Magazine Research-Montage

Montage

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Editorial Profile

So, 'The Revolution'. Don't worry you haven't stumbled onto an extremist mag. We're not calling for a political uprising or any drastic action at all.

Instead this Revolution is centred around music.

There are thousands and thousands of freaks, geeks and misfits out there and I have the great pleasure of being one. We don't fit the norm. We don't connect to the corporate produced music that smothers the charts day in day out. Instead we seek comfort with something entirely different. Indie. It encompasses a whole range of music from rock, punk, alternative, emo, dance; anything so long as it's independent.  

With our music it doesn't matter how many columns the artist has had in the press, how revealing their outfit is, how white their teeth are or how much controversy they can cause to get more attention because this is all immaterial to music. Music is emotion. It has the ability to make you cry or make you euphoric. It's not the note that matters but the emotion being played out through it. When you hear Thom Yorke crying out that he doesn't belong here, or Matt Belamy declaring he's feeling good, Robert Smith promising he'll always love someone or Ian Curtis warning that love will tear us apart you feel that emotion. It reverberates within you and it is through this that you connect to the music and let it play through you.

We are the great unheard section of society. For too long have we put up the same old processed beats in the charts with the odd flash of something great. For too long has our music been left unheard and unsung. If you like all the music in the charts then that's absolutely fine, whatever makes you happy, that's the only important thing. All I ask is that Indie music is celebrated as well.

This is the Revolution.

 We will celebrate the music that goes uncelebrated. Music may be a business but lets make it an art again.

So we may be creeps and we may be weirdos but we sure as hell do belong here and in the charts because where would music be without the true artists that we love?

Vive la révolution!

Syd Bird 

XX

Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire results

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Advantages of using a Questionnaire

• Through asking my target audience questions about my magazine it helps me to determine what it is that they want from the product. This is vital to know because, as I discovered through audience theory research, my audience has a huge impact on what my product will be like as I need it to appeal to them and ultimately give them what they want in order for my product to be successful and a questionnaire is the most effective way of understanding my target audience.
• It also provides quantifiable data that I can process and understand the results easily which enables me to shape what my magazine will be like as I will follow what the majority of my target audience wants to appeal to the largest market I can.
• One of the most important advantages of a questionnaire is simply that it is direct communication with my audience which is often hard to get. This direct line of communication allows me to ask them the questions that I want to know their responses to in order to help me create my magazine. 

Disadvantages of using a Questionnaire

• It is often hard to get an accurate cross section of my target audience which means that the data I collect isn't as reliable or valid as it cold be. I have tried to combat this by questioning both men and women of a range of ages from 13 to over 25. However it is still not an accurate representation as I have only questioned people within my local area which is not indicative of society as a whole or all f my target audience. The number of people I questioned is also a problem as I only asked ten people which again is not a large enough number for my questionnaire to be accurate. 
• Another disadvantage is that through using a questionnaire and better understanding what it is my target audience want I could theoretically create a magazine that provides these desires without any USP or new angle to make it interesting and would just create another version of one of the pre-existing magazines. 
• Questionnaires can also often be biased with specific questions asked to get a desired response which again makes results less valid. 
• Questionnaires usefulness is also determined by how seriously the people answering the questionnaires take it because if they do not answer honestly it defies the entire point of creating a questionnaire at all. There is also no way of determining how seriously they took it so a questionnaire is essentially built on trust. 

I will use the data I have gathered to shape how I will create my music magazine as I want it to appeal to my target audience, however I also want to include new innovative ideas to create a USP. 

Customer Profile

As expressed in the last blog post because of the reception theory the audience influences the text and the meaning of the product so hugely that it's vital that I understand my target audience so that I can provide what they want. Typically for Indie magazines there is a largely male audience ranging from the ages of 14 up to 35. However there is a growing trend of a female audience of similar ages as males for Indie texts and because of this I want my magazine to appeal to both sexes. In order to better understand my audience I have created a customer profile below. 

 Tom  and Ella are 17 and students at college. They're reasonably high achievers at school and do well in lessons however they're introverted and awkward and often find's it difficult to be themselves around other people. However they're proud of their uniqueness and doesn't want to be 'normal' and have strong friendships with similar people. 

One of the way they expresses their differentness is through their clothes and interests; especially music. They dresses oddly in terms of societies norms wearing skinny jeans and often tight t-shirts which reference bands, programmes and people they likes and idolises to a degree. They don't follow fashion trends and wear instead what they want which are often retro.
They also have a passion for indie music which is one of the most important things in their life; they feel as if they live for music. They escape into it and listen to a wide range of genres within Indie from rock to dance. Most of their favorite bands are relatively unheard of within the mainstream charts but held in high regard within independent publications which they read regularly. They are passionate about live gigs and have seen a number of bands such as Foals, Noah and The Whale, Biffy Clyro, White Lies etc. and are always on the look out for more gigs. They like discovering new bands as well as listening to seminal artists and established bands and often reject mainstream music and artists vehemently.
 They  have a strong sense of identity as an Indie lover and this influences all aspects of their lives.