Rolling stone magazine

Rolling stone is a magazine based in New York and based on music, liberal politics and popular culture. Although its’ main category is as a music magazine.

It is produced bi-weekly and published and edited by Jann Wenner with the company Wenner media LLC. Jann Wenner was also the founder in 1967 with music critic Ralph J Gleason.

In the 1970s the magazine was known widely for political coverage although the format was changed in the 90s to appeal to younger readers as music based magazine. It now focuses on young, pop, television and film stars. So today the magazines content consists of music and fame alongside political stories. It now has expanded to have financial issues coverage.

As a result the magazine has seen circulation increase due to such a wide range of content. Total circulation for 2012 is 1,464,943!

The magazine obtained some criticism that the magazine was focusing on style over substance. Since then the magazine has levelled out to become music based magazine however still containing important news of today and with an informative style however still attracting the younger readers. Today the magazine “rolling stone” is known as a music magazine but only gradually has it made a new target audience and altered its content to drive more sales.

 Each issue contains a popular celebrity positioned on the front cover, which appeals to the younger target audience with quirky styled text and phrases. The red text stands out on the background and ahs become a well known logo, depending on how popular the issue is, the cover is then blown up and sold on as a “pin up” and sold in various places like HMV, the posters are a great way to promote the magazine and was done so with popular artists and actors like this example, Zac Efron and Justin Bieber.

Who is on the cover all depends on what is most up and coming and popular at the time for example Taylor Lautner was issued on the front cover of rolling stone magazine around the time of the release of the twilight saga new moon; this issue contained a cover with a popular image of him and the words “teen wolf’ the producers know that `at that moment in time twilight would be very on trend and topic of young persons conversation so he was a perfect model for the cover to drive sales and promote the new movie. So the style of production is very popular and very on trend.

The content of the magazine on the other hand is much more sophisticated yet still “on trend” this particular issue featured the nirvana drummer Dave Grohl of which his image and style is very different to young actor Taylor Lautner. The wide range of content means that this magazine has a very large total circulation. The music-based side of the magazine attracts a whole range of young people as musicians featured on the cover range from Justin Bieber to Billie Joe Armstrong and Jimmi Hendrix. Both musicians have a completely different style but who is featured on the cover depends who is most current and most popular. Justin Bieber was so popular as the “pin up boy” of the magazine that Tshirts were printed of the issue. This was a popular issue as he is a teen pop sensation. The magazines are very visual and the best content is advertised on the cover to attract more and new readers. The wide range of content means that the target audience almost depends on whatever is featured in the issue. The text is very much so targeted at young people using words such as “hot new actor” to tempt young girls into reading more into this particular article. The very on trend style means it’s a popular magazine as its main contents is informing the reader of what is going on currently in the music industry.

The visual outlook on the magazine determines who the target audience is although the target audience of the magazine is purely music enthusiasts; people who enjoy music and mainly rock music as the magazine has an alternative and punk twist to it featuring mainly rock artists.  So usually the style of production targets young people into rock and punk music that are interested in what is current in the world. The type of audience tends to be intelligent as the type of articles and style of writing is very informative.

The website features some of the content and it is very factual and features stories which apply to music enthusiasts and artists which are very on trend. This appeals to the target audience of young people.

The website displays content which targets to both genders with ‘hot girls who “rock” ‘ and “ heart throb zac efron confesses all”. The magazine isn’t targeted to a gender just young people who are interested in current music industry yet the magazine contains a political side widening the audience.