Key Concepts of a Music Magazine

By Joey Nunes

Introduction – What is a magazine?The actual word ‘Magazine’ originates from the French word ‘Magasin’ which roughly translates into ‘storehouse’. This is a fitting word as magazines are much like ‘storehouses’ of information about a certain topic.

The first ever magazine was called “the gentleman's magazine of London” and started in 1731. this magazine represents not just how much the industry has changed, but how the world has changed in this time as well. This magazine contained sexualisation of women and no black people were on any part of it, showing that the world has moved stopped it’s sexualisation and racism towards people.

An illustration for the Gentleman’s Magazine Vol. 17 Dec 1747.

How are they different to newspapers?Firstly, newspapers report the news from the previous day/since the last paper. Magazines tend to be based on a particular topic and even then may not have news for that topic. Magazines usually have more gossip and information rather than news. Moreover, newspapers don’t print text in colour. The only time newspapers use colour are for pictures and possible the newspapers name. Magazines revel in colour. If you look at any magazine, they almost all have colour. In addition, newspapers all print on paper. Who would’ve thought?. But it’s a very big difference. Magazines tend to be printed on glossy paper and are usually thicker than newspapers. That glossy paper is usually coloured too. Also, magazines tend to try and sell themselves more, whereas newspapers just use their headline as their main attraction. Magazines will use colour, text, free items, famous people on the cover and more incentives for people to buy the magazine. This is because newspapers have a purpose: to deliver the news to the reader, whereas magazines have to sell people into reading about the certain topic or type of magazine it is.

Front CoversA Magazine’s front cover is the most important feature. It draws the reader in and is crucial in getting sales for the magazine. It creates an identity for the magazine and helps it to differentiate from it’s competitors. It’s also vital that the genre of the magazine is clear to its target audience.

For example, this cover of Mixmag (DJ magazine) is clear about it’s genre to it’s target audience. Firstly, it’s name/masthead contains the word “mix” which is commonly associated as a part of a DJ. Moreover, the image of famous DJ David Guetta instantly tells most of their target audience (which would be likely people who are into electro music or DJ’s themselves) that the magazine is about electronic/DJ music.

Key ConceptsThere are four key concepts every magazine has that can be analysed. I will link these concepts to the Mixmag magazine seen below.

The four key concepts are: Audience Representation Institution Genre

AudienceA magazine needs to be clear to it’s target audience and appeal to them. Their target audience needs to be as specific as possible. In the case of this Mixmag issue. The target audience is likely people ages 17-28, who are aspiring DJs or perhaps edit music themselves and mainly male as seen by the fact that the DJs they use for their images are usually male, in this case, David Guetta. And as a secondary audience it may be people who are generally interested in pop music but do not actively listen to it.

RepresentationThe magazine needs to portray an image that people will not find offensive and be sure that all the wording used does not show any views that will offend or ‘scare away’ any of their audience. This magazine is portrayed to be a magazine about techno music and the image insinuates straight away to the reader that there will be an article about David Guetta, which presents ‘Mixmag’ to be a big magazine as Guetta is an extremely well known artist across the music

InstitutionInstitution is a very big part of the magazine. The institution of a magazine tells us the ‘money making’ part of the magazine, and everything behind the scenes that the reader doesn't see. In this case, Mixmag has a very good circulation: 20,053 (1 January 2011 – 31 December 2011), which tells us that the profit that the magazine makes is high, however a lot of this money would go to the publishers, who usually publish multiple magazines, especially if it is publishing a magazine like Mixmag, which is a fairly big UK magazine, however there are some exceptions. Mixmag is published by Development Hell Ltd, a UK based publisher who also publish The World.

GenreThis is what makes a magazine, a magazine! It is the topic of the magazine and accounts for everything that the magazine has in it. Mixmag is about electronic dance magazine, that also has a club associated with it, that is based on the same type of music. This link helps the magazine and club both grow, as someone who has seen the magazine but not gone to the club will want to go to the club and if someone has been to the club and sees the magazine with the same name, they may buy the magazine. Furthermore, the magazine cover tells us that it is based on electronic music as there is a famous DJ, David Guetta as the main, central image that stands out and some of the cover lines mention famous DJs as well.