Heavy Metal and Hard Rock is generally considered a male dominated genre, with few female fans, or at least the minority, I used this by showing a male dominated magazine, with my main image being a masculine dominated style, and the surrounding themes I chose what were deemed to be male colours and style, to give it rebellious look. My language used is designed to target the 15-25 year old audience, with catchy, easy to read phrases and text. The title, language and font is used to personify the rebellious characteristics of rock and heavy metal, rebelling against mainstream pop , I showed this by the masthead text which looks gory, to give it the crimson, metal look, whilst using title name of ‘Revolt’ which itself shows revolution, and rebellion. This targets the young, testosterone fuelled male psyche. I feel it also still appeals to older fans such as advertising events like Download. Where older bands such as Metallica, Anthrax and Black Sabbath are playing which caters for them.
Overall, the magazine has a dark look to it. This is showcased by the blood splatters on the t-shirt my model is wearing on my front cover. This is linked strongly to my target audience as they stereotypically get involved in ‘mosh pits’ where it’s most likely they’ll get hurt or some form of blood spill will occur. So in that way it’s a negative stereotype. However, it’s all a part of the parcel of getting hurt in a mosh pit. My target audience would respect that and wouldn’t allow the people who weren’t involved to get hurt.
The social group I have targeted will find in my magazine the confidence to ‘revolt’ against generic insults (such as mosher, emo etc), lead a rebellion against it, make the genre dominant and heard, yet still have fun. The social group targeted take pride in the love of metal. As explained in the documentary “Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey” by Sam Dunn, metal is a ‘misunderstood art form...a secret club which the rest of the word doesn’t understand’. Metal fans take great pride in their music taste, and so much of their world revolves around it. The thrill of being part of a culture which confuses more than half of the world gives fans a sense of belonging in a true culture system. My media product includes this social group, and reinforces the group’s belief that they are part of something huge, yet so misconceived.
Many people stereotypically associate ’heavy metal’ music as a dark and sinister music taste to have. It has been labelled as having negative aspects to it, and this has linked the genre to social groups like ‘emo’ and ‘punk’, and for this reason some people tend to avoid this type of music as these social groups carry an intimidating stereotypical atmosphere around with them. My magazine aims to fight these stereotypes and bring the metal heads together as a community. My magazine mainly targets the social classes D, C1 and E as it is most likely that my readers will be between the ages of 16-25 and therefore still in education. My magazine is equal in psycho graphics and demographic as it targets people of similar interests and those who aspire to hopefully be like the bands in my magazine.
I did some research and decided that MusicMags would be a possible publisher for my music magazine, formed in 1996 by a number of small publishers. MusicMags is an independent publisher that specialises in music magazines. MusicMags claims to have more value and expertise than most distributors; however this could alter the cost. Magazines are able to be shipped out to houses and can be sold for free or at a cost, for my music magazine I could distribute the music magazine free until it got enough awareness and then charge for the subscription. MusicMags do a wide spectrum of genres; however they lack metal, which is another reason as to why I chose MusicMags as my chosen publisher. MusicMags will publish my magazine to music specific places. Such as record stores, instrument stores and venues. This would allow my music magazine to efficiently and quickly target its target audience, people actively interested in music. Musicmags also distributes other magazines though such as one for guitar tabs if they don’t wish to purchase revolt. This could appeal to my aspirers who wish to be in a band one day i.e. a bass guitarist.
I decided that my chosen publisher would be Future Publishing plc. This well-established publishing company currently publish the huge metal magazine ‘Metal Hammer’, which means the company have already shown a substantial interest within the metal genre of music magazines. They are also the publishers of other well-known rock magazines such as Total Guitar, Revolver and Classic Rock. Future Publishing plc would give the revolt good links to existing magazines which could advertise the new media product to its targeted demographic.
Those already reading Metal Hammer, Revolver or Total Guitar are very likely to be interested in reading into a copy of Revolt. The age of the magazine would also mean it may begin as an underground magazine, which the targeted demographic appreciate, and often prefer to know about underground products rather than those of the mainstream. Future Publishing is based in the UK. This could mean more direct support from the publisher and easier production and distribution. Future Publishing publishes to countries in over 70 different languages, whereas Bauer only publishes to 15 countries...This could enable me to reach a wider audience across the globe if Revolt turns out to be successful.
