Focus group analysis I interviewed four people who all read music magazines and listen to hip hop music

1. What do you like most about hip hop?

The most popular answer that was coming up from this question was that the artists that sing hip-hop are well known and famous. When I asked why, the main point was, if artists in a specific type of genre weren’t as famous as artists in other genres and weren’t coming up in magazines and news as often then the genre would be less popular than the if they was in the media a lot and everybody was interested in their music and career. Other answers from this question included, the artists were from worldwide and not just from specific parts of the country. “You wouldn’t tend to find an African from Jamaica singing rock, where as you would find an American from America singing hip hop” said borna.

2. What content would you expect to see in a good hip hop music magazine?

From the 4 people that took part in the focus group, all of them in one form or another said that things like competitions and albums, free cd’s concert tickets are all content they would expect to see in the type of magazines they would read or buy. Another point that stood out was the use of colours in a magazine.Bright colours and consistent colour schemes seemed to be the words that were coming up quite often. The final point that was mentioned more than once was the structure of the magazine, if the magazine was laid out nicely and was easy and simple to read and find what you are looking for it would be a good magazine that people would like to read. After this question i thought that i should ask the question about what colour schemes would make a good hip hop magazine seeing as more than two of them mentioned this.

3. What colour schemes do you think would make a good hip hop magazine?

All four of the people I asked had different opinions on the colour schemes except that black seemed to be the most popular as 3 out of 4 of them chose it. However all of them agreed that as long as the colour schemes are consistent and the colours contrast or go together and are not completely random like “orange and pink” said zeph than they should be okay. Borna thought that black and red is a good choice of colours because they look appealing and they have a dark edge which makes the colours mysterious and eye catching. Michal said that purple and black because the

purple would stand out from the black which would make it attractive to look at. zeph claimed that white and blue are good colours that go together and are simple and attractive. Finally George concluded that orange and black because they contrast and also stand out and appear clear.

4. How much images and text would you expect to see in a good music magazine?

An interesting thing about this question is that all four people who contributed to the focus group had different opinions on this. Borna claimed that the magazine should be balanced between images and text so it is not biased too much on images and not too much on text. For example people who like to read text more than images could still buy the magazine and enjoy it where as if there was too many images and less text it would be difficult to see someone who likes to read a lot of text and not images purchase and read the magazine. Michal thought that images more than text in a magazine would be more suitable as it is not exactly a news paper. Also if the magazine contained more images it would be more appealing and attractive. “Images speak for them self’s” was the phrase Michal used to back up his point which seemed to be a fair enough point of view. Zeph on the other hand thought that more text would be suitable for a magazine because it would be informative and you would tend to find out about a lot of interesting things than if there were more images in a magazine. George finally concluded that the main cover of a magazines should contain more images than text to attract the readers to it, however as you read more you should find more text on the other pages about interesting things and not just images which wouldn’t be much of use in the long term as you would know less if you just looked at images than if you read text.

5. Whats your opinion of the genre hip hop?Borna: “I think that hip hop is a well known genre with good rhythm and all my favourite artists sing hip hop therefore I enjoy listening to it”Zeph: “Hip hop contains good music and produces lots of good artists that are famous and known worldwide. Another good thing about hip hop is that everyone is into it”Michal:” Hip hop is an interesting music genre which you can relate to yourself while listening to it. It talks about real life situations / hard times”George thought that Hip hop music is up to date with its music and has big well known artists such as 50 cent.

6. As a teenager growing up, music surrounds us, what type of music do you listen to the most? Does that affect the type of magazines you read now?

Out of the four, three of them thought that the type of music they listen to now affects the type of magazines they read which is an interesting thing to consider. Borna claimed that he listens to hip hop, rap and grime because you can feel and relate to the words and artist. He also said that the type of music he listens to affects the type of music magazines he reads. Michal listens to dub step a lot because it is relaxing and

you can ‘let yourself go’. Also dub step calms you down, puts you in a good mood and clears your mind about everything. Very decent point of view that was. Also he said that this doesn’t affect the type of magazines he reads. George and zeph both agreed on Hip hop because it is a good genre with a lot of good well known artists who have been famous for a long time and have a lot of experience in the genre. They both concluded that this affects the type of magazines they read.

7. If so how?

Borna claimed that the type of magazines he reads are affected by what he listens to because he doesn’t enjoy reading about artists that don’t sing hip hop and wouldn’t want to read anything about them as he is not attracted to their music. George and zeph said that this affects the magazines they read because they would rather have a collection of magazines which are about their favourite genre as it will make them love hip hop music more and also know about it and be regularly updated with what is going on.Michal disagreed with all three of them and added that even though you are interested in reading and finding out more about your genre this shouldn’t stop you from reading about other music genres and finding out more about them. He also claimed that he reads different types of magazines with different genres because he likes to find out more about the music industry itself and how it is doing and not just the one music genre he enjoys most.

8. How would you expect the language in a good music magazine to be?

For this question the answers seemed to be common, all four of the people I asked preferred the language to be informal and direct so that it makes you feel involved.

Borna: “I would expect it to be informal so that it sounds friendly and I can relate to what is written more than if it was formal and hard to understand. Also because I like hip hop, informal writing wouldn’t be appropriate for hip hop magazines as hip hop use a lot of slang and informal words in their music”Michal: “I would like the language to be direct because it makes you feel like the person is actually talking to you and makes you feel more involved”George: “I think informal would be the most appropriate language to use because the magazine needs to act like a friend to you so you buy it and also direct because it’s got to talk to you as if to grab your attention to buy it”.Zeph: “I agree with George here again because a magazine that is in formal and direct would be more exciting and interesting to read than a formal magazine. Personally I think that Newspapers should be formal where as magazines should be in formal and exciting”

9. What type of images would you like to see in a magazine and also how many?

The answers here were all varied and different to each other which is interesting and tells us that everyone is different and everyone has different opinions on the type and quantity of images they would like to see in a magazine. Borna suggested that a just one main image of one well known famous artist so you can see the emotion of the artist and also focus on just one artist at a time then seeing a lot of them in one magazine and reading about all of them at the same time; fair enough. Michal added that he disagrees with borna and that he would like to see lots of different images of different artists on tour or in a concert so that you have a better understanding of the image the magazine is trying to portray and also a better understanding of a lot of artists in that genre and not just one artist. Zeph and George here both agreed that the front cover should have just one main image of a famous artist. The reason for this is that you can clearly see the posture of the artist and also the emotions of the face which adds more impact to the image. However as you flick through the magazine it is better to see different images of artists performing and also just normal images of them because it is more balanced for both.