Apply the concept of Audience to one of your coursework productions.

Every media product has to have an audience, otherwise in both a business sense and probably
an artistic sense too it would be judged a failure. Ultimately a media text in itself has no meaning
until it is read or decoded by an audience. Ryan Wills The Sonorist magazine has a denite niche
alternative target audience and targets the entire product at this specic target audience and
know one else.

The Sonorist is targeted at the indie scenester and hipster audience. Hipsters are Britains
trendiest tribe and have a largely male dominance. They have a deep need to be ahead of the
game and consider them-selves trendsetters rather than followers. Hipsters are enthusiastic
about the new and adventurous in their choices. Style and design is very important to this
audience.
The scenester target group include people who want to be ahead of the crowd and are willing to
invest time and effort into the paraphernalia and detail of their sub-culture. Indie Scenesters exist
thanks to the fashionable status of guitar
music and are linked to the general rise of instant fashionability of fashion and music trends.
Scenesters don't mind bands achieving main-stream success, but prefer them before the
masses cotton on. This audience group also have a male dominance.

The Sonorist' have targeted these audiences in a multiple amount of ways. Firstly it is clear that
there is a slight male dominance within the audience groups. The Sonorist meets this
characteristic and capitalises by involving a higher percentage of male artists and bands within its
pages. The magazine clearly feels that the dominant male audience can relate to the males within
these bands on multiple levels. This relates to Bulmers gratication theory. He believed that
individuals might choose and use a text for a range of uses and gratications. One of these which
relates to this point is Personal Identity which is an individual nding his/herself reected in texts
or the interest of the behavioural learning and values from within the texts. The audience members
will feel that they can relate to the individuals within the pages of The Sonorist whereas they could
not with the mega pop stars written about in mainstream magazines.

Another way The Sonorist target these audience members is by styling the bands in the way they
do. It is clear that the audience groups have an interest in fashion and the link between it and
music. By including stylish and alternative styles within the magazine the audience will react
positively without even reading a word within the text. The styles included within the magazine will
be internally received by the target group members as positive of they personally relate to the
style. This links to the Stuart Halls reception theory. The text is encoded by the producer, and
decoded by the reader, and there may be major differences between two different readings of the
same code. An example of this within The Sonorist comes on the front cover. The male included
upon the front cover is wearing a black suit with a pompadour hair cut. This very same man is
included within a double page spread where he is wearing a leather jacket. This code created by
the producer will appeal and be decoded positively by the target audience as cool or alternative, he
or she will instantly understand the genre and want to read the magazine. Alternatively to this
someone (e.g. an individual from a hip hop audience) may decode the image and feel that the
individual looks pompous and uncool. He will therefore not want to read the magazine.
Again it is clear to The Sonorist that individuals within the target group are interested in design
and visual aesthetics. Other than music and fashion, art and design is an interest. To apply this
knowledge and appeal to the audience The Sonorist include aesthetic design as one of their main
objectives. The front cover is very minimal, only including a masthead, main image, price and date.
The font is black and white and so is the main image. This minimal style follows through to the
contents page which is expertly layer out with aesthetic font type and symmetrical layout and
spacing. The double page spreads also adopts this house style with unusual font naming the band
in question and again the paragraphs and layout to the pages are perfectly aligned and spaced.
This is clearly set out to appeal to the hipster and scenester target audience because again they
will respond and receive to the visual code created by the producer. This could be classed as
preferred reading because the audience members with the eye and preference for modern design
will decode and react positively to the magazine whereas someone outside the target audience
may will not decode, will not take interest and will not read the product.

The gig reviews that are stated in the contents and placed in the back of the magazine are
included to target the specic audience groups in question. The target audience are willing to
invest time and effort into the paraphernalia and detail of their sub-culture and so will attend live
gigs and events surrounding the music that interests them. The inclusion of events which the
audience will either have been to or will have wanted to go to will again relate to certain
gratications. One of these being Personal Identity and another being Surveillance. The
surveillance gratication relates to the disposal of information which the audience will nd helpful.
The summary of a band or artists performance will provide the target audience with that
information.

The music reviews and articles within The Sonorist are also included to involve and entice the
target audience. The formal wording and deep use of knowledge entices, educates and ultimatley
sells bands and records to the audience. If a piece of text is structured and written in the way that
The Sonorist do, the audience may become slaves to the Hypodermic Needle Model. This is
where the audience are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and
thinking might be easily changed by media-makers. In context of The Sonorist, the reviews and
opinions of the magazine may brush of on the audience. Even though the audience tend to feel like
they are trend setters and have there own opinion what is viewed as cool and acclaimed within the
pages of the magazine will more than likely brush of on to there subconscious mind and ultimately
there opinion.

The audience response to The Sonorist was very positive. A questionnaire was distributed to a
range of individuals who the producers felt fell in to the correct target audience(s). The
questionnaire full of both open and closed questions revelled that on the whole the audience liked
the minimal and adventurously designed house style of the magazine and felt that the genres
included within the magazine were varied and broad whilst still staying around the alternative
pinpoint that it set out to do. The audience also felt that the size of the magazine was effective as it
was a monthly publication whilst the amount of text to read was not over powering. Another
element of the magazine that was picked up within the feedback was that the majority appreciated
the involvement of both old and new bands along with the huge interest in live music.