Mass vs Niche Publications

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Quick Summery: What I've learnt so far

Throughout my research, I have developed a much greater understanding of the magazine industry.

I now understand the key concepts of music magazines, how they deal with competition in a developing world, the key factors of a magazine's success and the differences between music magazines and their genres.

I will now take this background information and context I've gained to help me during my further research into the research a specific music genre.

Music Iconography

Presented below is a mind map for the music iconography of the main genres. 
I downloaded the app 'SimpleMind' to create it.

These main genres were Hip-hop, Jazz,
Indie, Rock, Classical and EDM (Electric
Dance Music).

I later added images to the mind map to easier visualise the iconic imagery from the words stated.


Iconography means the visual images, symbols or modes of representation, which together are associated with a person, cult or movement. 






For example, when you think of the music genre Jazz, many picture saxophones and silhouettes. This is due to these being that genre's 'Iconic' images.

From exploring existing music's iconic images I've gained a broad understanding of the music industry as a whole. I have, however, developed a deeper understanding of what makes these specific genre's unique.

Being unique allows them to seperate themselves from the other music genres. This is essential when aiming to target a specific audience, as it gives the viewer clarity when deciding to buy a product- they know what they're getting.

The images above and below are close-ups of the mind map; each is focused on a separate genre.

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Music Magazine Publishers: Web pages

Magazine Names- Wordle

Above, are words presented from all the magazie names in the UK.
The largest words are the most frequent word that occur within the magazine industry.

To compose the piece above, I used the site 'Wordle' and simply typed in the name of every British Music Magazine. I'd repeat the name several time, depending on how successful the magazine was.

Through the creation of this Worldle I've come across some surprising findings- all of which can be largely beneficial towards this project.
The fact that 'Mojo' and 'Magazine' are the two largest words, connotes that Mojo is an extremely popular magazine today. It also reflects the frequency of the use of the word 'Magazine', clearly showing that many magazine's include this word as part of their masthead. In contrast, words such as 'Zero' are barely visible within this Wordle; such a magazine is seen as unpopular and not doing so well- they go unnoticed among us. 

The words 'Rock', 'Classic', 'Blues' 'Record' and 'Jazz' being the second-largest, highlights the decline of the magazine industry. This is due to these words belonging to the semantic field of 'Old Music'. To summerise this, the magazines aimed at a more mature audience are more successful due to them being the last demographic to have grown up whilst the industry was mainstream (they're more used to, therefor would rather read from paper than a mobile/computer screen).

Also, instead of focusing on the words presented, I can gain a different understanding by finding the words that aren't there. For example, words such as 'Dance' and 'Electric' aren't shown. This potrays a gap in the music industry which could be used as marketing opportunity.