1.1: Research: audience

1. Before designing a magazine for the project i have looked into the way that publishing companies work to capture an audience to ensure their product can sell. For this to work the magazine has to be targetted at either a Niche or Mainstream audience. in more specific terms this means i have to decide whether to create a magazine that is for an extremely wide audience, and possibly an over-saturated market, such as a rock or pop magazine or to hone in on a very selective, possible unreached audience, such as a comedy/ parody music magazine. I have considered using this niche market as i have found very little trace of this 'gap' in the market being used or considered. I plan to find whatever weakness may have been holding this possibillity back from fruition and adapt it to work. Of course with all media projects, the capturing of the audience is only one step, advertising and marketting techniques are crucial to exposing the selective audience to the product.

2. In order to classify my audience in a "stereotype" there are a variety of ways that i can profile my audience and classify them as a single individual. Through using these methods the audience can be considered in the design in a more generalised approach rather than attempting to tailor the magazine to every readers wishes. The classification methods i can use are as follows :

• Demographics: Classifying the audience on a quantitative basis, featuring measurable units such age, gender, income and class (JICNARS)
• Psychographic: This form of classification relies upon the personal aspects that make the person unique. This consists of looking into personallity and values. (Young and Rubicam)
• Lifestyle subsets: The categorisation of stereotypical characteristics as manufactured by the Stanford Research Institute. these can be generally wide descriptions that all people can fit into it or smaller groups such as students, goths or skaters.