This document discusses analyzing the content and appeal of music magazines. It suggests identifying the typical features of music magazines like interviews, reviews, articles, and listings. The document then introduces uses and gratifications theory, which proposes that media texts fulfill four uses or gratifications for audiences: information, personal identity, integration and social interaction, and entertainment. Students are tasked with applying this theory to explain how a specific music magazine appeals to its target readership.

1.  To be able to identify the key features
of content withhin a music magazine
 Can you use theory to explain how a
magazine appeals to its audience?
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2. Which features and articles would you expect
to find in a magazine?
What’s in a magazine?
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3. What can you see in a music magazine
• Take 2 or 3 magazines and note down all the
different areas of content
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4. Music Magazine Contents
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Features
Editorial
Contents page
Interviews with musicians
Music reviews
Letters page
Lists (Top 10, 50, 100...)
Festival previews
Music news
New music
Articles about gigs

5. 5
Extension Questions
1. Identify the purpose of each typical feature.
2. What ‘value’ does each feature add to the
publication as a whole?

6. 6
Why do magazines appeal to their audiences?
What do consumers get from each section of a magazine?
Letters page
Interviews with musicians
Music news

7. The Uses and gratifications theory
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8. Essentially it says that there are 4 ‘uses’ of a media text
that ‘gratify’ the audience
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9. Can you apply this theory to a
magazine of your choice?
• How does the NME appeal to its audience?
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10.  To be able to identify the key features of a music
magazine
 Can you use theory to explain how a magazine
appeals to its audience?
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