Audience & Audience Interpretation (first teaching 2022) GapFill

Zoomer magazine © Zoomer Media Ltd. 2003

In order to explore media products effectively, it is important that you are able to analyse existing texts and identify which audiences they are designed for.

Pictured above is the front page for Zoomer magazine. By looking closely at this product, we can create  an audience statistican audience surveyan audience marketan audience profile for the magazine without even researching the publication in detail.

The cover of Zoomer contains phrases such as 'in praise of older women' and 'ageism, what’s in a name?', which denotes an older  target audienceprimary audiencesecondary audienceproduction base. The appearance of Maggie Smith, as well as the focus on popular television show Downton Abbey, further denotes and reinforces that Zoomer is targeting audiences in the  over 21sover 60s40–5535–50 age bracket.

When trying to determine the gender of a product’s target audience, it is useful to look at the magazine’s  cover starauthoreditorproducer, as this person will usually be positioned as  an alienan aspirationala dominatinga desirable figure for the audience.

Zoomer delves into Smith’s career and promises the audience ways in which they can style themselves like Smith’s popular television character – this is more likely to appeal to women.

There is   a coverlinea pluga mastheadan article starter that reads 'Gentlemen! Lose the weight for good'. Since this is the only article that appears to address men directly, we might say that older women are the  primaryleast likelysecondarymass audience for Zoomer and that older men make up the  primarymasssecondaryopposed audience.

The advice on how to make the style of Downton Abbey 'your own' could suggest that Zoomer is targeting people of a higher  experience levelcash flowsocial gradeeducation, i.e. upper-middle class or middle class. This is because the characters on the show, Smith’s character in particular, are financially well off. This is evident from the way Smith is dressed.

In terms of the target audience’s  emotionalpsychographicmetaphysicaldemographic qualities, i.e. likes, dislikes, interests and media  understandingreviewingconsumptioncreation habits, there is a clear emphasis on health, well-being and culture. Core readers are likely to eat well, exercise and maintain a relatively good knowledge of  popular cultureartreligionhistory, particularly shows such as Downton Abbey. From the information we have collected, it is clear that the magazine is targeting   an indie crowdan aberrant marketa niche marketa primary market of people with specialist interests. It is typical for magazines to target this kind of market. On the other hand, products such as television dramas and  violent video gamesblockbuster filmsart-house filmsregional newspapers tend to target the mass market.