet the text still bold and appealing to the customer,
who would be looking for a classy and sophisticated magazine
– not a cheap, trashy and colourful magazine.
The iconic ‘Q’ masthead appeals to customers. Although it is slightly overtaken by the cover
image of Amy Winehouse, it still is a main feature of the magazine and takes up a large
amount of space. The letter ‘Q’ is enigmatic, bold and upper case, implying it is iconic and
important. This masthead departs from the conventions of normal magazines that have
their masthead among the top of their cover.
This quite simplistic
front cover suggests
the sophistication that
Q magazine are
looking to achieve. It
is in contrast many
lower production
value magazines
which usually have
cluttered front covers
that have limited
design considerations.

4. Analysing ‘Top of the Pops’ magazine
The front cover of this
magazine is very clustered and
colourful. This suggests that it
is aimed a fun, unsophisticated
reader. The bright, loud
colours also reflect that this
magazine would be aimed at a
younger audience, who would
tend to go for a colourful
magazine rather than one with
a more classy or mature colour
scheme (like ‘Q’).
The masthead is crowded and with
bold colours. This gives it a immature
look. It reflects what the target
audience will be for this magazine,
which would be young girls. The fact
that it is bright pink also suggests that
it would be targeted at stereotypical
young, female audience.
This feature suggests that this
magazine is targeted at a
stereotypical heterosexual, young
female audience. This is quite
objectifying to men as they are
used to advertise the magazine in a
provocative way.
This article reflects the fact that this
magazine is aimed at a lower to middle
class audience. This is because the
prices of the items advertised are low.
This is further implied by the subtitle
‘All the trends, none of the spend’
which suggests that readers usually
look for cheap items. This would be
common amongst working class to
middle class individuals, as they have
the least disposable income and
therefore would generally purchase low
priced items. For this reason, the
magazine is aiming at a lower to middle
class demographic audience.

5. Audience Demographics
I did some research on different audience demographics to give me a greater understanding what the social
classes are that different magazines aim for. According for ‘Q’ magazine’s media pack, it aims for A, B to C1
audiences. It’s colour scheme of red and black appeals to both genders.
A Top management, bankers, lawyers,
doctors, other highly salaried
professionals.
B Middle management, teachers, etc.
C1 Office supervisors, junior managers,
nurses.
C2 Skilled workers, tradespersons
D Semi-skilled and unskilled manual
workers.
E Unemployed, students, pensioners,
casual workers.

6. Target Audience research
The target audience for Q magazine is teenagers, both male and female. This is because each magazine varies genders of
artists. Also, the musicians featured in ‘Q’ vary from R&B to rock to pop. This would encourage a wider audience of readers
who like listening to different genres of music. The majority of readers will fall into the age category of teenagers as the
magazine focuses on the latest music.
A Feature from ‘Q’
I analysed an article from ‘Q’ to see how they address their readers and observe the language
that they use.
I noticed that the article was in quite formally written. The vocabulary used is quite advanced;
the use of long, complex words are used every so often. However, there is not much of a variety
in punctuation and the sentence structure is quite simplistic. I think this is done to enable the
magazine to reach a larger audience as it is relatively easy to read, but still formal. Only a
minority of people would want to read a really formal magazine which has complicated, harder
to read articles. The article is formal and does not direct the reader, this is because the
magazine is informative of information. This is because the articles are mainly informing people
about musicians and does not relate or talk about things directly concerned with the readers
themselves. The aim of the magazine is to educate the reader of issues within the music
industry, therefore the magazine has no need to relate to the reader on a personal level by
engaging with them.