Main task: Summary of research

From the magazines that I have researched I have discovered one consistent point; they all use marketing strategies. By this I mean each magazine has a selected target audience, whether it is young female girls who like mainstream popular music or middle aged men who enjoy avant garde jazz. These strategies are carefully laid out so that the language is appropriate as well as content, artists, photographs, even the colour schemes and layouts. So, for example, say if I was going to create a music magazine for 8-14 year old girls, I’d make sure my front cover was bold, fast and had a lot on it (in order to secure something for everyone – nothing can be dull) with a colour scheme of pink, yellow and black. The artists in the magazine would also have to be people relevant to their popular culture (Girls Aloud, Alexandra Burke, Zac Efron etc...) as well as the advertisement – video games for girls, popular films such as High School Musical and fashion for young girls which allows them to dress like their favourite celebrities and so on.

I found that these types of magazines weren’t truly representing the format they were displaying; they don’t want to challenge the dominant ideology because they’re just pawns for the publishing industries, whose main objection is to make money and expand their power.

However, after reading through The Wire I realised that there are some exceptions – here’s a magazine which is devoted to the art form, it genuinely cares about modern independent music and its future. Like all the best things in the world, it doesn’t care about money. I also found the layouts, content and photographs topped anything I had previously seen, it’s carefully developed and almost a piece of art in itself - this is what I want people to feel when reading my magazine.

My two main influences are; The Wire (it's formality and simplicity) and Vice Magazine (it's shock value and bluntness).