AS Media Studies - Unit G321

1. Audience Profile – Genre: Indie/Alternative music
Target Audience:
Gender and Age (Hartley’s 7 Subjectivities) and why
The target audience is young hardcore music fans, who want to know about
underground and unknown artists, rather than big famous artists that other
magazines focus on. This mean that the target demographic for this are mainly
men as they make up 73% of the NME readership, and generally younger
readers (17 – 33), this is because the average age of an NME reader is 25.
According to statistics, 33 is the age at which people stop listening to new music,
and begin to stick solely to what they know they like, therefore I will make this
age the kind of cutoff and try to make I appeal to people under that age.
Socio-Economic Needs and why:
I want the magazine to be easily accessible to as much of the population as
possible, in order to do this I should make it cheap and so it is easier to afford for
people in the C2DE profiles, since the majority of the population are in these
three categories meaning that in theory the magazine will sell better, also if it is
accessible to C2DE profiles, it is therefore also accessible to ABC1 profiles and
there fore there will be higher sales. This however might be contradicted by the
fact that a lot of fans of very underground and indie music are probably more
middle class people and are therefore in the BC1C2 profiles, however due to the
fact that they make up most of the genre’s populace, the magazine will also
appeal to E/D Category.
Katz’ Uses & Gratifications Theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy of
needs
I want my magazine to be informative about music and I want people to get
something from it, so it will be informative and educational. I will also provide
interviews with famous iconic artists so that they can identify with the magazine.
I also want to have things like reviews of albums and bands so that people who
have an admiration for the subject can enjoy the magazine. I think the magazine
will most likely appeal to Explorers in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Stereotype(s):
People who have an admiration for punk and alternative culture, or
underground music in general, people who listen to music all the time and
consider themselves knowledgeable on the subject, Muso’s.
Candidate No: 1016