Who reads Magazines?

You are part of the powerful 14-18-year-old audience, and media producers are keen to know what you like and what you want. Can you think why your age group is so powerful? The main reason is that, even though you don't usually earn large sums of money, what you do earn is virtually all disposable income - there is only you to spend it on. Producers also want readers with spending power to attract advertisers who subsidies the cost of production. The money advertisers pay for space in print-texts is used to reduce the selling price. Without subsidy, print-based texts would cost too much.

Why do people consumer media texts?

Some media theorists have suggested that media audiences make active choices about what to consume in order to meet certain needs (Uses and Gratification Theory).

Task: The X-Box magazine above is a specialist computer games magazine aimed at 16-35-year-old males. Look at the conventions on the front cover and how they might appeal to the target audience. Can you explain how the cover has been designed to appeal to its target audience, using media terminology? Working in pairs, discuss your ideas and label your copy of the image.

Here is an example of students work. They were asked to do the same task based on a different magazine.

Values and Lifestyle.

Values and Lifestyle - sometimes called ideology - are terms for the way people think about themselves, about others and about the world in which they live. Ideology is a system of values, beliefs and ideas that is common to a specific group of people.
Magazines reflect the values and ideology of their readers because they want readers to feel they can identify with the magazine.
Understanding ideology is helpful when it comes to investigated the ways in which magazines and other media texts are constructed to appeal to their target audiences, by offering them material that they will enjoy, understand and aspire to.

Here are two descriptions of the target readers of two lifestyle magazines as presented on the magazines' websites:

The Elle reader is spirited, stylish and intelligent; she expects to be successful at everything she does. She takes the lead and breaks the rules. Click on the image of the website to take a look.

The Sight and Sound reader is a film buff who expects to be given intelligent information on all film releases, not just Hollywood mainstream movies. Click on the image of the website to take a look.

Task: Look at the two front covers of these magazines and consider the following:

• typography (choice of font style, colour, placement)
• use of images
• how the page is laid out to attract the eye
• the use of language - look out for special words that the reader will understand, use of informal address 'you'
• promises connected to values, ideology and/or pleasure

Make notes in your book. Use each bullet point as a sub-heading.