Audience Research

In 1998, Hall and Holmes stated that, 'Any media text is created for a particular audience and will usually appeal most to this particular audience.' In other words, it's very important for a media product to have a specific target audience and for it to appeal to directly to them. In order for my product to be successful, I will need to focus on my target audience and their interests so that I can make sure that the product I produce will be about their needs and desires. I will need to make sure that I target it to the correct audience so that I can include the correct content. After researching my genre, I have decided that my audience will be a mass market because of how popular the genre is.

The Hypodermic Needle Theory implies that mass media has a powerful effect on it's audiences so much so that their behaviour and thoughts can change as a result. This theory relates to the audiences in regards to media representation. In terms of my own text, I don't think that my product will have content that will support this theory and won't fit accurately in regarding representation.

Additionally, Blumler & Katz's Uses and Gratification theory states that as the consumer, my audience will use media for specific purposes. In relation to my product, these purposes will include informing the audience as well as for entertainment.

As my magazine will have a regional slant, my target audience will mainly be people in the county of Cornwall. Also, because my genre is fashion, my audience will probably be within an age range between 18 - 35 year olds. It is mainly the older generation that read regional magazines, but because of the fashion element, I think it will appeal more to young adults. Also, by narrowing the audience down to this age group, I can focus it on more youthful fashion and include photographs and content that will include the right styles of fashion and appeal to the right target audience.

In terms of gender, I think my magazine will primarily appeal to females because of the use of fashion and because it will mostly represent the female gender. As the age group of my target audience will start at around 18 years, I won't have to represent young people of who Stanley Hall described as depressed and badly behaved. This means that my content and choices of font and colours will not have to represent this age group. However, certain fashion statements could involve darker colours and bolder fonts that could connote a more depressed theme.

In regards to social grades, I think my target audience will fall between social class B - C2. This is because the clothing in fashion magazines is expensive as well as the cost of the magazine, so will mainly appeal to middle-higher social classes. Also because my magazine is regional, it will generally be higher social grades that will want to know about events in Cornwall and costly days out as well as expensive fashion. By analysing other fashion magazines and regional magazines, it was apparent that they targeted people of a higher social grade most probably because the research has already been carries out that higher class people show more of an interest in these areas. For example, Cornwall Today's audience fall into the social brackets of A - C1, and Vogues audience which are also A - C1. I think these magazines represent this social grade because they will be more interested in the valuable fashion and activities and scenery that Cornwall has to offer.

By researching magazine publishers, I can see that they profile their audience by exploring the demographics and features of their audiences, such as their age and gender.

I will explore the following questions for the development and creation of my magazine as magazine publishers would:

1) What is the age of the primary target audience?
2) What is the gender on the primary target audience?
3) What is the ethnic group of the primary target audience?
4) What is the primary target audience's social grade?
5) What is the sexuality of the primary target audience?
6) Would they read Cornish magazines or newspapers?
7) Would they be interested in a new Cornish magazine?
8) What genre of magazine would they be interested in?
9) What stories would they be interested in reading?
10) What would they like the name of the magazine to be?

By using Survey Monkey, I will be able to conduct my own primary target research which will allow me to understand my audience better. To ensure that I represent my target audience correctly, I will ask my them direct questions about who they are and what they would like to see on my magazine which will allow a better understanding of them. In order to get results, I have posted my survey onto social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

This is the link to the survey I created using Survey Monkey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JTNKD8V

I will now analyse my results from the audience who filled out my survey.

The first question I asked my target audience referred to their age. By analysing my results, I can see that the age demographic of my audience are primarily between 18 and 24. This information shows me that I need to base my content of my magazine to a younger audience. As 92.31% of the people that filled out my survey were of this age, I will need to represent them in particular as well as incorporating content that will interest this age bracket.

The next question I asked related to the gender of the audience. I can see that the target audience is predominantly female as 76.92% of the audience selected female in my survey. This could link with the genre of magazine that the audience have selected as females maybe more interested in a particular genre.

For this question in my survey, I added 'Cornish' as a response so that I could see how many of the people who answered were interested in a Cornish regional magazine in particular. 100% of the responses were 'Cornish', which means that I will need to include content that will represent them. The reason for this ethnic group being selected the most is probably because I shared my survey on Facebook, and the majority of my friends are from Cornwall.

From this graph, I am able to see that my target audience is between C1 and C2 in terms of their social grade. Again, the lack of range could be because of the people who filled out my survey from my friends on Facebook. I will have to take this into consideration when creating my magazine so that I include content that these social grades will be interested in.

Probably because of the lack of diversity in Cornwall, these results are very unbalanced. Nevertheless, I will make sure that my magazines is aimed primarily at heterosexual females so that I can portray my audience precisely. 

These results show that the larger part of my target audience only 'occasionally' read regional magazines or newspapers. This could mean that my target audience doesn't have a magazine that directly represents them, so will therefore be more interested in the magazine that I will produce.

This feedback confirms the fact that my target audience would be interested in reading a new regional magazine that represents them better. For my magazine to be successful, I will need to make sure it is appealing to the right market.

By asking this question, I was able to narrow down what my target audience wanted to see. 92.31% of respondents answered with 'fashion'. This links with the fact that the majority of them also answered female because fashion is stereotypically something females would be more interested in.

To narrow down what my audience wants even further, I asked them what stories they wanted to see. 84.62% said that they wanted to read about 'fashion tips and stories', while the only other answer was 'local stories'. Being a regional fashion magazine, it will have to include stories around both of these areas.

I then asked the audience about what they would like the magazine to be called. 100% said they wanted it to be called 'Kensa', meaning first in Cornish. I think this name is very fitting to the magazine because it is a Cornish word, so relates to the fact it is regional to this county, but additionally because it is a pretty sounding word so also relates to the fashion genre.

In conclusion, this survey has helped my to understand my target audience and what I need to do to portray them accurately. As a summary, my target audience are primarily Cornish, heterosexual females between the ages of 18-30 years, within social grades B-C2 that have an interest in fashion, with a secondary audience of males. I will now need to create a magazine that is best suited to this audiences needs and desires.