Demographics, Uses and Gratifications Theory, Reader Profile

Demographics

Demographics is a very important part of a media product. Demographics are actually the statistical characteristics of the human population, things such as gender, income and age, are typical demographics used by different businesses to allow them to identify markets for their goods and services. Demographics are extremely important because they are used to allow you to identify who your customers actually are, it can help you pinpoint the areas in which more of your potential customers live and also allows you make an approximate guess as to how likely this demographic group are to purchasing your goods or services. By actually thoroughly studying your potential customers through demographics a business or form of media can actually identify all the changing needs within the market place, and can therefore adjust to these needs to meet them. For all kinds of business whether it be in the media sector or in any other sector in the market, actually identifying the demographic groups that will be attracted to the product, could literally mean the difference between the failure and success of the product, business or service.  So of course when considering media such as magazine’s actually considering the demographics of the potential reading audience could be the different between an extremely popular magazine, with a loyal reading audience and a magazine which has a audience which isn’t necessarily as willing to spend money monthly or weekly to buy each copy of the magazine.  What a media producer of a media product really wants to know is the income bracket/status, location, race, gender and age of the potential audience. From this the magazine/media producer can begin to mould their magazine to meet the needs and wants of this audience.

An Example of a Demographics Table

A	People who work in areas such as top management, Lawyers, doctors and high salaried professionals etc
B	People who work in areas such as middle management, teachers, people in creative profession, graphic designers etc
C1	People who work in areas such as office supervisors, junior managers, nurses, specialist clerical staff etc
C2	People who work in areas such as skilled workers, tradespersons (considered white collar)
D	People work in areas such as semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (considered blue collar)
E	People who work in areas such as unemployed, students, pensioners, casual workers

Above is a clear example of a Social Grading system. From this it can allow us to understand the income brackets for all the different types of people that may consider buying magazines. The different social classes that each person belongs to indicates the kind of income they may be receiving and so the prices they may then be willing to pay to buy a magazine. This then allows a media producer to work out who they may want to target and the type of magazine they will be making. For example skilled manual workers who are otherwise classed as “C2” or semi-skilled workers “D” are the type of people who may not particularly have to time to sit down all day and read through a magazine. Because of this they need something that they can quickly flick through whilst understanding exactly what they have read and whilst also providing the entertainment factor after a hard day at work, it must, in simple terms, be something that can allow them to relax. The thing, however, that most differentiates these types of magazine from other magazines is the price of the magazine and of course the actual contents/stories and articles in the magazine. A magazine which is targeted at semi-skilled, skilled workers who according to the table belong to the lower social class of the grading system will probably only purchase cheaper magazine’s which are full of gossip and shocking stories about everyday life and even celebrity gossip. This effectively stops them from thinking about how hard their working life is because lower class jobs are never the easiest, as well as this these shocking stories that you find in cheaper magazine’s could even relate to the lower class workers because these stories are based on people from rough backgrounds, who themselves may also belong to the lower social class. On the other hand when there are fashion magazines such as Vogue which can cost up £4.00 people who are found much higher in the social grading system, will be the target audience, because of course these are the people who will have more money to spend on things and of course these are the people that will be considered as fashion conscious, which is why fashion magazines will probably appeal to this higher social class. Understanding the demographics properly will mean that the rates of people buying and reading the magazine (magazine circulation) will increase, and will rarely decrease if the magazine producer has researched all the media demographics properly. To be put simply, if you understand the demographics and the likes, dislikes and needs of the audience that you are aiming towards then you will of course put these features into your magazine to properly fulfil the needs of the readers. If a magazine producer thoroughly explores the demographics of a group of people then they can improve their magazine. If a magazine is aiming towards a female market then they must understand these demographics and look at the types of things that appeal to females, for example, attractive male celebrities, makeup tips, fashions tips etc.

What demographic group you will be targeting

The demographic group I will be targeting is teenage males and females who are interested in rock and indie music. I will appeal to this particular audience by doing lots of simple little things to allow my magazine to appeal to this particular audience. The first thing that will appeal to this audience is the chance to win free tickets to gigs, concerts and gatherings, these are things which will attract a wide proportion of the readers because of course at the young age of these readers they probably won’t have very much money particularly if the only way that can actually get money is to ask their parents/guardians for it, and concert tickets can often be expensive, so the chance to win these for free is an opportunity no one would plan to miss. As well as this I am planning to use lots of competitions within the magazine, this as well as making the reader more involved within the magazine also makes the magazine seem more exciting, especially if you’re offered the chance to win lots of free prizes, again the chance to win free prizes is something that people will not want to miss out on, no matter what it is. I will also include at least 60 pages worth of information, articles, facts and other things that will interest my target audience this is so that the reading audience will think they are getting their money’s worth and aren’t just being charged money for a couple of pages, because some people can be discouraged from buying a magazine because they just aren’t getting what they think they should be getting for the amount of money they are paying. Including more pages within the magazine will mean there are more articles and features within the magazine, meaning that there are more things to actually encourage the reader to buy it. As well as this I think that it should be a weekly issued magazine, this is because I believe that these are the type of magazines that engage the audience, the most, this is because if  the magazine collects a group of loyal readers, they will read at least one issue of the magazine each week meaning that buying and reading the magazine will soon become part of their weekly routine, this just makes the magazine part of their life whilst a monthly magazine is less engaging because you only buy it once a month and even then it’ll be read twice at the most and then left in the corner and ignored, meaning that some readers can even completely forget to get the next issue, most likely the reader will probably find another similar magazine that they can get but which will be weekly, and something that they can get more out of, meaning that purely because of the fact that it’s monthly they could just lose readers.

