Task 2

Defining an Audience Task 2

Q Target Audience• From looking at the reader profile on Q’s website it

states that Q has a target audience of a medium age of 32 years old with 70% being male. They claim it has the youngest and affluent audience than any other music magazine.

• In the UK Q is the No. 1 actively purchased music magazine with a 369,000 readership.

• Overall the readers have a 73% ABC1 social status which expresses the high quality photographs and slightly complex text.

• In the media pack it has given me a lot of information into their audience from a large paragraph on a subject person who reads Q. This is shown to advertisers and they can see if they appeal to this particular audience. For instance, National Express advertises to this particular audience because they are a young audience but will have enough money to travel on trains and will most likely use their service to work, while reading this magazine.

ImagesQ’s readers prize its lavish photography, in-depth reporting and sense of humor. -www.bauermedia.co.uk/uploads/QMediaPack

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The images have all been photographed in a high quality standard to show the popular bands and artists. The front covers of Q magazine’s are usually shot with a medium close up to make the artists seem close to the audience. A high quality shot is edited make the artists look as good as possible and to make the magazine seem professional, relating to the 73% ABC1 social class as this audience has the money to buy a high quality music magazine. Inside Q a large interview is usually placed in the middle of each monthly issue from the artist on the front cover. In this page spread there is usually one high quality image on one side of the double page spread, which is shown with the Lady Gaga interview to the left, as well as other issues I have looked at. In the image inside the issue of Lady Gaga you can see she is wearing a lot of make up but not a lot of clothing. In fact a few chains and her own hands cover her breasts to keep it from being too explicit as it has a high social context to follow. A black and white filter or lowering the shadows are used on the photographs to make it sophisticated but it also fits with the unique music they talk about and artists they photograph.

WordsThe text on the cover is simple with the names of the bands

and artists standing out in a large font or a bright colour, which will grab the audiences attention on what they are interested on the most. There is not a lot of information on the bands except for the main interview with the Arctic Monkeys. On the front cover the use of an alliteration is used for a simple effect to lure the audience quickly in with “Bread, booze and backing cakes,” an unusual three things put together which gets people interested on the article.Just from the look of the interview inside Q you can see it has a large amount of information. This shows it is targeted at an audience who have time to read a lot of information about artists and music. The large ‘L’ in the middle of the page draws away the amount of text and it adds some colour to the page so when flicking through you do no miss this great amount of text. The text is small, again showing that the target audience have time on their hands to read about music and music is a particular interest for them. This is supported by the reader profile below from the media pack.

Chris is 29 years old and lives in Leeds. Music is more important to him than anything else. It’s at the centre of his social life. It soundtracks all the best moments in his life. It’s his identity, his social currency and his world. - The Reader

This was taken from the media pack from one of its very own readers. It helps Q fit musical influence interviews and information on festivals. A positive review in Q can make a bands career.

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ColoursA simple three colour scheme is used; red, white and black. The colours are sometimes in different shades e.g. black to a dark grey. A simple colour scheme attracts the audience more the images and the colour white is there to highlight certain words (Arctic Monkeys and White Lies).The blue banner across the top is there to highlight 25 years of triumph and tragedy, a 17 page special inside. These are called stickers and when they are placed on a page to inform the audience about something exciting inside, or grabbing their attention or getting that certain person to buy the issue. Highlighting it in a bright blue colour contrast and makes it look more important

The dark colours complement the type of music in Q; a grudge and unique genre. Altogether the colours are formatted well together and compliment each other, making the magazine look professional and new. Inside the issue the colours are very simple with just one large L in red which instantly links it to Lady Gaga. She is well known and popular therefore doesn’t need any recognition inside the magazine with her unique photographs. Having a black and white image makes the photograph look sophisticated contrasting Lady Gaga in the image with her not wearing anything. With simple colours it leads to a sophisticated audience interested in both images and text.

LayoutThe layout is simple, sophisticated and easy to read. There is a 50/50 ratio of images this shows both are as important as the other and that the audience has quite a high status and a passion for music because there is a lot of formative text as well as high quality images throughout the magazine. They also have time to read a high quality magazine like Q.• On the front cover of Q 90% of the writing is towards the bottom. The

audience will look at the photograph of the Arctic Monkeys first, because it is the most dominate thing on the cover and then they will be drawn to the text below. A caption brings you into the Arctic Monkeys interview and some more information about bands and artists relevant to the same genre as the Arctic Monkeys. On this issue it also advertises a special edition magazine in a form of a sticker, again to grab the readers attention quickly. The reader may have enough time to read quality work but they want to be able to quickly find their favorite music magazine.