GoAnimate.com: The audience for my media products. by Dan.T
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After my research into what magazines such as Kerrang and NME consider their target audiences to be, I discovered that I also wanted ‘Revolt’ to aim at an audience similar to those magazines, this target audience would be the Male orientated 15-25 age group that I discussed earlier, I chose this audience as I fit into this category, and my personal music taste influenced my chosen genre and artists, then I would be more able to relate personally to the magazine, and I knew what would attract me to buy this magazine, as a person interested in the heavy metal/ hard rock music genre, and what would put me off buying it. My magazine’s audience are aspirers (when looking via psychographics). They are also likely to be people who do not wish to conform to dominant ideology. They went to rebel hence the title of the magazine called ‘revolt’.
I have chosen this because most of the models within my magazine are male which automatically engages that specific gender and the age of the model is within this age range, when a reader looks at a magazine a lot of them look to the model to see if this magazine would be suitable for them for example a children’s magazine would have a child on the front cover, for this reason I chose the models that you see in my magazine. However, it is wrong to say that no one above 25 will be interested in the product. Metal is often a genre of music that stick with a person whatever age they are; it is not purely a phase. Because of this, I feel that my target audience has also grown too. I realised that it could be aimed at older people like for example the age of 55.
My main aim was to construct a magazine that was both individual but also adhered to the structures presented by similar magazines in my genre. I tried to create a magazine that combined the best attributes of both Kerrang and Metal Hammer. I did this because I believed that if I had a magazine that was similar to Metal Hammer it would instantly attract the attention of my target audience as both magazines appeal to similar socio-economic groups. The demographics for my audience are C2, D and E. I have chosen the price £3 as I think that my audience should be able to afford it. People in the E category are stereotypically found to buy fashion and music magazines. They’re people subsisting on state benefits: the unemployed, pensioners, students etc. For that reason, I find my audience to mainly be in the E category. Most of my target audience will be students, so they can afford it as they’re most likely to have jobs. If not, they could possibly use EMA if they’re entitled to it. Or simply use some of the money they have received due to benefits.
The model for my music magazine is the vocalist Dez Farara and the look that he is showing is a representation of the typical audience that I am expecting to buy my magazine. My aim is to aspire my audience to be like Dez Farara one day which is my psychographic. By
making my model more like my audience I am hoping that I will encourage the audience to purchase my magazine. If I was aiming for a certain stereotype, the black clothing I have chosen to have my model wear would represent the “Mosher” stereotype that wear predominantly black clothing and listen to rock and metal music which is the genre I have aimed to focus on. He’s also wearing a beanie hat which is head wear commonly worn by the target audience. I chose this specifically as it makes them feel a part of the scene.
The way that I have attracted my male audience is by using male models for the majority of my magazine, this infers to the reader that it is a male orientated magazine, I have also attracted the age range by making that male model look like the age of my audience that I am trying to attract, this is why the model on the front cover of a magazine is so important, because it suggests to the reader whether or not they would enjoy reading the magazine. This does not mean however that all female readers will avoid my magazine; I just mean that the magazine will attract a larger male audience than female and for this reason I should introduce female musicians into my magazine to keep them interested. Another group I have tried to attract is guitarists. The first of which is the props that I have used in my magazine. During the photo shoot I asked the model to hold a guitar for the double page spread image. I did this to make an extra connection within the musicians of my audience.
The content of my magazine is also very important if I am to attract and maintain my target audience, I have added headlines such as ‘Municipal Waste: From Hell’s Kitchen’ and ‘Trivium: destroyers of false metal’ which I feel that my target audience will be interested in. By using the phrase ‘destroyers’, it’s a more exciting term to use and reflects the genre and the main message I wish to convey in my magazine which is to fight against the mainstream pop. On my contents page I have used thumb nail image guides to my pages and text based which I feel addresses my audience effectively, for example the competition to win a Megadeth shirt. The audience will understand this text as they mainly go for competitions within a magazine; it’s an incentive to purchase it. I have used a colourful and consistent colour scheme throughout my magazine to make sure that it doesn’t confuse the audience or look unattractive; the colour scheme I have used attracts a younger audience as it is bold and younger readers respond better to colour which addresses my target audience.
making my model more like my audience I am hoping that I will encourage the audience to purchase my magazine. If I was aiming for a certain stereotype, the black clothing I have chosen to have my model wear would represent the “Mosher” stereotype that wear predominantly black clothing and listen to rock and metal music which is the genre I have aimed to focus on. He’s also wearing a beanie hat which is head wear commonly worn by the target audience. I chose this specifically as it makes them feel a part of the scene.
