Audience Profile – Genre: R&B Target Audience:

Gender and Age (Hartley’s 7 Subjectivities) and whyThe denotation for the age and gender group for my R&B magazine would be males ranging from 16 – 25. I think that this is because my R&B magazine is going to be trendy and will contain the latest R&B news and up and coming stars. People of this age group are stereotypically the most interested in following trends and keeping up to date with the latest stars.People that are younger than this age are probably not going to be as interested in this music and more interested in pop. People of an older generation will be more interested in the R&B music from their own generation.

Socio-Economic Needs and why:I think that the people who would buy my magazine would be people of a C class and above. I think this because my magazine would be reasonably priced and so most people are going to be able to afford this. I think this would be better as in a business sense this would give me an increased number of sales. The magazine price will be around the £1.99 price and for a monthly magazine that is reasonably cheap. Therefore people from the C class and upwards would comfortably be able to afford it. I think this is better because it means that the magazine will produce more sales and become more popular. I also think this a good thing as many of the R&B or Hip Hop artists did not come form rich background so the fact that all kinds of people can afford it relates back to the genre and its history making it more attractive to potential customers.

Katz’ Uses & Gratifications Theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy of needsThe denotation of my prime target audience for my magazine would be ‘explorers’ (Maslow) because they are keen to find out about the lavish lifestyle that the people commonly in R&B magazines would have. R&B is a genre of music that has been a growing trend over the last 20 years and the people who listen to it (explorers) are always going to be looking and following the latest trends. In accordance with Katz’ Uses & Gratifications theory the magazine will target those in the ‘diversion’ section as readers attract themselves to the music, artists and culture covered by this R&B magazine and all the other R&B magazines across the world and will consume the stories as a form of escapism from the relative normality of their lives. The price of the magazine will be £2.99. This, whilst not seeming like a lot, would be expensive fro people who are on low salaries as they will need to spend the money on more important things. This magazine would be based towards the social climbers as they would be more interested in the materialistic things about life such as big name brands. This is very suited to the R&B genre as they usually sing about these things and so the magazine would be relatable to the social climbers of society.

Stereotype(s):The stereotypical reader of my magazine would be a young man of an African American race aged 16 – 25.