College Magazine Audience Research Analysis

On Tuesday the 11th of October I conducted audience research in East Norfolk Sixth Form College, to find out what aspects I should include in my own magazine. To do this I composed a questionnaire which consisted of twelve questions, which covered a wide range of aspects that a magazine should have as well as finding out various demographic and Psychographic aspects of my target audience.

I found to my surprise that 100 percent of all of the students I interviewed did not regularly read the college magazine, and a further 75 percent had no idea that a college magazine even existed. The majority of the remaining 25 percent said that the current magazine was boring. When questioned as to what sort of content they would like o find in a magazine the results I found that Music review was the most popular, followed by Gossip and Opinions page, fashion/style review and College Events.

I also wanted to find out what sort of layout would be most effective in capturing my audience's attention. To do this I set out various questions relating to the colour, style and font. The general feedback I received was that the students would find a colourful magazine, with glossy colours and features quite appealing, and that many of these students live a very comfortable, laid back lifestyle and that they would rather read a more comical magazine than a serious magazine.

In order to make the new College magazine more interesting a provided a set of questions to try and find out what range of music and movies the audience liked. The overall favourite music was pop, with dance and rock n' Role in joint second. When it came to the popular types of film, comedy was in the lead beating everything else by at least 50 percent. Almost all other genres of films were considered to be popular at the same sort of level. With this in mind I have chosen to put film and music review into my magazine, with comedy as being the most featured genre of movie and dance/pop being most featured in the music review.

I also thought about how prevelant the use of cars and mopeds seemed to be amongst the students, so I decided to find out what number of people would be interested in having a section in the magazine about this. The results came back that 75 percent of people were interested in reading about useful tips and advice on cars, whilst only 25 percent were interested in reading about mopeds.

I also wanted to find out various aspects as to the details of the magazine it's self, not referring to the content. I wanted to find out how often it would be brought and for what price. The feedback I received is that around 100 percent of the students I interviewed would buy the magazine twice a month. Furthermore the majority chose £2.00 as the maximum price that they would pay for a college magazine, followed by £1.00 and 50p. By these results I now know to publish the magazine once a week at a price of around £2.00.

From all of these results I now know that I need to make my magazine colourful and glossy, with plenty of gossip, and film/music reviews, with genres of hip-hop/dance and comedy. I also have a target price and know to publish the magazine once a week. I also Know to write a section about car insurance, value, lessons, or any other form of help concerning cars.