The way that I have attracted my male audience is by using male models for the majority of my magazine, this infers to the reader that it is a male orientated magazine, I have also attracted the age range by making that male model look like the age of my audience that I am trying to attract, this is why the model on the front cover of a magazine is so important, because it suggests to the reader whether or not they would enjoy reading the magazine. This does not mean however that all female readers will avoid my magazine; I just mean that the magazine will attract a larger male audience than female and for this reason I should introduce female musicians into my magazine to keep them interested. Another group I have tried to attract is guitarists. The first of which is the props that I have used in my magazine. During the photo shoot I asked the model to hold a guitar for the double page spread image. I did this to make an extra connection within the musicians of my audience.
The language that I have used within my magazine is simple and snappy for the audience to understand. The vocabulary I have used such as ‘devil’ and ‘hell’ relate to the audience as these words are stereotypically seen in metal song lyrics. I have written the double page spread content in an informal language which gives the page and the content a more personal feel which will make my audience more comfortable and more willing to read it. Using formal language generally attracts the older audiences as this type of audience just want facts when they are reading. I am however trying to attract the younger audiences who prefer to read the content for fun and therefore a personal touch; this is showcased by the anchorage text ‘Dez has coffee with his ex Coal Chamber’. This makes the younger audiences have fun when reading it.
The content of my magazine is also very important if I am to attract and maintain my target audience, I have added headlines such as ‘Municipal Waste: From Hell’s Kitchen’ and ‘Trivium: destroyers of false metal’ which I feel that my target audience will be interested in. By using the phrase ‘destroyers’, it’s a more exciting term to use and reflects the genre and the main message I wish to convey in my magazine which is to fight against the mainstream pop. On my contents page I have used thumb nail image guides to my pages and text based which I feel addresses my audience effectively, for example the competition to win a Megadeth shirt. The audience will understand this text as they mainly go for competitions within a magazine; it’s an incentive to purchase it. I have used a colourful and consistent colour scheme throughout my magazine to make sure that it doesn’t confuse the audience or look unattractive; the colour scheme I have used attracts a younger audience as it is bold and younger readers respond better to colour which addresses my target audience.
Before my AS media studies course I had very little idea of how to use Adobe Photoshop properly or any knowledge with making a professional magazine so this course was brilliant for me with learning new programs and techniques. From this course I have learnt how to use a camera effectively in take images at a professional standard. From there I could edit the images through Photoshop which previously I had very little knowledge on how to use. Without knowing how to edit photos, my magazine would have looked terrible and therefore learning these techniques was vital for creating a professional magazine. I started out with basic techniques at first such as the spot eraser tool and the quick selection tool to remove obstructions in my images to create the for my magazine. As I gained more confidence in the software, I did update some aspects of my magazine to reflect the skill level I was on, at the time.
As a class we were taught techniques especially for Photoshop, for example: cropping, resizing and spot removal.
As a class we were taught techniques especially for Photoshop, for example: cropping, resizing and spot removal.
here is a example of applying my knowledge that I learnt in the class. I firstly selected the 'lasso tool'
Next, I would use the tool to go around the subject so that it could remove him from the background. The dotted lines around the subject shows that it's been selected.
I then cut and paste the subject into a new layer, without the background. So now I could edit the subject for as a thumbnail image for my contents page.
I would go to 'edit', 'transform', and then scale.
Here is a print screen showing that the subject has been re-sized, I held down the shift key to prevent the image from being stretched.
Finally, weighing up the pros and cons. I feel that I did well with my final products, but there are negatives and positives about it - what I would do again. If I had the opportunity to start the magazine again, I would perhaps replace the yellow font with a blue colour. As it's a more darker colour, which connotes the genre well. I would have spent more time making more stylish text to make it scream more, because from audience feedback: it was a bit boring, but was acceptable. For my contents page, I would start it again and replace the band imagery (megadeth and iron maiden) with more people, just more thumbnail images in general. It was difficult to get people to volunteer for photos and of course they had to look the part to fit the genre. So I just improvised with other ideas for images.
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