Case Study: Top of the Pops magazine

Background and ownership

Top of the Pops magazine is a monthly magazine published by the BBC, which was originally launched to supplement the Top of the Pops television show and continued despite the termination of the TV show in 2006. TOTP was formerly aimed at young teenagers and resembled the 'Smash Hits' magazine but its emphasis on music has gradually shifted to focus more on young girl's lives and interests, resembling more of a stereotypical teenage magazine. The use of slang and informal phrases such as 'Christmas cringes' and 'Joe buffs up' relates to the young audience, as does the short captions inside the magazine accompanying pictures, rather than long articles.

Content and approach to music

TOTP magazine focuses on chart music and mostly features popular artists such as Girls Aloud, McFLY and Rihanna that appeal to young teeangers. However, the magazine's emphasis seems to be more on the appearance and private lives of celebrities rather than their musical talent, reflecting the caption on the cover, 'More gossip! More Scandal!' For example, the cover photo and main interview is of High School Musical stars Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgen, reflecting on their relationship, with the headline 'Together forever?', encouraging readers to buy the magazine to find the answer. The interview is accompanied by a section where photographs of the couple are analysed and their body language is seen as reflecting the state of their relationship, for example; 'Zac and Vanessa's fingers are interlocked suggesting an intimacy that can't be faked'.

Popular singers such as Jonas Brothers and McFLY are also interviewed in the magazine but are rarely questioned on their music and instead personal questions such as 'Are you single?' are asked to probe into their personal lives and uncover gossip stories beyond their musical careers.
The magazine also contains features on fashion and make-up tips, often resembling stereotypical teeange girl magazines rather than a music magazine and in this issue, Rihanna's make up is used to promote other make up brands to encourage girls to mirror Rihanna's appearance rather than her talent.



Editorial Content: 'opinion leaders' and reader interaction

In TOTP magazine, there are many chances for readers to interact and write in to the magazine by publishing letters from readers including photographs or their opinions on a certain topic. The letter page, run by DJs - JK and Joel allows readers to take part in discussions and express opinions on celebrities and gossip stories which is very different from other music magazines where readers interact by reviewing new music rather than the lives of the music artists.

Promoting the industry

TOTP magazine promotes and gives away prizes that appeal to the young female target audience, such as Nintendo DS games and High School Musical merchandise and promotes certain products and celebrities at times of popularity, for example, High School Musical features in almost every TOTP issue around the time of the film release. Pop singers and groups are also interviewed often when releasing a new single or album, for example Girls Aloud are interviewed in this issue of TOTP following the release of their new album. Nintendo DS is also promoted through this interview as Girls Aloud appear in these advertisements, as the target audience for Nintendo DS and Girls Aloud are likely to overlap. The advertisements in TOTP magazine consist mainly of products expected in stereotypical young teenage girl magazines such as female hygiene and Nintendo DS games, rather than music promotions as expected in a music magazine.
The free gift with this TOTP issue was a tin pencil case with matching stationary, appealing for young girls using this stationary for school. This free gift demonstrates how the emphasis on music for TOTP magazine has shifted to target young girls' interests and now is hardly recognisable as a music magazine.

Analysis of music magazines

Kerrang is a rock magazine, published weekly by Bauer Consumer Media. Its emphasis on certain types of music seems to change quite frequently with popular music trends and it has included music styles such as rock, heavy metal and grunge but more recently has focused on emo and metalcore music. The readership of 'Kerrang' is 60% male and 40% female and the choice of colour, style and male artists on the cover seems to reflect male interests rather than female. Metal and goth music have created subcultural identitys and the style and colour of 'Kerrang' is representative of stereotypical emo and goth fashion which has become more commonly associated with the word 'emo' rather than the music. In recent years, the media has associated emo with being emotional, shy, introverted or depressed and the dark colour scheme of black and red reflects this as well as the serious expressions of the band on the cover. The clothing of the band on the cover is also stereotypical of emo fashion as they have dark styled hair and are dressed in plain black clothes. Even without knowing the name or music of the band, it is obvious what audience they are aimed at, because of their stereotypical emo fashion. The same colours are The band Funeral for a Friend are a well known emo rock band and the use of their name in large lettering on the cover draws attention to them as the main feature which makes it obvious that the magazine is aimed at emo and rock music fans.

'Kerrang' uses words and phrases on the front of the magazine to support the loud and heavy sound associated with metal music, for example, 'Life is Loud' and the name 'Kerrang' refers to the sound of a block chord played on an electric guitar; a loud and abrupt sound to reflect its music genre. The language used on the cover is informal and the use of slang terminology shows that the readership consists mainly of teenagers and young adults. 'Kerrang' specifically targets the emo/goth subculture, presented by its dark colour scheme, style and fashion as worn by the band on the cover.

