AUDIENCE RESEARCH Smiths v Sheeran

This is a simple example of how you can quickly build up quality research evidence, and gather material to analyse, as part of your exploration of audience for your particular artist. This builds on previous posts - use the audience tags on both the GCSE and MusiVidz blogs for much, much more.

QUICK NOTE ON MEDIA TYPES
The basic idea here is that different media have different audiences. If your artist is featured in a particular media type, that is clear evidence of at least some match between that media's audience and the artist's - even if that is just a secondary audience.
Examples:
TABLOID NEWSPAPERS (The Sun is a good example) have mainly C1C2DE readerships, as they are quite simplistic, sensationalist, and dominated by huge headlines/pics with short stories using simple English. Their readership isn't young, but is much younger than broadsheets
BROADSHEET/QUALITY NEWSPAPERS (The Guardian, Times, Telegraph etc) are the opposite: their readership is mainly ABC1 reflecting their complex, literate writing style and lengthy articles
E-ZINES These depend on the particular zine. Examples: PopBitch a tabloid style zine aimed at 15-34s, quite downmarket (C1C2D) as 'trashy'. Louderthanwar has quite a political readership, older (core 35-44+, it has links to 1970s punk and early 80s pop), but quite upmarket because of its complexity (BC1C2). Blabbermouth is also rock-focused, but downmarket from Louderthanwar (more C1C2D). Both Blabbermouth and Louderthanwar have a more male audience while Popbitch is more attractive to a female (and gay) audience.
MAGAZINES As the print industry continues to migrate online, the distinction between the magazine and e-zine is blurring (TERMS: digitisation, convergence, web 2.0), but you can generally find audience profiles provided by magazine publishers to help target advertisers (who want to know who they're paying to reach - you wouldn't want to market Rolexes at C2DEs, or pensions to a teen/tween audience!). Examples: NME and Q both have a slightly more male audience for their pop and rock content. NME's core audience is 15-24+, while Q's is 24-44+, and Q is more BC1C2 while NME is closer to C1C2DE. Kerrang attracts primarily a young male, downmarket audience, but a very significant secondary older male (and younger female) audience too

THE SEARCH
Simply try (1) a Google and (2) a direct site search for The Smiths (and repeat for Morrissey) and then Sheeran.

I found Ed Sheeran is a true four quadrant artist, covered heavily in political, complex e-zines like Louderthanwar, a multiple-time cover star of Q, frequently featured in NME, Guardian, Sun...

The Smiths - I couldn't find any Sun articles from a simple search, though they are frequently referenced in the Guardian. They are often featured in the rock e-zines with older, more male audiences, and the NME.

Morrissey is heavily featured in most sources, but not those centred on slightly younger audiences. The Sun