Critical Approaches 2

Magazine analyzing

I will be analyzing two different magazines for this assignment. The magazines that I will be analyzing will be TOXIC and PlayStation magazine.

TOXIC magazine is a magazine that I will analyse. The magazine is mainly contains content about movie, games, TV, jokes, comics, sports, cars, celebrity's, how-to's and competitions to win prizes. Also in each magazine there is different things like sweets and toys that come with the magazine.

The target audience for the TOXIC magazine is children aged 4-14 because they will find the magazine more entertaining than anyone that I over the age range. Also the main gender is boys because the magazine has a lot of things in that is aimed at boys such as video games, practical jokes and lots of sweets. The main interests of the target audience will most likely be playing video games, going out with their friends and watching kids TV shows. The target audience for this magazine won’t have much of a lifestyle because they are kids.

The toxic magazine is produced to appeal to their target audience by putting a lot of bright colours that stand out and captures the their attention such as bright green and blue on the front cover and also using these colours as the text colour inside the magazine. The images that they use appeal to the target audience because they use images from video games, toys and kids TV shows that would appeal to the target audience such as Disney Infinity, Harry Potter and Star Wars. Also images like these are used inside and on the covers of the magazines.

These are images of the TOXIC magazines. The one on the left is an image of the magazine still in the bag with all the free things that is comes with. The one on the right is an image of the front cover of a TOXIC magazine.

One of the codes and conventions of the TOXIC magazine is its colour scheme. The colour scheme of this magazine is mainly blue for the background and mainly red,black,white or yellow for the text colour. Also for the inside of the magazine pages the backgrounds are usually one big image that covers the whole page with text, other images and shapes that go on top of the background image. Also depending on what the background image is then that is what is shown on that page. For example if the background image is a image of Lego Marvel Avengers then there will be a lot  of other images and text that are about Lego Marvel Avengers. They do this in each magazine to appeal to their target audience which is usually children aged between 5-14. They do this because it makes it easier for their target audience to quickly know what each page is about so they know what they are reading .   

Another code and convention of the TOXIC magazine is the title of the magazine which is TOXIC and on every TOXIC magazine the title always has the same font, colour scheme size and it is usually at the top of the cover on the magazines. They do this to appeal to their target audience in each magazine. They do this because if they change their title then some of their target audience might get confused. Also it is easier and simpler to keep the exact same title on the cover instead of coming up with a different idea for each magazine.

Another code and convention of the TOXIC magazine is that there is always something to win on the cover. It is usually in a big bold font with a bright and eye catching colour scheme like red and green. They do this to appeal to their target audience in each magazine. They do this because this will get more of their target audience interested by making them think that they might be able to win some really cool prize if they buy this magazine.

Another code and convention of the TOXIC magazine is that there is always some things for free that come with the magazine, Some examples of what you can get with these magazines are sweets, some cheap toy like a water gun, and some cards from a card game like some football cards. They do this to appeal to their target audience in each magazine. They do this because this will get more of their target audience to buy it if there is something in that they might want and they think that they are getting free things with there magazine. For example of the child is collecting match attack cards then they think that they can get free match attack cards if they buy the TOXIC magazine.

PlayStation is another magazine that I am going to analyse that is mainly about PlayStation. So the magazine main content is about the games that are on the PlayStation console like the PS4 and PS3 mainly. 

The target audience for the PlayStation magazine is mainly teenagers that are gamer's and want to know more about what is happening in the gaming community. It is aimed at males more than females because there are more male gamer's than female so PlayStation aim more towards them. Also because the games that are talked about in the magazine are also aimed more towards males than females so that is another reason that the magazine is aim more towards males than females. It is also mainly aimed at teenagers because teenagers are the main age range for gamer's and they are the ones that play games more than any other age like people in there thirty's. 

The PlayStation magazine is produced to appeal to their target audience by putting images of new and good games on the front of the magazine which will gain the target audiences attention since there is a big image of something that they are interested on the front cover. For example on the front cover of their latest issue he image is of Ratchet and Clank because the Ratchet and Clank game in coming out soon and it will gain the target audience's attention since it has a PlayStation exclusive game on the front cover and it is also a great game franchise which will also get fans of the game series getting interested in the magazine.

This is an image of the latest issue which has an image No Man's Sky on the front cover. This image also shows the other things that are on the front cover such as a lot of text which tell the reader the other content in the magazine so they know what they can read about in the magazine. 

Also each magazine produces a lot of stories about different games which appeals to their target audience since it is a gaming magazine. They do a lot of different stories about different games because everyone has games that they like and want to more information about it but there will be games that they don't like so they won't want to read about them games. For example I like games like Sly and Ratchet and Clank so if I see stories about them games I will read them but if I see stories about games like Fifa and Call of Duty then I won't read them.

One of the codes and conventions of the PlayStation magazine is on each magazine there is always a main image of one game as the front cover. The game the is on the front will have more than one page, usually about 4 or 6 since it is on the front cover and it is the main game they are wanting people to read about in the magazine. They do this to appeal to their target audience in each magazine. They do this because they want people to know more about the game on the front cover and the want to raise its awareness by putting it on the front cover so that more people will know about.

Another code and convention of the PlayStation magazine is in each magazine they have a welcome page as the second page of the magazine and you can see it as soon as you open it. The welcome page gives you an introduction to the magazine and it shows some of the writers and editors and they give there opinion on some games. They do this to appeal to their target audience in each magazine. They do this because it gives new reader an insight to the magazine and it also lets the writers and editors there chance to give their opinions.

Magazine producers have go through a lot of feedback from different ways like focus groups, testing, reviews and complaints but they can use these to improve their product due to the feedback. They will have took lot through a lot of different feedback's but some could be the same and if people keep sending in feedback about the same thing then it could be good or bad depending on what the feedback is about. But if it is bad and a lot of people have the same issue then they can use that feedback to improve or solve the issue that people are having which is good.

An example of this is complaints which is also the main type of feedback that is bad. When people file a complaint and it is about something bad like an issue with the magazine then it goes straight to the magazine produces because then they can read the complaints and try to resolve the issues which could improve the magazine.

The demographics