This is the cover for the weekly pop magazine, 'Billboard'. Although 'Billboard' is an American magazine, it covers popular chart and new music releases in various countries in print and on the web. This magazine cover contains a wider range of colour than 'Kerrang', immediately targeting a different audience from the emo or goth subculture and its use of dark colours on the cover. The readership of 'Billboard' is male and female young adults, however this particular issue seems to target female readers as the main use of text colour used is purple, a stereotypical female colour. The main photograph of the page is of Miley Cyrus, a pop singer/actress, popular mostly in America, showing that the main focus of the magazine is on American artists and chart hits. Miley Cyrus is pulling a silly but her expression is friendly, reflecting the fun appearance and style of pop music, in contrast to the serious expressions of the band on the cover of 'Kerrang'. 'Billboard' also features R'N'B or pop rock artists who's music is likey to also appeal to pop music fans of the magazine. The cover also includes captions of what features inside the magazine which are all featured around artists and their musical careers or latest chart updates. This is very different to the 'Top of the Pops' magazine, a pop music magazine for young teenagers which tends to focus on the personal lives of artists rather than their music. 'Billboard' uses informal language on its cover to appeal to young adults and its overall style and colour has connotations of fun and happiness, associated with popular music. I like the style of this magazine and will incorporate some of its conventions into my own.


This is the cover for the hip-hop and R&B music magazine, 'Vibe'.

Its focus is on urban hip-hop culture; fashion, politics and entertainment as well as its music, and has a circulation of around 8 million in various countries. 'Vibe' features many well known R&B artists as well as actors or other celebrities representative of the urban hip-hop culture. Artists featured in 'Vibe' magazine are predominantly black such as Ciara, Jay-Z and Kanye West and R. Kelly covers this issue of 'Vibe'; a stereotypical black hip-hop artist. Stereotypes of the hip-hop culture include aggression and the terminology such as 'thugs' and 'sickest' used on the cover reflect the common themes of violence and aggression in the lyrics of hip-hop songs. The colour and style of this magazine appears to be targeted at a male audience, with black and red as the main use of colours, mirroring the style of 'Kerrang' magazine, with its readership consisting mainly of males.

Evaluation

While carrying out my research, I found that sixth form magazines were quite hard to find as many schools publish a general school magazine rather than a specific sixth form magazine. Most of the sixth form magazines that I found seemed to be aimed at parents rather than students as most of them seemed to be 'selling the status' of the school by using the school name and logo as the main feature on the front covers, such as the Rainey Endowed School. These magazines seemed to be focusing on the sobriety and tradition of the school and could almost be seen as a prospectus than a magazine due to their formality which could be seen as 'boring' by teenage students as I found that the magazines that appeal to teenagers have 'busy' front covers with lots of text, pictures and bright colours to attract the reader. I also found that there was a lack of ethnic representation in the school and sixth form magazines that I looked at and I wanted to cater for different ethnic backgrounds in my magazine. I found that magazines such as Sugar, Heat, Look and music magazines are popular with teenage girls as older teenage boys did not seem to read many magazines and I based my design on the layout of these magazines as the majority of the sixth form and my target audience are girls. These magazines were very different to the style of the school magazines I found that were generally quite plain with no indication of what is inside the magazine on the cover.

I wanted to make a magazine that would challenge the forms and conventions of existing school magazines by making it fun interesting and lively to appeal to older teenage student readers rather than their parents.

I chose a medium close up photograph of a female sixth form student smiling over her shoulder at the camera for my cover, against a background of grass. I chose this photo as I felt it connotes friendliness and she seems independent and free to wear what she wishes as there is no sense of a uniform. This photo seems friendly and relaxed which would relate and appeal to sixth form students.

The font that I used for my title was less serious and organised than the standard fonts that were commonly used in school and sixth form magazines and could represent graffiti lettering which creates an informal feel to the cover that would appeal to teenage readers. I used yellow text boxes around the captions 'UCAS forms', 'Uni open days' and 'Revision tips' as they could represent post-it-notes that students would often use for revision or on noticeboards in their bedrooms, which also creates a sense of informality that would appeal to teenage students.

I read some of the magazines that were popular with teenagers to get an idea of the language used to address the readers which was informal and chatty, unlike the formal language commonly used in school/sixth form magazines. Therefore I used informal language on my magazine cover such as 'Meet the new team!' which creates an inclusive welcome and a friendly chatty feel to the magazine that would encourage teenage students to read it rather than parents.

On the front cover, I included a balance between school and lifestyle features to ensure that the magazine appealed to the interests of older teenage students as well as advice and information about school/sixth form. I was aware of the lifestyle of older teenagers and included a caption about a feature on the Reading festival as I knew that many teenagers attend music gigs and festivals and this would be popular with a large majority of both male and female members of the sixth form. I also included a competition to win an ipod and itunes vouchers as technology plays a big part in teenagers lives and would be appreciated by older teenagers.

