IPC research

Reader Profile

Wenner Media LLC

Rolling Stone was founded in 1967 by Jann Wenner and Ralph J. Gleason. It was named after Muddy Waters s1950’s song “Rollin’ Stone.” It was originally aimed at an older age group by focusing on music coverage and politics however in 1990 it was adapted to appeal to a younger audience by introducing television shows, actors and popular music.  Recently the magazine has returned to its old ways by incorporating political stories. The magazine shifted its focus in 1980 towards celebrity entertainment, this included celebrity gossip, television, music and pop culture. This led to the introduction of the annual “Hot edition.”

 

The magazine was created to distance itself from underground press magazines, this created a new genre of magazines and it was something nobody had ever seen before. Wenner believed the magazine was “not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces.”

 

Rolling Stone has had a website running for several years. This includes articles, reviews, blogs, mp3’s, artist encyclopaedias and a new archive of every article ever published. This again widened the target audience as people that did not have time to sit and read a magazine were able to access the articles they wanted to read online as and when they wanted to.

 

The magazine is owned and published by Wenner Media LLC along with Men’s Journal and US Weekly. Wenner Media LLC is owned by Jann Wenner. However the company was only developed because of the magazine, Rolling Stone influenced Wenner to create this company which is now home to two other major magazines.

 

My Magazine Pitch

Our next task is to create our own music magazine. To start this task off we had to make our own pitch that will include typical music magazine conventions. After researching music magazines to find out more about their front covers, contents pages and feature articles as well as the information i have gathered on the typical features included in music magazines today and stereotypical conventions of a music magazine i have decided on the way i want to create my magazine.I've decided i want my front cover to include a high quality image with subtitles included on the bottom of the page. I will continue these conventions through to my contents page as well as my feature article. I will use Adobe Photoshop to create and edit my magazine to maintain a high quality piece of work. The genre of music i have decided to aim this magazine at is Pop/Indie/Rock. My primary target audience will be young males and females aged between 14-20 and my secondary target audience will be older males and females aged 20+

Questionnaire Results

 

In order to create a magazine that will appeal to a specific target audience i had to collect results from a wide range of people in order to see what is the most popular and how it would sell. I used the US reader profile of the Rolling Stone as a style model. They appeared to appeal more to 18-24 year olds due to the content, mainly adults without children and mainly male. This is the opposite of my target audience as i would like to appeal to a 16-18 year old male and females.

https://www.quantcast.com/rollingstone.com

 

 

My Questionnaire

Here is a copy of a questionnaire that I distributed to 50 students. I chose to ask 10 people from different year groups and from different social groups to answer my questionnaires. I chose 25 boys and 25 girls, 5 from each group.

What is your gender?

Male                          Female

What is your age?

-10                  11-15              16-18              18-21              21+

What is your favourite style of music?

Rock              Pop                Indie               Classical                    Folk                 Hip-hop Rap                        Grime                        Electronic                 Jazz                Pop-rock Other____________________

What do you usually listen to music on?

iPod               Laptop          Phone           TV       Internet         CD      Other

How often do you buy music magazines?

Never             Once a week          More than once a week             Once a month More than once a month          

What price would you expect to pay for a music magazine?

£0-1                £1-2                £2-3                £3-4                £4-5                £5+

What type of music magazines are you interested in?

Rock              Pop                Indie               Classical                    Folk                 Hip-hop Rap                        Grime                        Electronic                 Jazz                Pop-rock      Other

What do you buy a magazine for?

Articles           Artists              Freebies        Music downloads              Genre                    Other____________________

What would you want included in a magazine?

Articles           Artists              Freebies        Music downloads              Genre                    Other____________________

What colours attract you most to a magazine?

Red                White             Black              Green            Yellow           Pink          Purple      Blue                Brown                        Orange         Other____________________

Article research

Contents page analysis

Front cover research

Before starting my magazine, me and Rebecca went around the school to take several photos. I took photos of  classes, the building and the surrounding area. I chose blue and yellow as my theme as it is the same colour as the logo. I used a photo of Rebecca in front of the school entrance on my front cover to show my main headline, I thought the photo was relevant. I used other subtitles to show other stories within the magazine than might be of more interest to students. I have seen this theme throughout other magazines and it looks most appropriate.

I chose to use the same person on the contents as I did for the cover so there is a theme. I stuck to the same colour scheme and used a relevant photo. I made it a simple layout so it was easy to read for the younger years and I decided against adding extra photos so it wouldn't appear cluttered and used a longer border photo instead. I also chose to keep the back ground on the photo rather than cropping it out so it gives the page more of a natural feel.