Questionnaire Results for Main Task (G321)

By Pav Johal

I made an anonymous online questionnaire for people to fill out in order to get a better understanding and perspective of who I will be aiming my magazine at and what things they will be interested in. The questionnaire gave me some very helpful information that will be of use when I am constructing my classical music magazine. I left the questionnaire open for a whole week to try and get a variety of people to fill it in. I made a Twitter account under the alias of “MediaStudent17” and posted a tweet with the survey URL on and appropriate # to try and get a wider variety of people to fill out the questionnaire. The questionnaire was also sent around to teachers within the establishment I study at to try and get a variety of different ages and backgrounds to be apart of my survey. *Question 5 – the forms of responses were set up incorrectly so some people chose from the list provided and some typed in the form and the reason*

Age Range and Gender This question has allowed me to understand what age range and gender my music magazine will be going out to. From the 43 responses the highest age range responses I got back were 11, which were of 30-39 year old females. The second response I got back was from 40-49 year old females with 6 responses. The third response I got was 50-59 year old females with 5 responses. The 4th responses I got were 4 responses each of 21-29 year old males and females. From this question alone I deduced that Females will read my classical music magazines more.

Number of magazines read per month

I chose to include this question because I wanted to know if people actually read magazines or not. The information I got was really useful because it allowed me to see that just under half the people who answered the question didn’t read any magazine at all, which is okay. I was surprised at how many people read 2 + magazines a month purely because of pricing etc… Out of the 42 people who answered the question, 24 people said that they did read a magazine every month which was interesting and useful to know.

Pricing

I chose to put this question into the questionnaire because I wanted a deeper understanding of how much people were willing to spend on a classical music magazine. I was not surprised by the number of people who said that they didn’t read a classical music magazine however I was surprised about how many people responded with a figure of price. 19 people of the 43 that answered the question answered the question with a figure. This will really help me as the highest number of responses for figures was “more than £1 but less than £2” which is what sort of price I will put my magazine at.

Colour of the magazine This question was crucial to include within the questionnaire because the colour of a magazine is one of the most distinctive features of a magazine. After doing some research, some magazines like to use more than 1 colour so I gave an option for the people to fill out more than 1 colour or a colour that wasn’t mentioned in the list provided. I was relatively surprised with the most common answer of “burgundy” because of the darkness of the it, I was expecting cream because of the connotation of light, clean and crisp.

Form of Purchasing

I chose to include this question within my questionnaire because it is very useful to know how the people you are aiming the magazine to will purchase it. I wasn’t surprised by how many people said that they wouldn’t buy a classical music magazine because it is an acquired taste that not everyone enjoys. I was slightly surprised by the most common form of purchasing the magazine being a physical copy, this is because I was expecting the online copy to triumph as technology gets more and more advanced and easier to use. The physical copy is obviously still going to stick around as people may feel as though you cannot enjoy a magazine without flicking through the pages yourself.

Attraction

This question was included in the questionnaire I created because I wanted to know what sort of things will entice the target audience into buying the magazine. I expected images to be a popular answer because it is a shortcut to knowing whether or not you want to buy the magazine based upon the most interesting feature within the magazine. Based upon this information given I will try and make sure that the images that I use on my front cover will be enticing and interesting in term of poses and people featuring within the actual magazine itself.

Featuring items

I felt as though this question needed to be included within the questionnaire so that I know what sort of things my target audience will expect from my classical music magazine. Based upon the information that I received I was not surprised that the least popular answer was adverts, this is because from personal experience I know that some magazines can be full of adverts and you feel as though you’ve just read a jazzed up version of the yellow pages rather than a magazine. In my double page spread I will try and include everything apart from adverts.

Reading a Classical Music Magazine(1)

Reading a Classical Music Magazine(2)

I decided to include this question within my questionnaire because I wanted to know how many people have actually ever read a classical music magazine and why. This information helped me because it gives different opinions/viewpoints on classical music magazines and the different reasons for being interested or uninterested. Of the 42 people that answered the question, 12 said that they have read a classical music magazine before, the opinions varied from wanting to know more about music they like/understand to listening to Classic FM.

Focus Group

I included this question because I wanted to see who will be apart of my focus group which means where I will interview everyone in a bit more depth about their individual choices etc. I left this question open to everyone because I wanted to see if the people who come forward to be apart will be members from my target audience. 3 of the 8 that answered aren’t my intended target audience however it will be beneficial to have them be apart of the group to get their ideas on things.