Brief 3 Music Magazine and Online

How do you intend to use the four areas of the media theoretical framework to communicate meaning and meet the requirement of your chosen brief? (approx. 400 words)

Product 1 -

I intend to create a mid-market music magazine for aspiring 16-25-year-olds. I will do this by targeting my content to what this demographic has interest in. This will be done by using celebrity endorsements on the front cover and multiple topics, features, news, interactive, interviews, live, and reviews. In audience research, I have found trends such as a rise in pop music, especially in female audiences. I will have a high image-to-text ratio on the front cover, while the contents page will feature more text than images. This layout aligns with the typical codes and conventions of traditional music magazines like Billboard. I intend for my magazine to represent women as powerful and inspirational in the music industry. This will be done through using strong pictures of the artists; however, it will also be inclusive as it will feature two different races/ethnicities. As a result, the front covers should reach out to the impressionable generation who will align themselves with the values of this magazine. It will also include intertextuality such as album vinyls (a growing trend in Gen Z) and interviews with big artists. This will ensure that the magazine reaches the ABC1 audience and then the bright colours and recent media coverage can reach the 16-25-year-olds.

Product 2 -

In my industry research, I can see clear evidence for print news gradually declining and online news becoming increasingly more popular. Also, my demographic is part of Generation Z, meaning that they grew up with an online presence, therefore making them digital natives, this means that my magazine must have a strong online presence to interest and stand out to the demographic. I intend to use a range of topics found in the music industry to represent the interests of a wider number of the audience to ensure many of them will have something they enjoy reading. The layout would include simple and easy to use features in order to navigate the users on the website, however I plan to incorporate aspects such as easter eggs, this will lead the user to an exclusive interview or other editions. As Shirky suggests, the audience no longer want to be passive, instead they want to be an active audience, this means that I will need to include interactive features, such as a lightbox with subscriptions and a newsletter sign up to keep the webpage interactive for the digital natives. This will allow the magazine to attract the correct target audience.

How do you intend to link your media products to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the digitally convergent nature of your media production? (approx. 100 words)

As seen in my research on audience behaviour, the number of physical print magazines being sold is gradually declining over the years due to an increase in technological advances and the younger generations becoming digital natives. Therefore, more magazines are accessed online which allows more audience interaction. There will be a link on my print magazine to encourage the audience to go onto the site and find many more features, such as links, easter eggs, and audio clips to entertain them. At the header and footer of the webpage, I will provide clear links to social media pages, such as Instagram, Tiktok, X, etc. This will provoke discussion points and be a place for readers to create a community and a sense of inclusivity.