Advertising In Magazines And Their Uses And Gratifications And Tabulation Of My Results

In class I contextually analysed two different genres of magazines. I took a look at two magazines that I believed would be aimed at similar target audiences and compared their layouts and how they appealed to that specific target audience. I produced two pie charts for the magazines comparing the ¼, ½ and full page advertisement sections in both the magazines and the amount of features. I think the 'top of the pops' magazine is intended for a young female audience between the ages of 10-15. I think this because of the advertisements that were included within the magazine, they involved adverts like 'always' and 'tampax'. I found that the ‘Top Of The Pops’ magazine included many more adverts than the other magazine I analysed which was 'black beats', this magazine included less adverts and I think it was down to the fact the magazine is aimed at a more mature audience but that of a similar gender to the other magazine and around the same age group, however the adverts were mainly based on beauty products, i think this is appropriate and gratifying to the target audience as the target audience (girls) at the targeted age group, are starting to become more aware of their appearance and will be more subject to taking notice of these ads and more susceptible to purchasing these products in order to gratify their wants and needs. Both magazines offer to their audiences a form of escape from the real world (diversion), they do this by offering an insight into the latest products out, this will then allow them to feel they are away from lifes stresses and problems while reading and viewing these advertisements. The magazines also advertise by using celebrity's to advertise the product, for instance they will have a "Jennifer Lopez" ad, advertising her own perfume, this therefore is fulfilling the active use of surveillance, as it offers an insight into what "Jennifer Lopez " is doing at the moment and also allows them a form of personal identity as this may influence the reader to aspire to be like her and purchase her perfume to smell like how she would therefore allowing the the abilty to compare and put themselves in her shoes. This, will then influence other personal uses for the reader, as they will then go converse with others about this new product out with peers. In completing this task, I now understand  the codes and conventions employed by the magazine in order to communicate with their target audience.