"Media texts will never be successful unless they are carefully constructed to target pre-established audience needs or desires"

Evaluate the ways that you constructed a media text to target a specific audience. Within my AS coursework project I created a pop genre music magazine that was targeted at a specific audience; having a specific and pre-established audience helped me to design and refine my product to the audiences desires and/or needs. Throughout the project I made sure that each element of my magazine was targeted at my audiences preferences; carefully constructing my media product in this way allowed me to create a credible product with an ensured success. The media product that I produced had a mass audience due to its basis in popular culture; however, I did create a refined target audience for my product, as this would allow me to make more decisions specifically based on audience interests. My audience was predominately female, ages between 15 and 35; the main interests of my audience would generically be do with popular culture and being on-trend, not just within music, but also fashion, film, art etc. As my product was based on the pop genre, understanding the generic genre conventions for pop was crucial as this would help me appeal to the pre-established mass audience that makes up the target market for pop genre music and all other popular culture media products. Understanding genre conventions allowed me to create a product with generic features that would immediately signify the style and genre of the product to the audience; these features include a 3-colour pallet, bright colours, on-trend clothing, successful artists, and chart music. I chose to conform to all of these conventions within my media product, as I felt that this would increase the credibility of the magazine as a pop genre product. The bright colours that I used within my magazine, and the three-colour pallet, helped me to create a dramatic and statement appearance throughout the product; this meant that I could create a recognisable image, style and sense of branding for my magazine. The use of on-trend clothing within the mise-en-scene and styling of my photographs was a really important convention to conform to, as this would tie together many of my audiences interests; styling the artist in a similar way to existing pop genre artists would also help the audience to associate my artist with other successful artists, adding to her appeal and credibility. Within my magazine, although I did not challenge many conventions, I did challenge certain theories related to media products and the way in which they appeal to their audience. For example, I challenged Laura Mulveys idea of the male gaze and instead focused on ideas about gaze regarding the way women view women; I did this because my media product was aimed at predominately females and an overtly sexualised cover artist would therefore be less appealing to my audience, as females would generally prefer a female artist with an appearance that connotes feminism, power, strength and a role model. However, having a female artist on the cover could still appeal to men, just through a more respectful view rather than a sexualised one, which could widen my audience and consequently the success of my media product. The artist that I used within my magazine was aged within the same age-range as my target audience; having an artist that fits my audience could also help to appeal to the audience, as the audience may be able to directly relate to the artist through age, gender, nationality and/or interests. This helps to make the artist more appealing, and therefore, having her featured on the magazine will help with my media products appeal to the audience. Overall, I would agree with this quote, as I think that appealing to your audience is the key to a successful media product; carefully constructing your product with your audience in mind helps to positively influence creative decision making in order to guarantee audience appeal.