Canva Summary of Contextual Analysis

I have created a Canva summarising each of the contextual analysis tasks I have completed and how they have helped me when creating my magazine.

Magazine Interviews

I have interviewed people in my target audience of 16-25 year olds, to find out what attracts them to buying music magazines, so as to tailor my music magazine according to the information I find from my interviews. This will ensure that my target audience's needs are met with my magazine. I have also asked two people in a secondary target audience in order that I have a broader understanding of how different target audiences have different aims and wants from magazine, this has helped me with understanding how different target audiences have different spending habits, e.g. middle aged people may find a £4 magazine a waste of money, but because younger people have less general expenditure, they may have more money to spend on things like magazines.

I have interviewed a mixture of males and females to get a broader understanding of people's attitudes towards music magazines, I found that most people no longer buy music magazines, due to the increase in digital media and everything now being available online for a reduced fee. I found that  lots of people buy a music magazine for what is on the front cover, the first thing that people will see when the magazine is on the shelf, meaning that I need to make my magazine front cover stand out amongst the competition, perhaps with a bright masthead and possibly an offer. My main aim with my magazine is to make it attractive to my target audience of 16-25 year olds, catering to their needs and making a magazine that fills a gap in the market.

Q Magazine annotations of codes and conventions

I annotated a magazine in my genre, Q. These annotations of the codes and conventions used to attract the target audience, will help me to understand the codes and conventions that I need to include in my magazine in order to attract readers attention. An example of this is the masthead of Q, a white Q in a bright red box making it stand out on the magazine shelf. This is something I could use in my magazine, to ensure the title is bright and stands out on the shelf to make people interested in looking and ultimately buying my magazine.

Annotating this issue of Q magazine has also helped me in understanding some of the features that Q include, giving me ideas as to where there is a gap in the market and what I can do to fill those gaps. An example of this is if there is a sub genre among the R&B genre that does not yet have a magazine, that I could focus on in my R&B magazine.

R&B existing magazines wordle

This Wordle demonstrates the competition in the R&B magazine genre. I have only included the magazines that are direct competitors with my magazine, i.e. British R&B magazines. Thankfully, there are not that many, therefore meaning I need to identify where there is a gap in the market, and fill that gap with my magazine. I need to look at what these current magazines include and what is missing, in order to see how I need to focus my magazine.

I will look to see if there is a sub genre that is missing or an angle/target audience that has not yet been explored, and include this in my magazine. Having researched into the current competition, I now have a better understanding of what else is for sale in the same genre, the type of artists they often focus on, and how I can take inspiration, whilst including some of the conventions missing in other R&B magazines currently for sale. This will inform my decisions about colour scheme, language, mode of address and the artists I will focus on.

Moodboard

I have compiled photos and videos associated with my chosen genre, R&B. This has helped my understanding of the genre and the lifestyle and artists associated with it for when I come to create my own R&B magazine. I have looked at the history of R&B to understand how it has changed through the years, to accompany this I have included old school R&B music videos, showing how the genre has changed and developed.

I chose to create my mood board in the form of a video because it meant that I was able to include R&B music in the actual video, which added to the inspiration that I can now take from my mood video for when I come to create my own R&B magazine along with being able to show snippets from R&B music videos, again showing the conventions of R&B.

Genre - emaze

I have created this emaze about my chosen magazine genre, R&B. The information I have focused on finding for this emaze includes, History & Development, Key Artists, Existing R&B magazines and Fans of R&B (target audience.) Finding this information has helped me to understand the genre in more detail, and I now know more about the history of the genre, meaning that I can understand how it has developed into the modern R&B that we know today.

Having researched into the Key Artists related to R&B, I now know more about the type of people typically making R&B music, helping me when I come to create my magazine, which artists to include and which artists have the most popularity among the target audience.

My research into the existing R&B magazines available has helped me to understand the competition, it has also given me inspiration as to what features I can include in my magazine, and the gaps in the magazines already available that I can fill with my magazine, e.g. the focus on a certain artist or sub genre.

I have also researched into the Fans of R&B (the target audience), helping me to understand the age group and the type of people I am aiming my magazine at. This has helped me understand their lifestyles, how they listen to their music, and the mode of address that I should be using in my magazine, so as to engage the target audience to the content.

Why is researching into genre important?

Powtoon - Niche and Mass Music Magazines

Iconography Mind Map

This iconography mind map has shown me the themes, colours and icons related to different genres of music. This has helped me in understanding the lifestyle and instruments used within separate genres e.g. my chosen genre is R&B, and for the R&B section, I have included pictures of famous modern R&B artists such as Rihanna and Nikki Minaj, I have also included diamonds and examples of the elaborate lifestyle of R&B artists. This iconography mind map has also helped me in understanding the separate iconography related to each genre, helping me to understand how they're different.

Quizlet on Institution

Prezi

I bought 3 music magazines, Rocksound, Mixmag and Q magazine and analysed the front covers and contents pages, along with researching their history and presented the information in this prezi. This task helped me in understanding how current music magazines are laid out and how they attract their specific target audiences, in order that I can apply the same techniques to my magazine. I also now have a better understanding of how magazines change their mode of address depending on their target audience, something I will employ when targeting my target audience of late teens to middle aged readers. I also have a more in depth understanding of how much a typical music magazine costs and which type of shops stock them.

Wordle

I have created a wordle of all the UK music magazines I could find. This task has helped my in understanding how many titles of each genre of magazine there are before I chose which genre I would make my music magazine. From this, I chose to make an R&B magazine, as I am a fan of the genre and I can see from this wordle that there are not as many R&B magazines than other genres e.g. there are more rock music magazines than R&B. This wordle also opened my eyes to the fact that there are still many music magazines around, and that although there has been a drastic increase in online magazines, print magazines are definitely still alive.

My expectations of the course

I am looking forward to learning about different media products and what they are used for. I expect to gain a more thorough understanding of how to use certain media programmes, such as Photoshop and Final Cut. I expect to develop my analysis skills further, and I am looking forward to begin by analysing existing music magazines, their front covers and the content within, to inform my decision making when I come to create my own magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread.

I also expect to be doing lots of research during the planning processes of my work. This will further my ability to do audience research and then show my findings when I come to represent audience's and social groups. I am looking forward to developing my knowledge and ability of being able to plan and produce a piece of work, starting from the Research and Planning all the way through to the Evaluation. As I am planning on going in to the media industry as a future career, I am looking forward to looking at different areas of the industry, in order that I can find what I enjoy the most, and what I may wish to carry on in the future.