Evaluation 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

From the beginning of my planning stage I had a clear idea of the type of target audience I wanted my magazine to appeal to. As my magazine is of the rock genre my magazine will have to include certain conventions to appeal to this very specific audience. My audience will have to enjoy this type of music but also will dress, watch TV programmes etc that will reflect this genre. My magazine is aimed at people from their mid teens to their early twenties as these are the people I would associate with being interested in rock.

A couple of bands I would expect my readers to listen to would be bands like You Me At Six, The Arctic Monkeys, Blink 182 and possibly even some older rock bands such as Queen, Kiss and Bon Jovi. This is because they reflect the rock genre very well and also as most of these bands are well known I would expect my readers to have heard of them. If I owned a rock magazine I would incorporate these bands into the magazine as they are a good selling point as they are well known by many people. I also would expect them to listen to older rock bands as rock as a genre is best portrayed by older bands I feel such as the ones I mentioned. 

Some places/brands I thought my audience would shop at would be places such as Topshop/Topman Urban Outfitters and even some vintage stores. This is because these places sell the style of clothes I would expect my audience to wear. They sell quite unique and different styles of clothing which I thought my audience would be interested in. A brand that immediately makes me think of the rock genre is Doc Marten. This is because when I see people in public, on the television etc that I associate with the rock genre they are very likely to be wearing a pair of these. A piece of clothing I also associate with the rock genre is a leather jacket. This is because leather has always been worn by people associated with the rock business. I would expect my target audience to probably own both of these items. 

I also thought about types of TV programmes and also films that my audience may enjoy watching. As my audience are interested in the rock genre this made me think that they would probably be interested in shows/films that were a bit dark and supernatural. I chose the TV programme Vampire Diaries as it explores the supernatural side of things which I thought my audience would enjoy. Also the film Donnie Darko is classed as a thriller and is very psychological which I think my audience would be interested in. Both of these also contain younger characters about the same age as my target audience which is a reason I think they would watch them as they would find a way to be able to relate to them, they also explore a wide range of issues in the programmes which would keep my audience interested.

I think these type of people would buy my magazine as I has tried to tailor it to fit in with my ideas of what my audience would listen to, wear, watch etc. This means that I included all of the conventions which I thought would attract them. I dressed my model's in clothes which I thought my audience would wear themselves and also named the magazine 'Reckless' which I think is a lifestyle choice my magazine readers would adopt. I also tried to not make my magazine only suitable for one gender by using both males and females in my magazine. I have a price of £3.00 for my magazine which I think is a sufficient amount of money to pay for a magazine of this genre and also not too much for my audience to pay as some of them will be at college, university etc and on a tight budget. By having an idea in my head of the type of people I wanted to buy my magazine before I constructed it I feel I have managed to produce a magazine which they would definitely want to buy.