Here are my notes for my lesson about how media companies target audience. I worked as a part of a group but participated in the discussion. (Sorry that the notes are quite messy)
Name: Britney Spears - Teen Magazine
Issue (date): August 1999
Publisher: A Petersen Publication
Name: ELLE - Shiny Jennie
Issue (date): February 2022
Publisher: Hachette Livre, Lagardère Group
This is the photo of our notes based on the 2 magazines above:
This magazine research will not really help with my magazine project as the genre between them are completely different where here I researched about fashion magazines while I'm creating a travel magazine. However, from this research I learned more about how different designs and typographies such as the fonts and color connotations are used to target different target audiences as per concluded from the photo of my notes. Therefore, I can apply this knowledge to my own magazine that is targeting old people where I have to choose specific typographies, layout, and overall design that will most likely represent and attract them.
This is my unit test that I did in class where I had to write a response to how different target audiences are targeted by the media according to their demographics and psychographics.
One way on how media targets different target audiences are through the psychographics which includes their interest, aspirations or goals and through their demographics that includes age and income. These factors targets different target audiences as it categorizes a wide range of readers into a more niche and specific group of audiences. Demographics classifies them by their age, gender, income, and location while psychographics classifies them by their personality, interests, values, and goals as these are all more generalized and are more common to identify as some people would have the same general identification with the others. I am using Round the Table magazine published by Randy L. Scritchfield, CFP, LUTCF that was released on May-June 2023. It is a Business magazine targeted towards workers from any income group who works in the business field. This statement can be identified firstly in terms of their psychographics such as having interests of interpretations of the human mind. This is shown by the main cover image being a close-up illustration of a person’s head and a stairway inside it, therefore since the main cover image is used to give a hint of the overall content of the magazine, the content would be similar and related to it which may be about how people think, why they think that way, and possibly how readers can change that mindset. Because of this reason, the target audience would be people who studies the mindset of people, which may include psychologists, marketers, and business owners who wants to learn about the mindset of their consumers. According to the uses and gratification theory, they would read this magazine for surveillance as they aspire to attain more knowledge of how to understand the minds of their buyers and how they can go inside their audience’s minds in terms of persuading them to buy their product which can be implied from the illustration of stairway inside the person’s head. Furthermore, The font in the main cover line is sharp, bolded, and is in capital letters. This connotes seriousness and gives a sense of professionalism that is typically displayed as the personality and impression of business workers. Another example on how media targets different audiences would be the different demographics and psychographics they use in the magazine All Nissan X-Trail published by the Nissan Automobile company in the year 2018. It is a automobile magazine targeted towards the young to old middle age group as firstly, since it’s an automobile magazine that involves cars, the user’s age would be limited to the legal age, which is above 19. As the main cover image is a long shot image of a Nissan car and it shows both the exterior design and the interior, we can imply several implications and connotations that the company is trying to convey by showing the whole car. Firstly, the color of the car showcased in the cover is orange, this connotes liviness and energy that is typically represented as the personality of young people. However, in order to own a car, a specific income level should be reached and typically, people above their mid 20s have a stable income, therefore enabling them to purchase a car. In addition to that, the long shot camera angle allows us to see a hint of the interior design of the car which shows a 5 seater car. This implies that the car may be used for family purposes as it is spacious and more stable therefore, able to occupy a lot of people.
My teacher's feedback towards it:
- So why are they using a ‘young’ colourful car to target older people? Maybe they want the audience to feel young. Discuss further.
- Try and include more examples from the magazine that targets specific examples. (visuals, cover lines etc)
Reflection
Doing this unit test was quite stressful as I was pressured by the limited amount of time that I thought was not enough for me but in the end, I got a satisfying score so It made me happier and even though I didn't like the pressure, I see this as a a practice for my upcoming exam and my teacher's feedback towards it was helpful as it shows that I have lots of room for improvement so that next time, I can get a better understanding of what I have to write and get a better score. When learning for my unit test, I had to explore the connotations of specific things such as color and typography and this really showed me that even simple things as such has deeper meanings behind them and certain reasons as to why writers use them and how the usage has to be relevant with the demographics and/or psychographics their targeting. Not only that, in the process of learning for this unit test, I was rereading the research I made (in the research blogpost) and also researching more magazines, both that are related and not related and that really broaden my knowledge that targeting audiences from different demographics and psychographics are not just limited to the colors and typography used in this magazine, but everything else has to be taken into account such as the language (whether it should be informal or formal and that depends on the demographic of age) and the presence of websites and social media for further mode of engagement which may imply that the magazine is targeted towards young to middle aged readers as they are more involved in the social media world. After all this research did I realize that everything should be thought about in detail as before that I only thought of these factors briefly and therefore, this realization will really help in improving the making of my own magazine as I will be more careful in what I use and I put in my magazine so that everything goes well together consistently to align correctly with my target audience's interests and preferences.
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