Transcription
Hello! Welcome to my easy-to-understand guide to the online magazine *Attitude* and its audience. *Attitude* is an optional set text for the Eduqas A-Level Media Studies exam, component 2. Not all schools study *Attitude*, but if yours does, you need to know a lot about it.
In terms of how they target men, there's the stereotype that men aren't that emotional. So, a lot of the content on the *Attitude* website is very factual and not particularly emotional. There are lots of facts and statistics, and even when they do interviews, it's about the person's history or opinions, but it doesn't go into deep emotions. That might be a way of targeting a male audience. There's also quite a lot of clickbait-type article headlines. On the homepage, you can see lots of headlines and images designed to feel salacious, exciting, risky—whatever it might be. That's designed to get audiences to click further into the website because, don't forget, more clicks potentially mean more advertising revenue.
Unfortunately, we also stereotype men as less likely to want to read in detail. So, the *Attitude* website has lots of images and lots of short, chunked paragraphs, making it easy to read and understand. Obviously, you can tell from looking at the website that virtually every picture is of a man, and almost all the stories are about men and their lifestyles. It's very clear that men are the target audience; they would be able to recognize themselves and identify with a lot of the stories.
The age group of 25 to 55 is obvious when you look at the pictures. A lot of the celebrities they choose fall into that age category, or they're people that people in that age band would recognize from their youth. The choice of various celebrities is something you might want to look at. There's also quite a big focus on retro 90s—whether that's 90s fashion, 90s music, 90s films, 90s pop culture. That's because a lot of people aged 25 to 55 lived through the 90s or are quite familiar with it. It gives them a feeling of nostalgia, reminding them of their youth and engaging them in a way that perhaps more modern content might not.
There is use of social media, and with *Attitude*, you need to look at their social media pages, not just the website. Their choice of social media reflects that age group as well. The choice of Facebook and Twitter, but not Snapchat or TikTok, suggests that the target audience is in that 25 to 55 age range. There are lots of political stories, lots of current affairs stories from around the world. We tend to assume that very young people might not be interested in politics. The inclusion of so much political content might suggest that their audience is older, more mature, and more interested in that kind of content.
Most online websites feature a high level of social interaction—things like the ability to like, comment, and share. *Attitude* magazine really doesn't feature any interactive content at all. There's very little audiences can do on the website apart from read the stories. That might suggest a slightly older target audience because interactive content is a great way of engaging young target audiences, but perhaps those in their 40s and 50s might not expect it as much. They also promote the print version of the magazine quite a lot on the website. There are lots of mentions of the print magazine, lots of pictures of it, links to subscribe. Focusing on that print version is another indication that the target audience is perhaps a little older because those in their 40s and 50s might still be buying print magazines, whereas younger audiences perhaps might have left print magazines behind.
The target audience for *Attitude* is kind of ABC1 in the socioeconomic groups—that means they're quite wealthy, reasonably middle class. You can tell by looking at the adverts on the website. The adverts are for high-end brands, brands like Gucci. It's an indication that the target audience must have enough money to buy those brands and designers. The use of adverts to target particular audiences in terms of their wealth is a good indication of their demographic. There's lots of focus on looking good, building muscle, and grooming; there's that kind of element of the metrosexual man on their website. There's a lot of focus on consumerism—buying products to look better and feel better, and to look better to others.
The other part of the audience may fall into the reformer category. Reformers want to reform or make change to society. They're the people who really care deeply about social, political, and community issues and want to make changes they feel would benefit communities. So, there's lots of emphasis on political stories, people who have been bullied, people who've been assaulted, issues to do with racism, homophobia, transgender issues, and transgender rights. Those stories might particularly appeal to those reformer-type audiences.
There's quite a lot of formal, complex language on the website. There's not a huge amount of colloquialisms or urban language; it tends to be quite formal English. That might indicate the ABC1 demographic. We tend to assume—and again, this is very much a stereotype—that those people in that demographic are perhaps more educated and so more likely to use that formal language. Lots of middle-class interests are referenced on the website as well—things like going to the theater and five-star luxury holidays—things that people could only really afford if they had a reasonable amount of disposable income.
Obviously, the target audience for *Attitude* is primarily gay. There are lots of references to the pride flag, rainbow colors, and symbolism on the website. Lots of stories are about the LGBTQ community and, in particular, gay men. There are a lot of stories about issues that gay men might encounter in their own lives—stories about things like homophobic bullying, assault, issues to do with coming out. Lots of stories that that gay male target audience would be able to identify with potentially. There's also a big inclusion of LGBTQ celebrities—people who may represent the gay male community or other aspects of the LGBTQ community, or celebrities who are icons within the gay community—people that we tend to think the gay community is a big supporter of.
There's a real lack of stories about families and children on the website. It's very much an indicator that the kind of people reading this online magazine are single and without their own children, and perhaps that children aren't even on their horizon at the moment. The focus is very much on entertainment and having fun—luxury holidays, adults-only holidays, dating, and going out and enjoying their leisure time. Very much indicative that the readers of *Attitude* magazine online are single and carefree.
They've made an attempt to appeal to global audiences because they've got a lot of global content syndicated from other websites online. There are lots of stories from around the world, whether that's political issues or celebrity articles, and that would hopefully engage a wider, more global audience, and not just British ones. A lot of audiences would find this website quite informative; there's lots to be educated by, lots of stories that are going to teach them about politics, about justice, about social issues and social change. It's also going to be very entertaining for audiences—lots of celebrity-based content, interviews, videos, and stuff that is going to feel exciting and potentially quite dramatic from a lot of the headlines.
There's actually very little on the market in terms of online magazines that are targeted particularly at LGBTQ audiences. *Attitude* magazine fills this niche gap in the market, so audiences, particularly those who are in that LGBTQ community, may feel that sense of identity—the fact that they can perhaps relate to a lot of the stories in the magazine, and that is going to draw them in as well. They feel that there is somebody else that understands them, somebody that is going through the same issues as them. Some audiences may feel that the magazine doesn't represent them at all and it is not particularly engaging for them. While it markets itself as a kind of gay male magazine with a lot of content for the LGBTQ community, some audiences may feel that the focus is very much on gay men and leaves out a lot of the other parts of that LGBTQ community. There's virtually nothing about lesbians, for example, in the magazine or on the website, which is understandable if it's a niche magazine aimed at a very specific target audience, but it does mean that the magazine is not necessarily going to appeal to the whole LGBTQ community. There are definitely going to be people from that community who are going to feel the magazine is still not totally accessible and totally representative of them.
So that was my easy-to-understand guide to audiences in *Attitude*, the online magazine. Don't forget to click subscribe to get updated with all the other videos I'm uploading about *Attitude*, as well as Zoella and lots of the other A-Level set texts and optional texts for A-Level. And don't forget to leave a comment below if there's a particular video you want that I don't already have, and I will see what I can do.