Research summary

After carrying out various methods of research I have found out about the interests and expectations of older teenagers aged 15-18 to design and create pop and R'n'B magazine aimed at this audience. Firstly I bought and analysed other music magazines for various genres of music to see how fashion, style and colours were used to appeal to certain audiences and subcultures and found that they seem to differ greatly between different music genres, for example, dark colour schemes were used in rock and metal magazines such as Kerrang and NME whereas bold bright colours were used in pop magazines such as Top of the Pops and Billboard. I chose to create a pop and R'n'B magazine for 15-18 year olds as there was not a magazine for this music genre for this age group as TOTP is aimed at young teenagers and Billboard is an American magazine. I also found that most music magazines, despite the genre they represent are dominated by male artists and bands and rarely feature a female artist on the cover. I am going to challenge this common convention of music magazines, as 2 out of 3 of my focus group also said they think a female artist or band should appear on the cover to make the magazine stand out from others.

I then created questionnaires which I asked 30 people in this age group to find out more about what they would expect in a pop and R'n'B magazine and what magazines they already read. I found that most older teenagers do not read a music magazine with the main reason being that there is not one for pop and R'n'B music. I also found that the audience consisted largely of female readers so I will design the magazine with this in mind. I also found that most people would prefer the magazine to focus solely on music and the musical careers of artists, however, some teenage girls said that they would like other features such as fashion and celebrity gossip to also be included.

I also used my focus group to find out more about teenagers fashions and interests and found that pop and R'n'B fans generally shop in popular high street stores and follow the latest fashions. I will make sure that my covering artist wears clothes from popular stores like these.