1. Defining an Audience Task 2

2. Q Target Audience
• From looking at the reader profile on Q’s website
it states that Q has a target audience of a
medium age of 32 years old with 70% being
male. They claim it has the youngest and affluent
audience than any other music magazine.
• In the UK Q is the No. 1 actively purchased music
magazine with a 369,000 readership.
• Overall the readers have a 73% ABC1 social
status which expresses the high quality
photographs and slightly complex text.
• In the media pack it has given me a lot of
information into their audience from a large
paragraph on a subject person who reads Q. This
is shown to advertisers and they can see if they
appeal to this particular audience. For instance,
National Express advertises to this particular
audience because they are a young audience but
will have enough money to travel on trains and
will most likely use their service to work, while
reading this magazine.

3. Images
Q’s readers prize its lavish photography, in-depth
reporting and sense of humor. -
www.bauermedia.co.uk/uploads/QMediaPack
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The images have all been photographed in a high quality standard to
show the popular bands and artists. The front covers of Q magazine’s
are usually shot with a medium close up to make the artists seem
close to the audience. A high quality shot is edited make the artists
look as good as possible and to make the magazine seem
professional, relating to the 73% ABC1 social class as this audience
has the money to buy a high quality music magazine.
Inside Q a large interview is usually placed in the middle of each
monthly issue from the artist on the front cover. In this page spread
there is usually one high quality image on one side of the double
page spread, which is shown with the Lady Gaga interview to the left,
as well as other issues I have looked at. In the image inside the issue
of Lady Gaga you can see she is wearing a lot of make up but not a lot
of clothing. In fact a few chains and her own hands cover her breasts
to keep it from being too explicit as it has a high social context to
follow. A black and white filter or lowering the shadows are used on
the photographs to make it sophisticated but it also fits with the
unique music they talk about and artists they photograph.

4. Words
The text on the cover is simple with the names of the bands and
artists standing out in a large font or a bright colour, which will grab the
audiences attention on what they are interested on the most. There is
not a lot of information on the bands except for the main interview
with the Arctic Monkeys. On the front cover the use of an alliteration is
used for a simple effect to lure the audience quickly in with “Bread,
booze and backing cakes,” an unusual three things put together which
gets people interested on the article.
Just from the look of the interview inside Q you can see it has a large
amount of information. This shows it is targeted at an audience who
have time to read a lot of information about artists and music. The
large ‘L’ in the middle of the page draws away the amount of text and it
adds some colour to the page so when flicking through you do no miss
this great amount of text. The text is small, again showing that the
target audience have time on their hands to read about music and
music is a particular interest for them. This is supported by the reader
profile below from the media pack.
Chris is 29 years old and lives in Leeds. Music is more important to
him than anything else. It’s at the centre of his social life. It
soundtracks all the best moments in his life. It’s his identity, his social
currency and his world. - The Reader
This was taken from the media pack from one of its very own readers.
It helps Q fit musical influence interviews and information on festivals.
A positive review in Q can make a bands career.
“
”

5. Colours
A simple three colour scheme is used; red, white and black. The
colours are sometimes in different shades e.g. black to a dark grey.
A simple colour scheme attracts the audience more the images and
the colour white is there to highlight certain words (Arctic Monkeys
and White Lies).
The blue banner across the top is there to highlight 25 years of
triumph and tragedy, a 17 page special inside. These are called
stickers and when they are placed on a page to inform the
audience about something exciting inside, or grabbing their
attention or getting that certain person to buy the issue.
Highlighting it in a bright blue colour contrast and makes it look
more important
The dark colours complement the type of music in Q; a grudge and
unique genre. Altogether the colours are formatted well together
and compliment each other, making the magazine look
professional and new. Inside the issue the colours are very simple
with just one large L in red which instantly links it to Lady Gaga. She
is well known and popular therefore doesn’t need any recognition
inside the magazine with her unique photographs. Having a black
and white image makes the photograph look sophisticated
contrasting Lady Gaga in the image with her not wearing anything.
With simple colours it leads to a sophisticated audience interested
in both images and text.

6. Layout
The layout is simple, sophisticated and easy to read. There is a 50/50
ratio of images this shows both are as important as the other and that
the audience has quite a high status and a passion for music because
there is a lot of formative text as well as high quality images
throughout the magazine. They also have time to read a high quality
magazine like Q.
• On the front cover of Q 90% of the writing is towards the bottom.
The audience will look at the photograph of the Arctic Monkeys
first, because it is the most dominate thing on the cover and then
they will be drawn to the text below. A caption brings you into the
Arctic Monkeys interview and some more information about
bands and artists relevant to the same genre as the Arctic
Monkeys. On this issue it also advertises a special edition
magazine in a form of a sticker, again to grab the readers attention
quickly. The reader may have enough time to read quality work
but they want to be able to quickly find their favorite music
magazine.
• Inside Q it gives the reader a great quality of high resulted images
of their favourite bands which attracts the ABC1 social grade as
they wouldn’t want camera phone images live from a Arctic
Monkeys concert, but a well thought out image that takes up a lot
of space inside the issues. Lots of text in the interview gives you
lots of insiders about the particular artist but not in a gossip
magazine way, more sophisticated and journeyed through their
promotion.

