Social Identity Theory

Social Identity Theory is all about people that categorise themselves into groups, this way they are able to construct their personal identities which influences them for the rest of their lives. 

This theory was proposed by Henri Taiffel and John Turner. They put their theory into three main sections, Categorisation, Identification and Comparison.

Categorisation: This is when people place themselves and others into specific categories. These can be based upon age, gender, ethnicity or social classes. Examples of this is by saying someone is Jewish, a dancer, of an older generation or even a chav. 

Identification: In this part of the theory it's all about how you chose which group you believe you are apart of. This is your in-group, which could be your family and friends. Your group helps you feel like a sense of belonging and will essentially boost your confidence. Furthermore there is your in-group and an out-group (which is meant to act as a threat to your group).

Comparison: Groups now decide to compare themselves to other groups to see if they have similar common grounds or not. This is like in the younger generations when they divide themselves into further sub-groups based on fashion, music, hobbies and other interests that consist to make them.


Examples of Two Complete Different Social Groups

Skinheads- These are usually a group of working class people in London in the 1960's. Their name comes from their short/bald hair style. Their fashion style originate from the mod look, however the skinheads were then formed by the 'hard mods'. Also this social group was influenced by rudeboys (Jamaican immigrants)   

There music influences is mainly punk, they wore tight white shirts with braces, jeans a Dr martin boots. 

Hippies- A group formed in the 60's in America, there famous motto "make love not war" set the motion in for flower power. Their main image consisted of this psychedelic, free flowing and floral clothing that had a counter culture to the typical white picket, clean cut, american look. At the time America was fighting in the Vietnam war, so the Hipsters were set against the war and brought literature, film, media and protest to try and overcome this fighting. 

How does this Theory apply to Music Magazines?

This links in with music magazines as people do categorise and identify themselves into their personal music preferences. People do begin to judge and question others if they do not have the same interests in music, such as in Pop that is mainly aimed towards the younger generations who are innocent and who are 'clean cut' and have good role models.

Unlike the rock genre who are expressed as rebels and explicit in various ways.They seem to have this 'bad boy' image for their fans. In the magazine it must be set to a specific genre to work, as like pop and rock they are the complete opposite to each other, meaning that you can't create a music magazine that will appeal to everyones interest. 

Graphology

I have uploaded my graphology investigation to slideshare:

http://www.slideshare.net/emilygrannon/graphology-for-music-magazine-emily-grannon

Binary Opposition Theory

Ideology

Ideology are peoples beliefs an attitudes towards something that they believe is the most important thing to them. This relates to media, as sometimes they provide a 'hidden meaning or message' in order to relate to these set social groups. 

Dichotomy - Is the splitting of or branching of groups or ideas into two parts. 

Dichotomy of Pop and Rock.

  

POP

 

On "Top of the Pops" music magazine they have used classic stereotypical features that relates to their genre. The typical reader would be female, so this relates back to why they have used a pink master head as that is symbolic to a female reader. Furthermore they have placed a young Justin Bieber as their main image again appealing to the female teenage reader, he is smiling and inflicting to the reader that he is having a good time. His songs are most recognizable pop songs and he looks 'clean cut' and innocent which is what pop is known for. Justin Biebers songs are always about love and not sex. His songs don't really have a deeper meaning apart from impressing a girl. The cover lines of the magazine "mate or date?" convey what a teenage girl thinks about... boys.

ROCK

 "Classic Rock" again shows the stereotypical appearance of the rock genre. The colours used in this music magazine are the complete opposite to 'Top of the Pops.' Black, white and gold are the colour scheme for this particular issue, which links with their genre as it is associated with alcohol, drugs, sex, violence and politics. The colour scheme matches the rock vibe as black is represented by death and danger which links with the violence alcohol and drugs aspect, this would appeal to their target audience being older men. The white then juxtaposes this as it usually conveys innocences and purity, something that rock doesn't showcase.
The main image is two main members of Guns n Roses also appealing to the older men as they would have been fans when this band was at it most popular in the 80's. They are considered to be the leading rock band. Their whole persona showcases rock just by their appearance. They have tattoos, long hair showing that they are 'rebels' of the music industry, they don't follow the rules. Unlike Justin Bieber who is smiling in 'top of the pops' magazine, Guns n Roses come across as serious and their character is almost dangerous and scary to be around.  

