Due to the fact consumers spend 76% less on magazines from 2019-2023, newspaper and magazine industries must act fast to adapt to the extremely competitive media market.
I agree, to some extent, that producers must target specialised audiences in order to maintain success and popularity. This is because, as the online digital market has become increasingly popular, audiences have become more fragmented. This results in different tastes and preferences becoming more specific such as beauty, fashion, fitness and different hobbies that are currently trend. By adapting to these changes, magazine companies can keep and entertain their customers with niche preferences. For example, the magazine ‘The Gentlewoman’ targets a very niche market of ‘modern women with style and purpose since 2010’. This magazine claims to be ‘consistently one of the best performing publications on newsstands’ and has a positive, uplifting indie vie to it which reels in customers who seek an empowering guide to the representation of women and identity whilst focusing on personal expression and community. The Gentlewoman’s loyal customer base of women mainly in their 30s depend on their favorite magazine to say traditional and on-brand. In order to survive, the Gentlewoman has focused on it premium branding and high-quality content whilst also focusing on their long-form interviews, profiles and celebration of women. Their print version also differs from other brands due to their premium materials and elegant layout helping the magazine to stand out from others.
For example, in ‘The Gentlewoman’s 23rd issue the actress Scarlett Johannsen is seen to be starring on the front cover. This use of star power is used to inspire and reel in viewers. Bright colors and hyperreal quality help the actress to stand out from the page. Scarlett Johannsen has thick purple eyeshadow and full red lip accompanied by thick dark eyebrows. These small elements quickly grab the attention of the target audience. This bold and bight portrait photograph alongside the large title of ‘The Gentlewoman’ insinuates that Scarlett is ‘The Gentlewoman’ and this is her story. The ‘Uses and Gratifications theory’ of Katz and Blumer, relates to this product as it explores he idea of an active audience and how a magazines audience had cognitive needs such as information, knowledge and escapism/ By reading a high quality, interactive magazine, the Gentlewoman’s audience is able to be transported to a world far from a digital screen and instead to the real world of women’s fashion and beauty.
However, I also believe there are different ways for magazines to survive in the modern day. For example, the magazine ‘GQ’ as a more mainstream option targets a broader audience of around 212,000 readers. This magazine aims to be the ‘flagship of men fashion and style and targets men who are interested in fashion, culture and entertainment. To survive digitalization, GQ took a larger risk financially but a smaller risk with audiences. GQ’s broad audience will depend on their favorite magazine to adapt to the new digital age and become an online platform for its convenience and accessibility GQ have recently rebranded and restructured in response to the declining sales across the print magazine industry and have invested largely in social media platforms, digital articles, videos and interviews for their large audience bracket that consume media online. Their interviews and use of ‘star power’ have also heightened their ability to stay visible and relevant.
For example, GQ magazine chose actor Robert Pattinson to attract their audience on their front cover with his glamourous and unusual style. This high-profile actor has been displayed on GQ’s cover to have an intense and mysterious allure which catches the eye or viewers with his rugged and thuggish qualities of a black eye, broken nose and metal capped teeth. These visual aspects cause the audience to see the actor from a different perspective and set him aside from his good-looking charming roles in cinema today. Steve Neales theory of ‘genre’ applies to this product as genres are defined by specific codes on conventions. The theory explores how genres contain repetition and difference and how this ties into conventions and stereotypes. For example, the audience is expecting a boyish persona from Pattinson due to this repeated genre throughout his usual work, however they are instead greeted with an image of him consisting of spiky hair and metal chains which highlights the difference in Robert Pattinsons expected genre.