IPC Media Research

About the company

IPC produce over 60-consumer magazine covering two thirds of the female consumer and 42% of the male. This company focuses on three main audiences Men, Mass-market woman and Up-market woman. The magazines they offer for men focus on wealth and leisure these are Country life, Horse and Hound, Rugby world, Decanter, Zoo and NME. This part of their business is called (IPC inspire)

Mass market women magazines they offer focus on women’s weeklies and TV entertainment brands. The women’s weeklies are; Look, Now, Chat and Women. The TV entertainment magazines for women they offer are, What’s on TV, TV times, TV and satellite week and online they also have the Good to know network.  Their up-market women’s division called (IPC Southbank) compromises of luxury fashion brands and lifestyle brands. The luxury fashion magazines are Marie Claire and InStyle. Their lifestyle magazines are Women and Home, Essentials, ideal home, living etc. and house to home.

History

The international Publishing organization Ltd was formed in 1963 after the merge of the UK’s three leading magazines at the time these were; George Newns, Oldham’s Press and Fleetway Publications. These three companies came together with the Mirror Group to form the International Publishing organization, five years on IPC Publishing was then made.

To what extent should magazines be held responsible for the social ramifications of the representations they offer?

Cosmo Girl is a popular magazine aimed at teenage girls. This magazine is very generic and will conclude of articles about celebrities, information on clothes, makeup music and just general gossip around a teenage girl’s average day and lifestyle. I believe magazines aimed at teenage girls should be held partially responsible for the social ramifications caused by the information in their magazines. The ramifications by this magazine could affect teenage girl’s style choices, lifestyle choices and even taste in music act. For example the magazine Cosmo girl above with text saying ”Make up tricks" the tricks displayed in the magazine could decide the style of makeup a teenage girl would wear, therefore Cosmo Girl would have to take responsibility for the ramifications of the information displayed. Anything displayed in a magazine that is pushing something at the consumer should be responsible for the ramifications. In girls magazine you usually see this in the form of fashion most magazines for teenage girls will usually consist of suggesting clothing, styles and accessories generic to the target audience of the magazine for example Cosmo Girls clothing and styles would be allot more modern, high end fashion than a magazine like American Girl which has cheap affordable low end fashion. These type of magazines also include celebrity gossip this involves information about various popular celebrity's. The ramification of this could be an affect in lifestyle choice, if you have a teenage girl who celebrity role model is displayed in a magazine talking about her life and how she came to fame. This could affect teenage girl’s choices in life because she would want to follow i the footsteps of her Role model. On the other hand it is the choice of the consumer to use the information in the magazine in their everyday life so in this respect magazines should not be held responsible for the ramifications it’s the consumers fault and of course the fact they have chosen to buy the magazine. Even though the teenage girl could have been attracted to magazine due to the cover, using feminine colours and Interesting catch lines to draw the attention of the target audience. However these magazines can affect the male audience in some way too having articles on celebrity's or music actually of interest to the teenage boy although the magazine is generically targeted for teenage girls. For some magazine their influence over the teenage girl can be drastically larger, big magazine companies like Cosmo Girl can affect the decisions a teenage girl takes just simply because the information being supplied is coming from a well know Brand. If I was to choose anything to remove from this genre of magazine it would be the gossip sections, the reason for this is because it whether it is good or bad it is personal and should not be shown without consent It can also crush a consumers view on a certain celeb in seconds which can affect the consumers lifestyle. There is nothing I wish to add to the magazines for teenagers because I believe they consist of enough information.

Task 2: Magazines and Audiences

           

This is an analysis of the music magazine Vibe, in this analysis I will be reviewing some key factors of this magazine. These factors are, target audience, appeal of cover, conventions of cover design. The magazine is called Vibe and is aimed at people who have an interest in rap music, this is conveyed by the image of Eminem a very famous rapper on the front cover and the text in the top right corner in Bold black writing, saying "THE REAL RAP" there are also various famous rappers names and other references to Rap music displayed on this front cover.  This magazine I believe is aimed at the younger to middle aged generation because of the modern design of the cover and the fact that all the rappers named on the cover are either new or have only been around for 5-10 years. I would also say that this magazine is aimed at the male sex more than the female just because of the colours used such as Reds, Blacks, and Greys and Whites all very strong colours. Also more men like Rap than females just as more women like soul music or divas to men. The cover has attempted to appeal to the Rap music audience with a number of things. The most obvious one would be the image of Eminem on the cover of the magazine, people who like the music Eminem produces and are fans of his will see this image and want to buy the magazine; the caption, 'Eminem comes clean' will also attract people with an interest into the life of Eminem. Another way this magazine appeals to the audience is by asking questions, asking questions like 'who is the best rapper ever?', 'Are the roots to black for jimmy fallon ?' or 'Is 1998 raps last classic year?' make the consumer wish to read the magazine to find out the answers. There are many evident conventions for this magazine, one of the most obvious ones would be the fact the title of the magazine remains the same for every single issue. This is so that consumers who have an interest in rap music would be able to identify this magazine every single time. Another convention of this magazine is that there is always a famous rapper displayed on the front whether it is Eminem, Lil Wayne or Jay-Z there is always one and something about their life written inside the magazine. This story’s about their life can vary, whether it is drug addiction, family problems, how they came to fame there always something about their life. Another obvious convention would be the sub headings used to attract the reader in displaying various phrases with interest towards the consumer such as 'The 50 hottest rap blogs ranked' etc. etc. There are simple conventions also such as the font, the font used to display the name of the magazine 'Vibe' is the same font throughout every single issue of this magazine the only the thing that changes is the colour.