Audience Research

“Any media text is created for a particular audience and will usually appeal most to this particular audience” (Hall and Holmes, 1998). As I understand this theory it means that I need to do some research and find out who may target audience are and what they desire, so that I can create a product that represents and attracts them, which will make me understand how to make my product a success. As a result of this, I am going to conduct some primary and secondary research.  

In regard to theories, the hypodermic needle theory, which states that audience’s behaviour, is changed as a result of ideas and interpretations that are presented by the media in particular ways. I am going to use this theory in terms of my lexis and typography styles as I can’t really apply it to anywhere else in my magazine. I can use these ideas about particular teams and players. Secondly, I could use Blumer and Katz gratification theory. I can use this because it relates to how my target audience will use my product and for what purposes such as; information, social interaction, entertainment and personal identity. Football has a mass audience, which makes it easier to pitch as there is a very large target audience. 

Primary Research

For primary research I created a survey on SurveyMonkey that is made up of questions that can be answered by my target audience so that I can get some idea of what they would like to see in the magazine. As there is a large audience, I can get a large number of results, which will make it easier for me to make decisions about what I want to include, to represent the target audience as best I can. I uploaded this survey to social media sites and emailed it to people who could then forward the email to their friends and so on, which enabled me to get the survey out to a wide range of people.

Secondary Research

To begin my research, I looked at football magazines that were already successful and I became aware that there was a gap in the market for my product to fill. Whilst creating my magazine, I must ensure that the target audience is at the forefront of my mind and attracting and representing them is my main concern.  My primary target audience will consist of males aged 16-25, of the social band class C1-E as football is stereotypically a “working class” sport. As well as this because my product is a regional magazine the target audience would also be from Cornwall. This makes my target audience more niche as it is more specific. However, there is still a large amount of people that fit into this category. The main aim of my product is to make money. I feel that my product will achieve this, as I have established that there is space in the market for a product of this type.

As the results show, the age category I am going to look to target is between 10 and 24 as these ages were selected most by people who took my survey. They will be my primary target audience. I may have a secondary target audience of ages 25-34 as this age category was selected on my survey, but I'll primarily be projecting my product at an age range of 10 - 24.

As the result show, the gender category I am going to target is male. I am selecting this genre because it was the most voted for through my survey. This will be my primary target audience and I may have a secondary target audience of females. However, the magazine will be primarily directed towards males.

The ethnicity that was most voted for on my survey was White Cornish. This will be the target audience for my magazine, this works well for me as I am trying to produce a regional magazine. I will secondarily target White British people as they also make up Cornwall, so I will target them after White Cornish people. The reason I have not chosen to target any other target audience is because nobody voted for them in my survey.

The main class band I am going to target is band C1-E. I have decided that this will be my main target audience as they showed the most interest through the survey that I sent out. The people that said they have a lower income are likely to be students and I am also going to target them as they could potentially have a keen interest in my product.

My primary target audience will be straight people. 100% of the votes were for straight people, so this sexuality will be my primary target audience as they showed the greatest interest in my product by taking my survey.

The fact that over 70% of the people that voted they do read Cornish magazines/newspapers. This results was positive for me because it means that there is a market for this kind of product which makes it easier for me as there are people to pitch at and I am not introducing something entirely new.

Once more the fact that over 85% of people who took the survey voted in favour of a new regional style magazine is positive for me as it means my product has more chance of competing with magazines that are already on the market of a similar genre.

From the results that I collected it would appear that there is a gap in the market for a regional sport magazine. I am going to take advantage of this gap in the market and create a media product that will rival products that are already out there.

After my survey I found out that people would be interested in local match reports, player interviews, player profiles, results and league tables. Seeing as this is what my target audience want I will feature all of things in my product as I will need to do this to be able to sell my product and rival opponents.

It seems that I will be naming my magazine 'gwari' as this is the only name that got voted on the poll and is a very good name for a Cornish magazine as it means 'Play' in old Cornish language.