What is a magazine?..

The first thing that comes to my mind is pieces of paper which provides some kind of information depending on what type of target audience it has to represent.

In media terms a magazine is a media text, media product that gives us certain type of information depending on genre, niche market (specific type of people that the product is targeted to), but then the other question which needs to be answered - how do we know what type of genre is certain magazine, what type of audience it is linked to?#

Every media product has its own codes and conventions. Conventions is what the target audience expect to see or hear of that particular type of media text. Mostly every type, or genre magazine has its own ways of representing what is in the magazine. Also genre conventions easily tells us a lot about target audience, even if you (personally) do not belong to it. People stereotype certain things and this lets us understand target audience. Also the magazine itself has some of other media types inside of it, like advertisements, might also have small parts of diaries, stories (interviews) or social media (posts from 'Facebook' included in a paper magazine, to make it more and more modern and to make a target audience much wider. Some people might not like to read a magazine in paper but they would love to read it online. Or maybe some of them likes reading just short stories and they could do it on 'Facebook'.)

For example a magazine with bright colours, mostly pink, light blue and white connotes about female audience. The main image shows the age group of the magazine target audience. Mostly women who read this magazine wants to look like the main image model. Young women from the age of 18 to about 35. 

I have chosen German 'Cosmopolitan' which means I cannot understand the language but media lets me 'read' it from the front cover. 

Model is looking straight into a camera, which is called direct address in media terms. 

The magazine front cover is not overloaded with lots of sell lines or sub stories. It does not have a skyline, any puffs. 

It is quite minimized, but it has the main things like masthead, main image which is not the mid-shot (which connotes us about a genre of magazine, as long as it is a fashion magazine, front cover is already selling clothes, make-up, hairstyle)

Names of sub stories are written in a bigger font to attract attention, also using just one word means it is a very strong word which will catch our target audience eyes straight away. 

Also every magazine has its own USP (unique selling point), usually for fashion magazines it is a model which is used on the main image. This image is the most important thing in magazine, it sells the magazine.

BUT


A magazine not necessarily means a paper magazine. Media goes bigger and bigger every day, now we also have internet magazines. An opportunity to read the magazine online as much as offline just makes the niche market a bit bigger.