• Inside Q it gives the reader a great quality of high resulted images of their favourite bands which attracts the ABC1 social grade as they wouldn’t want camera phone images live from a Arctic Monkeys concert, but a well thought out image that takes up a lot of space inside the issues. Lots of text in the interview gives you lots of insiders about the particular artist but not in a gossip magazine way, more sophisticated and journeyed through their promotion.

AnchorageAnchorage is basically used in media to attach a meaning to something through either the matching words to images or the juxtaposition that constructs a meaning. Music magazine do not use anchorage as much as gossip or women’s magazines as they are mainly aimed for a male gender. From looking at many pages in Q you can see most interviews will cut out a quote that sounds interesting to make the audience feel a certain way for the band or artist. For instance the pulled quote on this page makes the audience feel sorry for the band as they have used phrases such as “we weren’t taken seriously” and “that really hurt us”. This draws the audiences attention and causes them to want to know what happened and read the article. Pull quotes are used a lot on interviews in many genres of magazines. No matter what genre it is always to grab the audiences attention. More pull quotes are used in magazines with younger audiences such as teenage girl magazine Shout, there is more use of pull quotes to keep them interested and wanting to carry on reading.

Codes and ConventionsColour Scheme

Q is a magazine which specifies in new but unique music. A lot is in the indie/rock genre. The codes and conventions of the indie/rock genre is dark shades of colour to represent the dark alleys where this kind of music was first found and the mysterious grudge within the music. Magazines like Q who also follow the dark codes and conventions of an indie/rock magazine are NME as they also portray the indie/rock genre and are competition to Q therefore Q uses high quality and brighter colours to make it stand out.The front cover uses dark grays, blacks and whites to fit with the indie genre that the Arctic Monkeys come from. The gray background contrasts with the bright red background for the Q logo. This helps the audience easily find Q on the shelf of a newsagents because of its bright contrasting colours that catch your eye. Inside Q the colours are very simple again, but it has a large contrast with the bright red initial on the interview. This makes a statement just like the indie genre and the artists, for instance Lady Gaga.

Example of the colours used in Q and the contrast of the red against the neutral colours

Codes and ConventionsPhotography

Usually music magazine use low quality images taken at concerts, festivals and gigs but Q want to give their readers high quality images. This lets Q have an advantage over other music magazine as both older and younger music fan audiences like high quality images of their favourite artists.Inside the magazine they product large quality images on one full page, like the Lady Gaga photograph, so people can take these pictures out and pin them on their wall. This is extremely common in music magazines for them to incorporate posters inside issues to get teens to buy their magazine. Posters are a great way in music to sell a magazine as people will go out and buy the physical copy and not on a e-reader such as a kindle.High quality images are a great way to grab an audience’s attention because more often or not, they look at the artist on the front cover before reading the text, therefore the images are what sells a music magazine. This would not be the same for a hobby magazine as that audience read that genre of magazine for an informational purpose rather than an entertainment purpose. For Q, photography is a large part to appeal to their audience. They want high quality images to appeal to their high status audience. In magazines such as Cosmopolitan the models are edited a lot but with Q the lighting may be edited and small wrinkles/blemishes may be edited out but only for the front cover and large interviews.

Codes and ConventionsFonts

A common convection for Q’s magazine is to have a large single letter of the artists first initial under their interview. Having a convention like this makes it easy to fine the main interview in the issue because while flicking though the pages you will see the flash of red and know what this is the interview page. The interview is very full of text but it uses a simple serif font to keep it professional and looking slightly like a newspaper making people think the information is important.The rest of the text does not take attention away from the images. If Q wants to make some text stand out they will make the size bigger or change the colour. The basic serif fonts keep the magazine looking simple and sophisticated for a music magazine. Q is an easy but informative magazine to read. It has more information about artists than other magazines in the same genre such as Kerrang but this is because Q’s audience have a busy lifestyle but they still have time to be interested in their musical interests.

Codes and ConventionsModes of Address

Q lets the artist talk for themselves, there is not a lot of addressing the audience in the interview pages. These are more informational on the artist being interviewed. For example there will be some information about the artist, a quarter of a page, then the rest is the interview from the artist. It is not conversational based but written more like a story which is unusual. You can tell this music magazine is for an older audience than NME or Karrange’s audience as these magazines use slang words and address the audience a lot more. Having a magazine that is towards the same genre as others but addresses a different social grade and age range is more likely to sell a lot more and Q achieves this standard well. The way it addresses the audience shows a ABC1 social grade as it is not informal or uses lots of slang.

The ways that magazine gets feedback is from emails, questionnaires and interviews. This helps them know what they need to change to access their target audience to full potential. When connecting to their audience, in parts of the magazine such as feedback from a previous issue or send in a picture of them and a famous person, they do this to seem like they care and feel connected to you personally to get your opinion on things.