Here are a note from a lesson about how media are targeting the audiences. We were assigned to work in a group and here a note of our discussion. ( I participated while discussing)
Demographic and psychographic in targeting audience
VS
Yolivia’s
How are audience targeted by media?
There is a lot of different ways that can be used by media to target their audience, including psychographic and demographic, for instance, a fashion and sport magazine has different ways to target their audience through the using of psychographic and demographic. Demographics in media refer to audience characteristics such as age, gender, income, education, geographic location, and ethnicity, and Psychographic on the other hand, delve deeper about the audience’s life aspects. And it is important for the producers to help them target a specific group in the population. For instance, by taking a look on VOGUE fashion magazine, published by Conde Nast, According to the theory of uses and gratification, media consumers are active participants that will select media to fulfill their need and desire, and by observing fashion magazine like VOGUE who will primarily target younger age of audience, typically ranging from late teens to early 30s (16-30) where they actively chooses media to consume to satisfy their need and interest (What need and interest?), as usually younger audience often interested in the latest fashion trends and beauty products, uses magazine for surveillance and fashion magazine tend to focus on women’s fashion and beauty, so the majority of the audience is female. This can be proven from all VOGUE magazine are using woman or female celebrities for instance, Margot Robbie or Anya Taylor Joy because they are famous among teenagers due to their popularity due to the recognition in the film industry, as Margot Robbie is widely known from her role as Barbie, where it is popular among teenagers, the models were also often pictured by using medium shot, and dressed in a fashionable according to the latest trend and posed in a powerful stances with chin up empashizing power and confidence, where this applies from Blulmer and katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory, mainly Personal Identity and Surveillance, the reader may want to look more like the celebrity due to how they dress in this magazine and can gather information through the magazine on how to dress like them. And for their front page model cover and often using pink or any other color that connotates (connotes) femininity. Seeing from the income, fashion magazine audience are more likely to have higher income, as fashion and beauty are associated with spending. And the most important part for a magazine to target their audience is by looking at the front page of the magazine where its the first thing that will be seen by the audience. Additionally, vogue target audience from all of the world proven by their magazine in so many different language such as thailand, where they are targeting audience from all over the world to enjoy. In comparison, the magazine Men’s Health (published by Rodale, inc) is one of the UK’s best selling men magazine with the genre health, where this magazine is focusing on tips and advices that men might needed. Compared to Fashion magazine, Vogue this magazine is mainly targeting male from the ages of early 20s - 40s as their front cover page are often using a muscular and pictured with medium shot and focused on showing the model’s muscular body to engage with audience, the model are often maintain eye contact to address and make the audience to feel targeted more in a personal where this are often used to make them receive surveillance, its also can be proven by the colour that are often used is dark or monochrome colour where it steretotypically connotated as a masculine colour. Additionally, the font of the Masthead used are relatively big and using bold to create the sense of seriousness. Compared to Vogue magazine where they often use softer font. This magazine often use star appeal like Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) where he is widely known for his fit muscular body where it associated with the magazine.
Reflection:
In our groupwork, i compare two magazine in different genre to see the difference of the audience they are targeting (demographic, psychographic) where it is important for a magazine as they have a clear target of audience so they know elements that they have to put to attract and engage with the audience. Doing this group discussion help me to have a better understanding of how demographic and psychographic have a crucial role on targeting the audience. However, the discussion help us to share our thoughts and delve deeper about the meaning of target audience as i received a lot of ideas from my teammate that i might need for my magazine project. Additionally, i need to improve and understand more about Kat and Blumler theory of uses and gratification, because i didn't really mentioned about the theory in my unit test. I also need to mention about the target audience spesifically on my unit test and have a better understanding and application of uses and gratification theory.
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