Critical approaches assignment 2

Magazine Case Study


In this assignment I am going to analyse the magazine Empire and Rolling Stone. I will critically analyse them and produce a case study explaining how they were targeted at a specific audience.

The first magazine I have chosen to analyse is Empire magazine. To do this I picked one of their specific issues and looked at the various factors at work that would attract their intended target audience. There are various features of this cover put there deliberately to help garner attention form its target audience. Empire is a British film magazine published monthly. The main readership of Empire is men aged 18-40, employed, in a relationship, well educated. The content is mainly for people who use cinema as a kind of escapism.

Empire magazine provides the latest content on films both new and old and often features behind the scenes content and interviews with stars involved with the movies. This applies to their target audience as men aged between 18-40 are more likely to take an interest in these kinds of things than anyone older or younger. The current editor for Empire magazine is Terri White who is the tenth editor to work for the magazine. There have also been special guest editors such as Steven Spielberg and Sam Mendes. The magazine has in the past made a list of the greatest movies of all time and alos done a seperate list with films listed from a poll to the readers. In every issue the magazine features a 'masterpiece' two page spread on a selected film.

Empire has stated openly which psychographics they aim for. The magazine frequently reviews many mainstream films. By reviewing many mainstream films the magazine can appeal to the members of the mainstream psychographic. Mainstreamers are people who seek security, tend to be conventional, and sentimentalist. These people will more often than not follow new trends and rely on big name brands and such. Empire also describes itself as providing " first look set exclusives to unprecedented access to Hollywoods leading lights." The fact they mainly provide coverage on mainstream films seems to correlate with their average audience. This is because most mainstream films are trageted at men and are violent and action packed, activities stereotypically enjoyed by men more than women.

Empire publishes its demographics and other audience information online to encourage companies to pay to advertise in the magazine. As for the structure of the actual magazine it is constructed in several different ways. First it contains a notable series known as "Classic Scene" which consits of a transcript from a classic film. A "Top 10" feature list (which is fairly self explanatory), the "how much is a pint of milk" section which is a comical Q&A with a cast, re.view which is aout DVD and blu-ray releases, there is also the "spine quote" which is a challenge for the readers to link the quote with the movie it comes from, this competition sometimes features prizes. The magazine also obviously presents news and information about the latest films etc.

80% of Empire's audience is in the ABC profile, this shows that the magazine is marketed at more middle class people (the price being £4 per month). Empire has taken advantage of middle classes audiences as cinema trips can be farily expensive and by targeting the middle classes they ensure that the people who read content about upcoming movies in Empire are then more likely to go watch it at the cinema.

On this cover there is a large amount of blank space left around the character. This is a deliberate aesthetic choice made by Empire. The cover for this issue is one of the characters in an upcoming film. By leaving more white space around the character to make her look more important the magazine opens itself up to a new audience for this issue, fans of the film. This is also reinforced by the small text in the bottom corner of the cover. 'The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey, The Ultimate Issue.' Fans of The Hobbit or LOTR may see this cover and think that it must be an interesting magazine directly related to their interest of The Hobbit.


Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a popular magazine that releases all the latest information in popular culture. Rolling Stone gained popularity for reviews on music, films, politics etc. The main target audience for the Rolling Stone magazine is men aged aged between 18 and 45.The bottom age of the target audience must be 18 because the magazine sometimes contains mature content. The interest of younger viewers is only likely to be increased if there is a celebrity they like on the cover.


Below is the demographic report for Rolling Stone.

This chart shows that the majority of their audience is comprised of 18 - 24 year olds as well as 25 - 34 year olds. There can be various reasons for this however the most likely would be that the magazine features celebrities around the same age as themselves, which helps the content to be more relatable. The company has deduced that the median age in their demographics is 35, this means that the content that produce in their magazines appeals to people who are 35 years apart.

The Rolling Stone is a useful resource for people in the music industry as the content can often help them with realising how to be more successful in their careers. It can however alos be for people who do not necessarily create music but enjoy it nonetheless. Since the content in the Rolling Stone can help you become more successful in your career its hardly surprising that a portion of their demographic is people earning over $100,000.

Whilst both the Rolling Stone and Empire are primarily targeted at men, they both achieve this in different ways, the rolling stone reviews music and film whereas Empire shifts focus solely to film and provides behind the scenes content for its readers, it also attracts more male audiences by its saturation of mainstream films in the magazine. Rolling Stone is however held in quite high regard, an artist that gains a very good review from the Rolling Stone can consider themselves very successful in that respect and helps make them more influential. The Rolling Stone often provides top 100 lists and recommends new songs to add to peoples playlists. They however list other kinds of things too including; 20 great moments in rock star nudity, 100 greatest guitarists, 100 best singles of 1984 etc.

The following is the cover of a Rolling Stone issue

The Rolling Stone always designs their covers in a way that grabs the readers attention. The model on the front of the magazine will often be pictrued looking into the lens (toward the reader) and will remain unobstructed by the subtitles, even the Rolling Stone logo itself takes a back seat as the model takes centre stage.

As with most issues of the Rolling stone the colour used are very minimal, keeping to a constant theme of reds, whites and blacks. The white background is unobtrusive and gives the impression that there is no real surface behind the model. The model is always pictured facing forward or slightly to the side. This attracts the readers attention. The red, white and black colour scheme is very useful in terms of visuals as it keeps everything neat, and doesn't draw the attention away, all of the text is noticeable but doesn't overly distract from Winona Ryder, the model for this cover. It is interesting that the logo is often always placed behind the model on the cover, this implies that both the model should be the focal point of this cover and that the editor does not need to place the logo within full view since it is such an iconic logo. Winona Ryder has been dressed and positioned very interestingly on this cover. First of all, she is essentially naked apart from the blue denim overalls, this is not something that is hidden from the reader but instead shown directly to them. Her actual body languge however conveys a certain innocence, she looks directly in the centre wide eyes with toussled red hair and her arms placed somewhat shyly behind her back. In a sort of suggestive yet innocent manner. This gives her a look of innocent shyness that implies that she bearing her soul or perhaps putting herself in some risk perhaps in reference to a film she is in.