7. Anchorage
Anchorage is basically used in media to attach a
meaning to something through either the matching
words to images or the juxtaposition that constructs a
meaning.
Music magazine do not use anchorage as much as
gossip or women’s magazines as they are mainly aimed
for a male gender. From looking at many pages in Q you
can see most interviews will cut out a quote that
sounds interesting to make the audience feel a certain
way for the band or artist. For instance the pulled quote
on this page makes the audience feel sorry for the band
as they have used phrases such as “we weren’t taken
seriously” and “that really hurt us”. This draws the
audiences attention and causes them to want to know
what happened and read the article. Pull quotes are
used a lot on interviews in many genres of magazines.
No matter what genre it is always to grab the audiences
attention. More pull quotes are used in magazines with
younger audiences such as teenage girl magazine
Shout, there is more use of pull quotes to keep them
interested and wanting to carry on reading.

8. Codes and Conventions
Colour Scheme
Q is a magazine which specifies in new but unique music. A lot is in
the indie/rock genre. The codes and conventions of the indie/rock
genre is dark shades of colour to represent the dark alleys where this
kind of music was first found and the mysterious grudge within the
music. Magazines like Q who also follow the dark codes and
conventions of an indie/rock magazine are NME as they also portray
the indie/rock genre and are competition to Q therefore Q uses high
quality and brighter colours to make it stand out.
The front cover uses dark grays, blacks and whites to fit with the indie
genre that the Arctic Monkeys come from. The gray background
contrasts with the bright red background for the Q logo. This helps
the audience easily find Q on the shelf of a newsagents because of its
bright contrasting colours that catch your eye.
Inside Q the colours are very simple again, but it has a large contrast
with the bright red initial on the interview. This makes a statement
just like the indie genre and the artists, for instance Lady Gaga.
Example of the colours used in Q and the contrast of the red against the neutral colours

9. Codes and Conventions
Photography
Usually music magazine use low quality images taken at concerts,
festivals and gigs but Q want to give their readers high quality images.
This lets Q have an advantage over other music magazine as both older
and younger music fan audiences like high quality images of their
favourite artists.
Inside the magazine they product large quality images on one full page,
like the Lady Gaga photograph, so people can take these pictures out and
pin them on their wall. This is extremely common in music magazines for
them to incorporate posters inside issues to get teens to buy their
magazine. Posters are a great way in music to sell a magazine as people
will go out and buy the physical copy and not on a e-reader such as a
kindle.
High quality images are a great way to grab an audience’s attention
because more often or not, they look at the artist on the front cover
before reading the text, therefore the images are what sells a music
magazine. This would not be the same for a hobby magazine as that
audience read that genre of magazine for an informational purpose
rather than an entertainment purpose.
For Q, photography is a large part to appeal to their audience. They want
high quality images to appeal to their high status audience. In magazines
such as Cosmopolitan the models are edited a lot but with Q the lighting
may be edited and small wrinkles/blemishes may be edited out but only
for the front cover and large interviews.

10. Codes and Conventions
Fonts
A common convection for Q’s magazine is to have a large single
letter of the artists first initial under their interview. Having a
convention like this makes it easy to fine the main interview in the
issue because while flicking though the pages you will see the flash
of red and know what this is the interview page. The interview is
very full of text but it uses a simple serif font to keep it professional
and looking slightly like a newspaper making people think the
information is important.
The rest of the text does not take attention away from the images.
If Q wants to make some text stand out they will make the size
bigger or change the colour. The basic serif fonts keep the magazine
looking simple and sophisticated for a music magazine. Q is an easy
but informative magazine to read. It has more information about
artists than other magazines in the same genre such as Kerrang but
this is because Q’s audience have a busy lifestyle but they still have
time to be interested in their musical interests.

11. Codes and Conventions
Modes of Address
Q lets the artist talk for themselves, there is not a lot of addressing
the audience in the interview pages. These are more informational
on the artist being interviewed. For example there will be some
information about the artist, a quarter of a page, then the rest is
the interview from the artist. It is not conversational based but
written more like a story which is unusual. You can tell this music
magazine is for an older audience than NME or Karrange’s audience
as these magazines use slang words and address the audience a lot
more. Having a magazine that is towards the same genre as others
but addresses a different social grade and age range is more likely
to sell a lot more and Q achieves this standard well. The way it
addresses the audience shows a ABC1 social grade as it is not
informal or uses lots of slang.
The ways that magazine gets feedback is from emails,
questionnaires and interviews. This helps them know what they
need to change to access their target audience to full potential.
When connecting to their audience, in parts of the magazine such
as feedback from a previous issue or send in a picture of them and
a famous person, they do this to seem like they care and feel
connected to you personally to get your opinion on things.