Reader Profile of NME

The reader profile is tells us a lot about the types of people that read that particular magazine, it gives us an idea of their likes, dislikes, and generally what they are like as people. Magazine producers will look at reader profiles because they can allow a producer to get to know the target audience they are aiming towards. It is important for a magazine producer to understand their target market because they need to know what will appeal to the people they wish to target, for example in a rock magazine there would be no use putting in an enormous article about pop artist Rihanna because this type of article and this artist doesn’t belong to the same genre that the readers will be interested in, however putting in an article about the Black Veil Brides however, would be more likely to appeal the readers since this belongs to a similar style of music to the one that the reader is interested in. If a magazine publisher understands the needs and likes and dislikes of it’s target audience they can then begin to provide features, articles and lots of other things within the magazine which will then make the magazine more popular within that particular genre of music, this simply because when a magazine meets a certain need for the reader it is this need which makes readers want to pick up and buy the magazine each week, by fulfilling these needs the magazine producer is therefore creating a loyal reading audience. The first thing we see is that the people who read NME are clearly very modern and stylish and enjoy wearing big brands and names, we know this because of the images used at the top of reader profile it shows us images and brand logos of things such as Puma, Topman, K Swiss, Adidas, Fred Perry etc these are all well known brands and clearly portrays the idea that these are the types of shops that NME readers shop at.  We can clearly see that the reading audience is mainly composed of males, with 74% of it’s readers being males while the other 26% are females. It provides us with lots of reader quotes such as “i can trust it”, “honest no-holds barred reviews” this creates the idea that the readers trust the magazine which creates a very good impression of the magazine itself, and shows that it cares about it’s readers wants and need. It also shows us that a lots of it’s readers enjoy drinking and alcohol because it shows us images of lots of cans of alcohol and also drinks such as Jack Daniels and becks.  It also tells us that the NME readers all enjoy music and it shows us pictures of I-pods and then below this it explain how enthusiastic the readers are about music and music knowledge, this shows us that the readers see NME as a magazine which updates them on the musical world and gives them information on all the new album releases etc. The reader profile tells us that there is quite a big magazine circulation of 33,875 and has an astounding readership of 325,000, all of whom have a median age of about 23. All in all it is clear that the readers of NME are young adults, who enjoy fashion, and driving stylish cars, looking stylish and generally doing all the things that most young people love to do. 

Looking through reader profiles has helped me immensely because it has allowed me to understand what the target audience of NME is like. It has given me an idea of their needs and likes and dislikes as well as the types of things which will effectively make them want to pick up, buy and read the magazine. I have analysed why a particular group of people buy a particular type of magazine and have decided that within my own magazine I will use lots of similar features to try and appeal to my particular audience. I will include features within my own magazine such as articles on popular rock bands, giving the audience an insight into a rock bands rock star lifestyle and I will also make offers for free prizes and free tickets to go to concerts all of which I have realised will appeal to the target audience that I am aiming towards.

Uses and Gratifications theory

The uses and gratifications theory is extremely important and all the different theories are loosely based on the same idea. Basically this theory states that people choose to read and look at certain media because it fulfils a certain social or psychological need for the reader. For example according to the researchers Blulmer and Katz, they believed that the media fulfilled the following things, it’s a diversion from the readers own lives, because in magazine there are so many stories and articles based on other things that for a while you simply forget about everything else. The second thing that media does according to this theory is portrays personal relationships and for a while makes things such as soap operas replace normal life meaning that for a while the reader will be focused on this other fictional life, or another person’s life in general rather than their own. As well as this media is thought to allow your develop your personal identity, and basically learn and grow from the things that you read and see in the media, for example in most magazine you’ll see things such as “top ten ways to flirt” or “top 5 outfits for the summer”, things like this are provided in media such as magazines so that it appeals to the readers nature of wanting to learn more, as well as this it provides a reinforcement of a persons personal values, it allows people to find models of different behaviour and different values, and of course allows people to gain an insight into oneself. The last thing is surveillance this is basically talking about the way in which people wish to read or watch media because they want to find out about the things happening around them, for example the weather, news etc. On the other hand there are other researchers such as Mcquail who support the idea that personal social circumstances and psychological dispositions can influence the readers habits and how they use the media, this decides the readers choice of media and how they use the information they get, evidently this shows that there are many different theories which researchers have made to explain a readers behaviour when choosing upon a certain media. Going back to the Blulmer and Katz theory, when considering this in the context of a music magazine, it’s relatively simple it is a diversion because you can just sit back and relax and find out about celebrities, secrets and gossip therefore for a while diverting your attention away from your life. For personal relationships you can find out about the latest gossip and therefore keep up with your friends, therefore in some ways strengthening your relationships with your friend, because you all know the same things so you have something to talk about, and give your own opinions on. For personal identity some magazines can advertise opportunities to allow readers to get involved within the magazine, while surveillance allows you an insight into celebrities lives and generally what is happening in the celebrity world right now.