For the contents page I had originally planned to have three photos in each corner with the text down the middle but when I started making it, I changed it to photos down the left side of the page and the text more to the right as I preferred this layout. I wanted the contents page to represent a page from a notebook or a diary drawn by a student and I did this by using a font in a handwriting style and brushes of stars, arrows and scribbles on the background to represent doodles. I felt that this created a fun, creative and informal feel to the page that would encourage teenage students to read on.

I used the results of my research to decide what I would list on the contents page of what would appear in the magazine. I mainly focused on events and advice for school and sixth form as most people said that they would like to see advice for sixth form life in the magazine. I found that students would prefer to read a magazine on their own interests than school information as this could be too 'boring' so I mixed the school information between music features and competitions on the list. I also included captions with each feature in informal language to make them more appealing to read such as 'Natasha, Helen & Alex speak out' which was a phrase commonly used in popular magazines when featuring an interview with a celebrity.

When carrying out the project I encountered some problems when taking photographs as I found it hard to frame the photographs well and many of the photographs did not look as effective when loaded onto the computer. I also had a problem with sun spots on some of the photographs and so I had to re-take them on a less bright day and I learnt how to use the self timer setting on the camera which I used to take a photograph that included me on the contents page. From this project I have increased my knowledge of using cameras to take and frame photographs well as well as how to use photoshop as I had not used it before this project.

Contents page

Magazine cover

Research summary

After carrying out my research for the preliminary task, I found a lot of useful information about the interests and expectations of my target audience which will help me design my magazine to appeal to them. By analysing school and sixth form magazines, I could get ideas from the designs, style and language used to appeal to certain audiences. I found that most school magazines are aimed at parents rather than students but sixth form magazines seemed to connote maturity which would appeal to older teenagers who are aspiring to be seen as young adults rather than teenagers. Sixth form college magazines such as Dave would appeal to older teenagers and students with its 'busy' cover and vivid colours. I also found that many of the magazines that I found came from white middle class institutes but have an absence of ethnic representation and so I designed my magazine to cater for other ethnic backgrounds. Most students would prefer their school magazine to contain a variety of general topics on the interests of teenagers rather than just school information which seems quite formal and uninteresting for teenage students. 

I also used questionnaires for my target and focus group to find out more about the interests and hobbies of teenage students. Generally, teenage girl's main interests included fashion, music, gossip and celebrity news while teenage boy's interests were focused on sport, music and computer games. Girls generally read more magazines that teenage boys and so I will try to design my magazine to appeal to boy's interests also to encourage them to read the magazine too. I will incorporate all of these ideas into my magazine so it appeals to all sixth form students. 

Focus group

To find out more about the interests and expectations of my target audience, I am going to use a focus group of 3 students at Southend High School for Girls sixth form. They will help me to decide on the final details of my magazine such as titles and layouts, as well as giving me more of an insight into the daily lives of teenagers. I have chosen 2 female students and 1 male student for my focus group to give me a range of different opinions and ideas.



Cassie, 16

Cassandra, also known as Cassie is currently in year 12 at SHSG sixth form, studying English language, theatre studies, history and government & politics. Cassie is very interested in performing arts and would like to go on to a performing arts school after sixth form. She attends a theatre school where she dances, sings and acts 5 days a week and takes part in many shows. Cassie attends many classes with people her age, who are also interested in performing arts, which seems to be a popular interest with teenagers and so Cassie's view will be useful when deciding what will feature in my magazine. Cassie uses the internet a lot to talk to friends, on msn and social networking sites such as Myspace and often buys magazines such as Elle and Cosmo.

Aimee, 16

Aimee is also currently in year 12 at SHSG, studying English literature, spanish, sociology and R.S. Aimee is very sociable and enjoys parties and going out with her friends. She likes spending time with lots of different people and spends a lot of time texting, on the internet and watching TV soaps such as Hollyoaks and Eastenders. Aimee also enjoys listening to music on her ipod and is interested in fashion and celebrity gossip as she often buys magazines such as Look and More. Aimee is very up to date with the social interests of teenagers which will be very helpful when designing my magazine to appeal to them.

Alex, 16

Alex is also in year 12 at SHSG and is studying Geography, Maths, Physics and I.T. Alex does a lot of sport and has a passion for racing, cars, motorbikes and planes. Alex's ambition is to be an RAF pilot and he spends a lot of time doing these activities. Alex also likes going out with his friends, listening to music and using the internet to keep in touch with his friends through social networking sites such as Myspace. His interests are quite typical of a teenage boy and therefore his ideas will be useful when designing my magazine to appeal to different students in the sixth form.