Research Rationale.

After looking over different genres of music, I have decided to conduct my research and planning on Indie-Pop which is a sub-genre. I chose this as it is the type of music I listen to regularly. The majority of consumers around sixteen to early twenties tend to listen to this sub-genre and as I am sixteen, I find that it would be easier to collect information regarding audience research as well as being able to understand what they think about music magazines. Additionally, as I go to a Sixth Form, it will be easier to ask my peers questions on different reasons to make a strong magazine. I can also use students of younger years to collect information to receive broad opinions and feelings about music magazines. This will enable me to understand what my audience feel about music magazines in the market, their interests towards them and what they feel is misrepresented as of right now in the media. For example, I can understand what may attract them and ideas on how my magazine should look to fit my target audience. By doing this with a wide range, my research will be non-biased and comprehensive. 

The type of research I am carrying out is qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research will enable me to receive in-depth answers rather than short, simple answers. This form of research benefits me when planning my magazine's appearance and being able to understand what may look good or bad. This is effective because I can recognize my target audience's preferences and reasons for them. However, quantitative research is set to gather statistics and facts of my target audience in order to meet my end result and this will allow me to create an overall image to be able to interest them.

Different ways I could carry out qualitative research will give me a wider range of views. I can use interviews with a focused group or a one-on-one interview and create questions and surveys to direct at my target audience. Along with this, for quantitative research, I will be looking to do charts and frequency diagrams to see trends going on. By doing qualitative and quantitative research, I will begin to create a general picture of the interests of teenagers and their views of music magazines.

Additionally, I will be furthering my research to wider my understanding and ensure I know both about the market as of right now and audiences. I intend to do this by going into shops to purchase indie-pop magazines or taking pictures of them. I will also use Web 2.0 to my advantage by going through brand’s sites or browsing through images to see similar or different conventions used. I am also working towards finding out popular indie-pop artists and carrying out small fact-files on music magazines that are popular right now. This will be my market research though I do plan on furthering both my market and audience research to develop a better sense of what is trending and what my target audience lean towards more.

In conclusion, I am confident with starting my research and look forward to creating a stronger idea of different music magazines along with indie-pop.