The importance of Magazines

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1. INTRODUCTION

  1. The importance of Magazines:

Magazines are a major source of communication and entertainment in Australia today. Any newsagent will have racks showing hundreds of different titles. Magazines cater for special interests and give more recent information than books. They usually have interesting pictures and graphics making them easier to read. Because they are popular, they make good profits for publishers, through sales, advertising and market links.

  1. Aim of this report

The aim of this report is to show how magazines are constructed to sell to their target audience, particularly the ways in which a magazine might interest a particular reader.

2. WHICH MAGAZINES APPEAL TO TEENAGERS?

         

         6 Magazines read by teenagers:

         

3. HOW TO MAGAZINES APPEAL TO TARGET AUDIENCES:

         

          3.1 Definition of Target Audience:

Target Audience: The target audience is the group of people the communicator wants to reach with a message. For example, this is the specific group of people which the publishers hope will buy and read the magazine. It is described by the way it fits into these categories:

*Gender                     *Occupation                             *Age                          *Education Level               *Interests                   *Income

Magazines use these features to target or aim directly at their group:

*Title                         *Language Used                      *Cover                 *Types of Articles     *Layout and Appearance                        *Advertising  

My report will be focusing on the teenage/female target audience of girls age thirteen to seventeen. Suppose we look at the magazine Cosmopolitan. It targets an audience of young women and mature teenage girls, who are sexy and intimate, with a real passion for life. The magazine targets this audience by helping contemporary women to achieve their goals, and live fuller, more glamorous lives. Monthly features include beauty tips, solutions on how to deal with boyfriends or spouses, career problems, and ideas on how to alleviate stress, these all appeal to the target audience. Apart from target audiences, there is also a thing called a fringe audience. This can be defined as an audience that is occasionally attracted to something. Example a cooking magazine may attract buyers of all different ages, but because of the interest that they all enjoy cooking. However, if someone was having a party, they might buy this magazine once, just for a recipe, not because they are a cook. Hence, this is a fringe audience.

           3.2 Front Cover Appeal:

Covers are designed to attract buyers.

About Cosmogirl!: CosmoGirl is a magazine for real girls with real issues — guys, beauty, fashion, money, parents, school, changing bodies, and more. Each monthly issue has insider beauty and fashion secrets from the stars and their stylists, plus celeb and runway fashions. This magazine has a very effective layout with eye – catching titles and articles. The colours prove even better, with bright yellow background and the articles being in pinks, blues and reds, attract attention, as female teens especially like these colours. As well as this, the fonts displayed for each article, as you may notice are all very different. Bigger sized fonts are used to stand out, and be the first thing that the target audience notices. For example ‘’Get rich secrets’’, is displayed in very large print to draw the buyer’s attention. The target audience is easily suggested through the title ‘Cosmo GIRL’, also through the colours displayed. The picture of Brittany Murphy suggests a leading article about whether she deserves her bad reputation. Catchy headlines are depicted, which appeal to the teen girl’s eye, for example ‘’437 ways to look amazing for school’’, is shown in big, black, bold letters, to stand out and capture the reader’s attention. Some other headlines that are appealing include; ‘7 hilarious pick up lines that work’, ‘Get rich secrets’, The best hair and makeup buys for under $20’ and also ‘DIY fixes for bad breath, cramps and more’. These catchy captions all draw the reader in by appealing to a teen girl’s desires.

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About Teen Vogue:
TEEN VOGUE. It's new. It's like regular Vogue, except for teens. It's the #1 magazine for fashion, trends, and music. The title ‘Teen Vogue’ suggests the target audience with the reference to the word ‘Teen’. This magazine would preferably suit a female teen, due to the fact that most of the articles that it features would target girls not boys. Different sized fonts and different coloured fonts are used to add appeal to the cover. If certain articles are displayed in large print, they are used to be the main eye catchers. For example the headline ‘shop ...

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