The sub genres from 
 Pop:
  RnB, White Pop, Soul, Chart Music 

Rock:
  Hip Hop, Indie, Heavy Metal, Alternative, Blues 

Mood Board

For my music magazine I have decided to produce a mood board on pinterest to showcase want I want my magazine to incorporate. I have search for ideas and inspirations. I preferred using pinterest as their is a wide range of photos which I can keep on adding and developing to. Hopefully after I have finalised my magazine you will be able to see the similarities and where my ideas originated from.

http://www.pinterest.com/Emilyjadgrannon/music-magazine/

All about Bauer Media and NRS

Bauer Media is an international publishing group, linked together by over 300 magazines in 15 different countries. The company can date back to 1875 in Germany and their first launch of a magazine was in 1987 called Bella magazine. Its products include multi platform media, radio, TV, distribution and marketing services. The publishing company is now combined which means that Bauer Media Group includes, H Bauer Publishing and Bauer Media.

Some of Bauer Media more popular brands are:

Kerrang, which is based around the rock music genre. In 2005 it launched its first music channel, and has since risen in popularity, its average adult reader is about 252 million, which is 0.5% of the worlds population. The average ABC1 reader is 120 million, whilst in the C2DE audience is at 133 million. According to the NCS results 192 million,15-34 year olds read Kerrang and the remaining are 34+. It is also interesting to see that there is nearly an equal amount of women to men who read this magazine. The total men being 150 and women resulting in 103. 

furthermore, another music magazine that Bauer Media Group publishes, is Mojo. It was first published in 1993, which included Bob Dylan and John Lennon, leading it into a famous rock based magazine. In the latest NRS readerships surveys, it total in 201 million reads, 150 million male and only 51 million females. I am surprised by these results as the magazines image seems like it would appeal to both genders equally, do to the celebrities that they advertise in their issues and the colours aren't harsh colours, which you would stereotypically associate with a male reader. Also only 0.4% of the general population even read Mojo magazine.

Q magazine was first published by EMAP in October 1986. It was originally set to be called Cue, but due to the confusion between the game snooker it was changed to just Q. The magazine is devoted to sharing with their readers different 'top 100' lists monthly to keep their audiences up to date. Their estimate readerships is 319 million which beats both Mojo and Kerrang!. That results in 0.6% of the population reading Q. Furthermore 237 million ABC1 read Q and only 83 million are C2DE. This is surprising as compared to the other magazines I have investigated they are relatively close with the different social classes. But there is a larger amount of people who read Q which are higher up in social class. However there are 167 million 15 - 34 year olds who read Q and only 153 million who are 34 +, suggesting that Q appeals to a younger generation, particularly students. These results are what I would like to base my magazine around, by having a younger target audience around 15 - 20 year olds. 


NRS- National Readership Survey 

I have taken these results from what NRS have been able to produced. It takes surveys and information helping a range of different magazine brands.

Advantages: 

• In their surveys they show a range of different brands 
• The different brands can keep a records 
• They can actually see who buys their product, and if they are successfully reaching out to their target audiences. 
• NRS are able to keep the surveys history.

Disadvantages: 

• NRS can only give estimates on who actually buys and reads the brands product meaning that it is not always accurate as it is almost impossible to be. 
• During my investigation some of the numbers did not 'add up'.
• You can't see peoples opinions, just who buys it.

Research Methods

Primary Research:

It's known as 'first hand research,' where the information has not been taken off from any other data, it's usually field work, where you would go out and find the research yourself. Its carried out by using surveys and questionnaires. I have decided to use this type of research because I think that this is the best way of gathering data as you are able to personalise the questions to suite your own interests and desires. Also you can go out into the 'field' and speak to people yourself and gain their reactions to your magazine. 
However by doing this it takes a long time to produce a list of questions, and you have to go out and find your target audience, which could be difficult considering that they might not all be in the same place at the same time.

