Importance of my target audience

John Fiske (1987-1989) rejects the claim that audiences are 'cultural dupes' and that the cultural product necessarily promotes capitalist ideology. Fiske believes the term 'audience' is wrongly used as it implies a 'mass' number of people. He refers to them instead as individuals as 'readers'. This acknowledges the social position of the individual. John Fiske is here implying that everyone should be treated as individuals and different, not part of a social group called the audience. This helps to see what individual people think about a magazine and not a group of people. I disagree with this quote as you have to question more than one person to get a varied target audience. Fiske goes on to argue that the meaning of a text is dependent on its interpretation by the consumer in relation to their lived experience. Fiske believes that the consumer changes the type of text and the way the it is laid by giving their opinion. I agree that they do as they have to please their target audience.

Hartley (1987) claims that the fabrication of the ‘audience’ is perpetuated by media industries and media academics for their own purposes: ‘in all cases the product is a fiction which serves the needs of the imagining institution. In no case is the audience “real”, or external to its discursive construction’

Hartley is here implying that audience will believe anything that they are feed through the magazine without the company fully researching it themselves. I disagree with this statement as the target audience won’t believe everything that has been written because they have common sense.

Both of the theories above are out of date as they were said years ago however they highlight what was believed back then and how the magazine industry has changed.

It is important to have a target audience for my magazine as then I know how to design it and what genre to use. I will now create a survey monky to find what my target audience like and dislike to make my design around.