BenjaminBakerASMedia

Monday, 2 January 2017

Question 3 - Institutions

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Bauer Media

Bauer Media is a privately owned, European based publishing company with over 600 magazines and many other digital products and radio stations. They publish three music magazines; “Mojo”, “Q” and “Kerrang”. “Kerrang” and “Mojo” could possibly be competition for my magazine as they are both aimed at men, are rock genres and “Kerrang” is also aimed at teenagers. However, Bauer would be very good at publishing my magazine “Rebel” publishes similar magazines.

Their magazines focus mainly on country side topics, fishing, music and bikes and cars. Their music magazines are aimed at young people, both men and women, “Kerrang” certainly targets men more. Most of their radio stations are aimed towards young people, for example “Heart Radio” is very popular among teenagers, this is an important aspect to consider if I can reach another audience through different medias.

Time Inc

Time Inc is an American media publishing company based in NYC and publishes over 100 different magazines such as “NME”, “Sports Illustrated” and most significantly owning “Time”. Even though they only publish magazines each one is very successful. “NME” is the only music magazine they publish. These are their Entertainment brands, each one focussing on popular culture, and current topics.

Obviously, their target audiences are not just music fans but people who like sports, fashion, television and movies and culture. The target audiences would differ quite a lot for these, for example “Woman” will appeal to women more than men. They publish a lot of TV related magazines which are generally targeted towards adults of both genders.

Conclusion

Both companies would be good for distributing my magazine but overall I think Bauer Media would be more suitable for it.

Time Inc would be good but not as suitable; it only publishes magazines so I couldn’t reach other audiences with it, they only do two music magazines and even NME focuses too much on pop and isn’t a huge magazine compared to Bauer’s Q. Bauer also have “Kerrang” which is similar to “Rebel” so they have very similar target audiences so it would be a smart decision to go with Bauer.

Question 2 - Social Groups

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Main Artist - My magazines featured artist and band are all white which is quite common in rock magazines. Unlike most bands that are featured in real magazines “Full Metal Repertoire” has “Ally C” one of the few female musicians featured in which is unlike rock magazines and more common with pop magazines. They are shown as young millennials showing them to be “silly”, “messy” and “crazy” Holding the guitar as if it was a gun, undone shirts and messy ties all helps give a chaotic look so when the audience sees them they associate the “young person” stereotype to them. This representation of the social group of Musicians is similar to magazines like “Kerrang!” when they feature bands like Green Day and Blink 182 frontman Mark Hoppus looking at the camera immaturely.

Featured Artists – All of the people featured on the magazine are musicians and the magazine mentions Donald Trump. Some are famous names likes Bowie and My Chemical Romance voicing their opinions on relevant issues and quite a lot of musicians are represented stating their political agenda such as Green Day in the Rolling Stone. Some of the lesser known artists like “George Brooks” and “Ben Semmens” are not being represented badly but aren’t being shown as positive either.

No one featured on the magazine is necessarily represented badly, this is similar to Kerrang where it focuses positively on the artist unlike some like MTV where they would have harsh critiques of the artist and represent them negatively.