Secondary Research:

It is produced by taking others research and data that has already been carried out previously. For example taking data from the internet or newspaper reports. This way of creating research is fast and easy but the reason why I have not chosen this research method is because sometimes the research is not always accurate and therefore it may be misleading and have you submit false data.

Quantitate Research:

Is used to survey vast amounts of numbers and has numerical data and statistics to uncover peoples opinions and attitudes towards the given work. It generalises the data and unpicks different patterns and results. There are different types of methods including, online surveys, polls and telephone interviews. The advantages to this type of research is that it is fast and you are able to gather a lot of information. On the other hand some of the methods may not interest the audience for example, people might 'hang up' on the telephone interview, or during the online surveys they could not be telling you the whole truth. This is why I am not using this research method as I want accurate results for my music magazine in order to appeal to my target audience.

Qualitative Research:

This type of research is merely the opposite of quantitative research. It is more dependant on peoples real thoughts and opinions then on numbers. Data is collected through focus groups or face to face interviews, so that the company can have a good and truthful results to essentially move on forward with. I prefer this method over quantitative research as by having face to face interviews the audience must be honest and you know for definite that each piece of data is real and reliable. But the problems with the type of research is that the interviewee may feel uncomfortable or even intimidated and feel forced to give an answer. Also like primary research it takes longer to produce large statistics, so you may not have a lot of data to 'go on' for your magazine. 

NME Music Magazine

The British music magazine New Musical Express (NME) was first published on the 7th March 1952 and mainly focuses on indie, alternative rock music. The IPC publishers revealed that their ideal costumer would be a male 25 year old, who is obviously dedicated to the magazine and someone who will evolve with the NME magazine. 

Andy Gray was the first editor of NME from 1957 - 1972. The most common bands to get featured was of course The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. From 1959, NME would hold award ceremonies for artists to win awards given to them by the public vote. They were originally live, but then began to be recorded by 1964. During the 1960s the magazines sales were at a steady, 200,000 per week.

After NME began to 'fall' due to their competitors Melody Makers, the employees and new chief editor Alan Smith, began to introduce the magazine into this psychedelic rock era. Then in 1976 they gave the Sex Pistols their first music coverage. In 1978 Neil Spencer was made editor and he redesigned NMEs logo, and like The Rolling Stones music magazine, it started to expand from music and entwine with the world of politics, by including Margret Thatcher frequently in their magazine for a long period of time.

In the 1980s the magazine was in danger of shutting down, due to low sales and the era of rock was fading and hip hop was on the rise. It started to become difficult in what they should write about, and what would now appeal to the new generation. But by the 1990s, Grunge became increasingly popular with the reader demands and NME saw opportunity to write about American indie bands which over took demand over British music. Even though the grunge sound was still high, in 1994, Britpop became the essential genre, with NME including Oasis and U2. 

In 2000 the paper had officially upgraded into a typical magazine size and touch, meaning it upgraded from their old newsprint style to a glossy texture. Their rival Melody Maker decided to incorporate with NME, after Ben Knowles (former writer for the rival mag) became the new editor. In 2006, a new magazine called NME Irish was developed and launched in Dublin. 

The current editor is Krissi Murison, is still publishing the magazine weekly by IPC media, who's readership is at a well earned 411,000. 

The typical social groups that NME represents are the rock and indie groups, as the covers usually include people from that genre, like Arctic Monkeys and Oasis. The stereotypical reader is represented as loyal yet rebellious. The front covers consist or celebrities smoking, having tattoos and typically sitting their just looking almost 'dangerous'. The main genre is rock 'n' roll, which is all about rebellion and being different. Their image does reflect their reader statistics as currently the dominant reader is male at 73%, who are also part of the abc1. NMEs desired reader will devote their income to music, how they will buy and learn to play instruments and attend concerts who the magazine presents in their issues. 

To conclude I think that NME has been very successful in keeping dedicated to their magazine and making sure that they are producing what the audience wants to see. They care about the readers opinions and always try to stick to their british roots.