Audience Research

From looking at the following quote from Hall & Holmes (1998) I can see how it is extremely important for a magazine to have a specific target audience so that your content can appeal directly to them. As stated by Hall & Holmes, 'Any media text is created for a particular audience and will usually appeal most to this particular target audience'. I need to focus on my target audience and their interests to ensure that I produce a product which focuses on every aspect of their needs and desires - without my audience there would be no final product. If I were to target my product to the wrong market, it wouldn't succeed, therefore I need to ensure I target it correctly. One specific element to look at when targeting your audience is to differentiate whether they're a niche audience or a mass audience. I have come to the conclusion that I want to aim my magazine at a mass audience - this is because I believe that this market place is relatively niche at the moment, therefore if I am my magazine at a mass market I may be able to secure a larger percentage of the larger audience.

In terms of theories relating to audiences and the qualities they possess in terms of media representation, I have been looking at the Hypodermic Needle Theory in particular. This theory states that ideas and interpretations are presented by the media, to the audience, in such a way so that the audience's behaviour and thoughts are adapted and changed as a result. When regarding my text, I feel that this theory wouldn't be an accurate fit in terms of representation. This because I believe that my product wouldn't have the kind of content which would fulfill this theory idea. Despite this, they may not be as open minded as perhaps a niche audience would be, so it might be something to take into account when creating my magazine.

Furthermore, Blumer & Kats' Uses And Gratifications theory is another theory to take into account when making my product. This theory states that my audience - the consumer - use and purchase media for specific reasons and purposes. A few of these reasons which will relate to my magazine include entertainment purposes as well to inform my audience.

When looking at who my target audience is going to be, I think that it's going to be people ages between 25 and 50 in the county of Cornwall. The reason why I've decided to opt out of trying to represent the higher aged bracket and also the lower aged bracket is because this would make my magazine too vague in terms of who it's for and what it's trying to say. Therefore, the content of my magazine will stray slightly away from the traditional magazine, as I want to include more information based around live events, more modern holiday destinations etc.

I would like to keep my magazine gender neutral in terms of who I'm appealing to as this will allow my magazine to become more popular and represent a larger audience. So hopefully, my magazine will stray away from theorists such as Stanley Hall who stated concerns regarding depression in young people as my magazine will represent the age group just above them. This will mean avoiding colours such a black and grey. I will also need to incorporate bold typography styles as well as thin weighted, archaic ones, to ensure that it connotes both males and females.

I would like my magazine to represent a wide range of social classes, this will allow the stereotypical audience to become involved in my product, as well as attracting an audience who aren't interested in 'finer cuisine' and expensive 'days out'. I would like my magazine to appeal to people in social grades B-D - this will allow me to incorporate a mix of content in my magazine, however not so much of a mix to put people off. 

From looking at my analysis of magazines such as Cornwall Today and Cornwall Life, I could see that both of these magazines fell into social brackets A-C1. This meant that a large area of the market was unexplored. This is something which I hope to cover throughout this process. I think that these magazines portrayed this audience because they wanted to make magazines regional culture based, which is something which stereotypically appeals to an older age of people/people of a higher social grade. I will try to make my product more unique than these two, despite trying to present itself to a mass market. I will try to incorporate issues and ideas asked for by my audience to ensure it's a product they'd want to buy.

From looking at magazine publishers, I have begun to understand how they 'audience profile'. This process explores the demographic of their audience and main features of their audience e.g. age, sex etc.

As magazine publishers would think about, I am now going to explore the following questions when developing and creating my magazine:

1) What is the social class of the primary target audience?

2) What is the gender of the primary target audience?
3) What is the age of the primary target audience?
4) What is the nationality of the primary target audience?
5) What is the ethnicity of the primary target audience?
6) What is the sexuality of the primary target audience?
7) Do you read regional magazines?
8) Is the prospect of a new regional magazine exciting to you?/would you read it?
9) What type of stories would you like to see in a new regional magazine?
10) What do you think would make a good name for a regional magazine?

I am now going to conduct my own primary research through use of SurveyMonkey - this will allow me to understand who my primary target audience is.

To ensure that I portray my audience correctly, I have created a SurveyMonkey survey. This will allow me to ask my audience directly what they would like to see on my magazine. It will allow me to accurately understand who they are and what they want to see. I have posted my survey onto social media to ensure that my survey goes out through an accurate source as well as getting to my target audience and getting accurate answers to my questions.

Here is the survey which I created - https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BD8MGLK

I am now going to analyse the feedback which I got from my audience which I had received after they had filled in my survey.

My first question, 'How old are you?' shows me the age demographic of my audience. From looking a my results I can see that my audience are aged a variety of ages, however more of my audience is of an older age (30+). This tell me that the content of my magazine needs to full fill a slightly older audience's preferences, however due to 22% of my audience being 20-30, I want to incorporate ideas and stories associated with this age bracket. 

This graph shows me that the balance between male and females in my audience is roughly the same. The reasoning for males appearing slightly higher on my graph is because I posted the survey on Facebook, and I have slightly more male friends than female ones. I will target my magazine at a neutral demographic of sex of person nevertheless. 

These results show me that the social grade of my audience is between brackets B-C2. From looking at this I have decided to target my magazine at this social class bracket. This will mean that I will need to incorporate a range of stories - these will range between traditional Cornish cultural stories to stories aimed at people who have stereotypically different interests/desires from a regional magazine. 

The response to this question has told me that my audience is going to be completely white British - meaning that images and stories should be based around white British males and females. I think this question was unanimous was because of the percentage of people who aren't white British that live in my region. This is an important factor to consider when making my magazine. 

Following on from the previous question, these results are also one sided - again, it is probably because of the lack of diversity in my region. I will make sure that my magazine is aimed at heterosexual, white British males and females in order to accurately portray my audience. 

This question in particular is particularly interesting because a larger percentage of my audience don't currently read regional magazines. This highlights how important the digital platform is to my magazine - I need to concentrate on the website to entice this area of my audience. 

From looking at this feedback, I can see that a larger percentage of my audience is more excited about a new magazine - this may suggest that they are looking for something which is new and incorporates content which is aimed at more of a neutral audience. I will now need to create a product which engages this area of the market. 

This question, similarly to the last, also shows me that my audience are potentially 'fed up' with the current range of regional magazines on offer to them. Therefore, I will need to create a product with content best suited to their needs and desired. 

This chart shows that my audience want to see 'music' and 'things going on in your community' as their top priority. These stories are however, different to stories currently seen in stereotypical magazines, therefore my slightly changed audience are wanting to see new content as well as content currently on the market.

Finally, in terms of a name for my magazine, my audience have chosen the name 'Cornwall Bys Vyken', meaning 'Cornwall Forever'. I think that this shows me that despite my audience wanting to stray away slightly from conventional topics in regional magazines, they have voted for a cultural name for a new regional magazine. This shows me that I am going to have to stick to conventions as well as break them slightly to represent my audience to the best of my ability.