Investigation Methodology

My investigation is based around comparing two different football magazines that are aimed at different-aged audiences, so I had to find out how to find the most appropriate magazines to compare. The two magazines I have eventually decided to compare are 'Four Four two' magazine, and 'Match' magazine.

My main question for this research is: How do football magazines ‘Four Four Two’ and ‘Match!’ use different language to maintain and further develop their audience?

I look to differentiate these through the language used, grammar, graphology, phonology?, use of humour, and initial front-cover presentation.

The theory it is based around will likely be language and change, but I may also look into language and power, depending on which theory gives me more to work with. 

There are several reasons I have decided to compare these two. Firstly, according to 'www.w3newspapers.com', they are both in the top 4 best-selling football magazines in the world - with Four Four two and match being the only two in the top four sold regularly in England.(Source: http://www.w3newspapers.com/magazines/soccer/)

Also, they both (as intended) have very different target audiences. Four Four Two is a more serious, informative magazine, said to be aimed at ages 18-40 and at a middle classed audience who are more interested in the facts and detailed information(Source: http://magazineindustry.wikispaces.com/file/view/foufourtwo+case+study_Alex.doc). Whereas on the other hand, match magazine has an average-reader age of 11 so therefore is aimed at a fairly younger audience who do not have a great reading ability at that age.(Source: http://magazines.bauermediaadvertising.com/magazines/detail/match)

However, there are also some good similarities between them that make them even more suitable to compare, such as the fact that both of these magazines were released within a couple of days of each other (with four four two being a monthly magazine, and Match weekly) so they will contain the same stories, but in their specific way. Also, according to both of my sourced websites, both of these magazines are primarily aimed at boys/men as they are stereo-typically normally seen as being more interested in football and sport. So in this respect they may contain similar (male) language and phrases that associate to male slang, something that you'd be more likely to find in the 'Four Four Two' magazine, but you could pick up on in the child's magazine.

So overall the majority of what I do to compare them will be by finding similar stories in the two of these magazines, but seeing at how they present them differently and how they speak to their audience. As said above, I will also look at the language and grammar used, how much they use both graphology and possibly even phonology, the seriousness of the texts/use of humour and also I will compare their front covers to ultimately see how their magazine is meant to be seen.