Audience Research (1) - Online Survey and Analysis

To carry out my survey, I used Survey Monkey to gain opinions from a group of people that I contacted via Facebook and text message. I got a total number of 10 responses and this way, I got a clear idea of what people think about Pop music magazines. I created a survey with 5 simple questions which consisted of both qualitative and quantitative data and from a limited number of questions I can get a general idea of what my target audience would and would not like to see on a Pop music magazine. I asked people from the age of 12-19 and by making the age range quite wide, I can gain a wider opinion on peoples' preferences.

 The first question I asked my audience was: 'Do you read or buy magazines? If yes, why? If no, why?' In my opinion, this was a useful question to ask as I now know if people do read or buy magazines and the reason for their purchase. 50% of my audience said that they do not read magazines as it does not interest them, 20% said they do read magazines in general as they are interesting, 10% said they read one online instead, another 10% said that they don't like reading as it bores them and the remaining 10% said that they do like reading magazines to find out about new artists or something new about the genre they prefer.


 From this question, I found that over half of my audience do not even read magazines and so I will need to consider the remaining opinions from my audience in order for my magazine to be successful. I chose to customize this question into a rows format so that it would be clear to me which option/ opinion got the most votes.

From this, I can see the exact amount of votes for each option and the percentage for each choice making it easier for me to interpret this information when creating my own Pop music magazine.

The second question I asked was: 'What is the main thing that stands out to you when buying a music magazine?' This question was useful to ask because I could gain an understanding of what is eye-catching to people when they buy magazines and this way I can adapt the chosen conventions to match my genre and to make my magazine a successful one. Around 30% of my audience said the colour scheme of a magazine is the feature that stands out most to them when buying a magazine. Around 50% of my audience said that the image on the front cover was the eye-catching thing and the remaining 10% chose other where they did not specify what it was.

This shows the exact percentage of votes for each option and the option that has the most votes will help me decide what to put on my own magazine and how to make it stand out to my audience.


The third question I asked my audience was: 'how often do you buy music magazines?' This is a good question to ask as it can give me a general idea of how many people buy magazines and how often they buy it. As you can see from the pie chart, the majority of my audience never buy magazines whereas some buy one every few months and a couple buy one once a month. The reason for people not buying magazines may be that they do not have time to buy one so due to advancements in technology, magazines can be read online for free which also saves time.

This quantitative data shows how many people buy magazines out of the total number of responses and how often they buy a music magazine. This has made it clear that many people from my audience do not usually buy magazines and so I will need to consider this when making my own magazine as I want mine to be unique.

The fourth question I asked was: 'What feature on a magazine is less appealing to you?' This was a very useful question to ask as this would help me with my production work. By asking my audience what feature they didn't like or notice that much, I can incorporate these opinions into my own magazine to make mine more appealing and eye-catching. From this data, I can see that the masthead is the feature that is less appealing to the audience as it doesn't really matter what the magazine is named, as long as it somewhat relates to the genre. People also said that the quality of images does not matter to them whereas 10% voted for the image on the front cover, another 10% for the layout and the remaining 10% for the content or stories on the front page. This has helped me gain an idea about what not to include in my magazine and to make my magazine appealing to my target audience.

This shows me that many people have various opinions on what they think is the least appealing feature on a music magazine. From this, I can see that people don't really bother with the title (masthead) but more with the content and stories on the magazine and so I may need to follow the basic conventions to make my magazine successful.

The fifth and last question I asked my audience was: 'What do you expect to see on a pop music magazine?' This question is the most important question I asked as I could gain a better understanding of what my target audience would expect to see on my magazine. My magazine could be successful if I put these features into my own magazine as it would be what my audience would be expecting and this way, my magazine will be appealing. The most votes were for random colours and by this I meant a limited number of  bright colours used on the front page which you wouldn't normally expect to see on a Hip-Hop or R&B magazine such as pink and yellow.

This shows that many people do not expect to see an artist of the specific gender as no one voted for a male artist or a female artist meaning. Another feature that people do not expect to see on a pop magazine is dark colours which is quite obvious and so to make my magazine successful, I will need to follow these simple conventions. Last but not least, people expect to see top songs and artists on a pop magazine and so I will need to consider this when creating my own pop music magazine.