Evaluation

 To distribute my magazine I am going to need to find an institution and decide who I want to distribute it. There are different kinds you can choose from like major publishing, independent publishing and self-publishing. There are reasons why some of them are good and why some are bad so I will have to look at both sides to decide how to publish my magazine.

Major publishing houses are popular because they get seen by a mass of people and they have the most power. Karl Marx said ‘Power resides with those who have ownership and control of the means of production and distribution.’

A major publishing house in the UK is The Hearst Corporation which is a multinational mass media group. They have one of the largest diversified communications companies in the world and more than 300 magazines worldwide including; Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire and Seventeen. Another is Condé Nast which is a division of Advance Publications and is a mass media company. The company has more than 164 million consumers across its 20 print and digital media brands. It releases famous magazines; Vogue, Glamour, GQ and Brides.

These publishing houses offer differentiated magazines which allow more versatile and diverse magazines that widen the target audience. Both companies allow horizontal integration and the use of synergy by being mass media groups. Hearst is the owner of multiple TV Networks and Websites which could allow the viral marketing of their magazines. This is because there are a lot of fragmented audiences and to make sure they have the optimum amount of people reading their magazines they need to reach them all in different ways.

Condé Nast also is the owner of Condé Nast Entertainment a division that is dedicated to the development, production and distribution of original television, feature film and digital video offerings. Both magazines focus their target on women and the content usually is lifestyle and fashion. There are however some magazines focused on men like GQ and Men’s Health. The fact that they have so many departments allows them to market their magazines but they might not want something too similar to the magazines they have that would cause competition.

Independent Publishing Houses usually focus on magazines where there is a specific and quite a small market for. Independent publishers like Blaze have become the largest independently owned publishing company.

It specialises in niche magazines, directories and shows with around 45 full time staff. They release magazines

such as Drummer, Acoustic, Hair Fashion and Airgun Shooter which are for niche markets and on a singular subject.

The problem with independent magazines is that there usually aren’t enough team members which means that they need more money and time to get a magazine completed. They also might not be able to afford a lot of marketing and may rely on people talking about it or putting it on the internet. They do use viral marketing however by having a Facebook page and market their magazine by working in synergy with many events like The London Acoustic Show, The London Drum Show and the London Bass Guitar show which the magazines advertises. Sometimes if an independent magazine becomes recognized and really successful then a major publishing house may make an offer and take over the magazines.

 

Finally there is self-publishing where anyone is able to publish their own work without being a part of a company. This can be done doing a fanzine which was traditionally having hand written articles and sticking pictures on the spread. Sniffin’ glue was a fanzine that was very popular and was hand written, photocopied and distributed. An e-zine is similar however it is online and is usually in the form of a blog.

Self-publishing is the easiest to do but it also may not get a large audience seeing it and it usually doesn’t bring in money making marketing hard. They could show adverts and make readers pay a subscription but this still would not largely build the audience. There are some blogs that become very popular on the other hand like zoella.co.uk a beauty blogger whose blog has now led her to becoming an internet personality who has released a book and been featured on numerous TV shows. They do however have numerous social media sites where they are able to market their brand to fragmented audiences.

I would choose the major publishing house The Hearst Corporation to publish my magazine because they specialize in magazines for females of different ages but are short of a music magazine which could attract a new range of consumers. They also have all the resources needed to make it be successful and viable as there is a gap in the market also meaning there would be no competition. Major publishing houses are open to many resources so they are able to promote their magazines easily. A major publishing house having a lot of money allows them to gain more awareness. For example The Hearst Corporation has TV Networks and owns; ESPN Inc. (20%)., Esquire Network, A+E Networks (50%) and Hearst Television Inc. They also have ownership of famous Internet websites like the popular; AwesomenessTV, eCrush, Delish.com, Digital Spy, Answerology and more. Using synergy is very important because it stops audiences being so fragmented.

I used many different methods in my attempt to attract my audience and one of these was not using Photoshop to airbrush any of the models as I have discovered that young teenagers are made to feel insecure because of this. I was against photoshopping because I wanted my images to help the readers reach the goal of self actualization as mentioned in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. I also attracted the readers with the content seen of the front of the magazine. The main story is about a girl who has become the youngest star to win an MTV award which adds to the aspirations of the readers of the magazine who will want to be successful and make history like the star on the cover. I focused on the uses and gratifications theory when making my magazine as to attract the audience into buying and reading it. I informed my readers with the gossip section that could be seen in the contents page to make it appear like they were getting an exclusive and also gave them an opportunity to buy the clothes that the celebrities were seen wearing with the 'Get The Look' section. Another way that I attracted my audience was having additional incentives like 'Free HMV Vouchers' and an opportunity to win Ariana Grande tickets. This encourages people to buy the magazine so they are able to see what they can win.

I tried to entertain my audience by having buzzwords on the cover like 'Loud', 'Passion', 'Dreams' and this would make them want to read it and escape into a world where they can feel these things and be closer to knowing how to achieve their dreams.I made sure the readers were able to identify by having a section called 'Time for Inspiration' where there would be uplifting articles that would make the reader feel secure. This uses Maslow's theory as the reader would want to better themselves. To help with the social interaction I made sure to include links to the magazines social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram where they would be able to get exclusive information and behind the scene pictures from photoshoots and etc. The exclusive content would encourage social interaction because they would want to talk to their friends and family about it. This also prevents audience fragmentation as there are many more internet users in these modern days and because of this it makes it harder for magazines to compete with search engines that make it easy to find out the latest gossip from celebrities. 

As shown above there are over 2 billion internet users and it is especially hard to reach younger people as they have technology in their back pocket with their mobile phones.so it is very important to use the internet in the making of a magazine. I took this research and used it to make sure I was using different types of media platforms as well as having a website for the magazine. This will encourage the idea of exchange as readers will be able to share, like, favourite and comment on posts as well as upload content like reviews or tweets and statuses mentioning the magazine name and spreading the brand. I would also make sure to use retail psychology when my magazine is in a shop which is when the magazine is placed at eye level of the customers allowing people to be able to see it and have it be noticed. This could be done by giving suppliers a discount and placing it next to other famous magazines of different genre's to reduce competition therefore creating awareness of my brand. 

Preliminary Task

Final Magazine

 

My preliminary task compared to my final magazine looks very unprofessional and does not look like it could ever be sold at any shop. The reason being that I was very unsure of how to create the codes of a magazine using the software that I had and I also did not plan what I was going to do with research.

 In the media there a lot of theories that can take a magazine to a higher level and these things must be used in order to be successful. There are certain codes and conventions in the entertainment industry that should be looked at and used. This falls into the category of making a magazine. While learning about this in lessons I realized the different things I had to do to get a more professional looking magazine that could actually be sold.

 I learnt the importance of using audience research because with the preliminary task we were simply told to make a magazine with the target audience of students, parents and teachers all whom are very different than one another. However when I was making my final magazine I was able to interact with my audience and ask them what they did and did not like about my magazine and I was able to understand what to change. Having all this information and putting it into a presentation really helped me be able to understand how to make a magazine that would please people and make sure that my mode of address was efficient.

 

It is important to understand the various theories like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, The Male Gaze, Hyper reality etc. because this helped me be able to ask my audience the right questions and get back the feedback that I needed. I was able to make the magazine suited to fulfill their needs of self-actualization through the articles and the images that I used. I developed my skills of Photoshop and this was done by using it to edit my magazine and make it look increasingly professional.

Now I am able to value using research and understand that if I want a professional piece of work I need to find out who I am doing it for. I have gained skills that I will be able to use in the future working in the entertainment industry.