Lesson 15 — Activity 2: Analyzing Advertising Content in Print Media


You now have an understanding of what the media is and that advertisers choose certain media to find their target audience for particular products. In this activity, we will examine print media in more detail to find out how much impact advertising has.

Suppose we were to choose a magazine for adults, mainly men, interested in building and renovating houses. There are many magazines intended for this audience.


To analyze the advertising content of the magazine, we need to do the following things:
  • Find the total number of pages in the magazine.
  • Look through the magazine and count the number of advertisements.
  • Look at the advertisements and group them into categories depending on the type of product being advertised. For example, we might find many ads for tools, some for household products, some for common medical problems, etc.
  • Look at the advertisements and analyze the various techniques used in each to catch the reader's interest.
  • Choose examples of typical or common ads in the magazine.
  • Consider whether the ads are appropriate for the magazine's target audience.
We might find that a magazine such as the one described above has more ads than information in it!
                         
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