Some have suggested
that music magazines are generally aimed at male readers. To what extent would
you agree with this? Provide examples to support your views.
On the whole I agree that music magazines are typically
aimed at males, however there is some popular music magazines aimed at females,
but they appeal to a much younger audience. For instance one of the most
popular music magazines with a typically male audience is Q magazine with 75% of male readers and only 75% female, where as
another popular music magazine is Top Of
The Pops, which population of readers is mainly female dominated, with 86%
female readers, and 14% male. An example of an ‘in-between’ magazine as such is
Kerrang, with 57% of male readers and 43% female readers, which statistics show
that even though its readership is pretty balanced on the gender side (which
may seem strange for a magazine with such a aggressive theme) there is still a
bigger percentage of male readers than female.
An example of evidence that Q is intended to appeal to the
male gender is its use of red, black and white as its repeating colour scheme.
Even though red can be viewed as a unisex colour the shade of red commonly used
by Q is harsh and can display connotations of anger and danger, and black and
white are binary opposites which creates contrasting atmosphere which you
wouldn’t find in a female music magazine. Also the front cover typically includes
an unsexualised image of a male, which would attract the male audiences.
Interestingly, if there is a female on the cover they are always sexualised and
viewed more as an object than a artist, and are generally viewed from the chest
area up, different to the normal close up of the face when a male is on the
cover. This highlights that the magazine is not aimed towards females because
if they were to see this image it would not attract them to read the magazine,
it also may make them angry at the magazines objectification of women. The
front cover also contains aggressive imagery and the main artist commonly
sports a sombre expression, all of which attracts the male audience. The font
is being bold and ‘straight’ with no elaborate fonts is viewed is viewed as a
more ‘male’ type of font and adds to the aggressive atmosphere.
Kerrang magazine could attract more of a female audience
because even though it has frequent use of swearing and aggressive language and
imagery which is usually viewed as a male trait, its images of males can be
viewed as attractive to people of the female gender due to their ‘bad boy,
rockstar’ image. The images aren’t as objectified as they are for women for
example in Q, but there are still presented as more attractive than the sombre close
up images of men in Q. Not objectifying
men is important because the magazine is also meant to appeal majorly to men as
well. The fonts commonly used have a distressed style and there is common use
of harsh words such as ‘warped’ which again implies it is directed towards
males as they are looked upon as the more aggressive, violent gender, There is
offers of poster which is viewed as typically used by female to demonstrate
their loyalty to a music act. Kerrang magazine colour theme is also typically harsh
colours such as blue, which symbolic sign and generally portrays male
connotations.
Finally an example of a mainly female oriented magazine, Top of The Pops. This is one of the few
music magazine aimed at females, but it has a noticeably younger audience than
the other two magazines mentioned, possibly because as the females get older
they transfer to the internet as there source of information, also priorities
their money spending for other things (i.e clothes). Interestingly there is
still sexualisation in this magazine particularly when males are on the cover
since half of their success in music is based on looks, and the other half on
music, unlike the rock genre when the success is mainly due to just the music.
To conclude male magazines are generally aimed at 20-30 year
old male readers due to them being the most common demographic for buying music
magazine.
