Magazine Audiences

Relevant, one of my favorite publications, strives to create and maintain a Christian progressive culture.  It is mainly aimed towards young Christians in the 20-27 age group.  In some ways it is like any other lifestyle magazine, chock full of ads, interviews, and opinion pieces.  However, from the first opening of the gloss cover, the reader can tell that something is a little different.

  There are still all those things that would make it a magazine, but the parts of the whole are not the normal pieces.  Ads all have a purpose other than making money.  There are many ads meant to raise awareness for charity organizations and some meant to allow people to achieve higher education at Theological Seminary schools such as Louisville Seminary.

This one even held a $10 "gift card" to the World Vision website.  This gift card allows for the reader to donate $10 as a microloan to a start-up business of their choosing, without actually having to donate.  Essentially they are giving a free gift to someone because you bought the magazine that they chose to place their ad in.  This ad is far from the typical Buick, Maybelline, or Gamestop ad that garner the pages of a typical magazine.
There is also a difference in the interviews that they do.  It's often surprising to see that there is an interview with someone unrelated to the culture a magazine represents.  However, Relevant does this often, and they do it well.  This latest issue has an interview with Jason Segel of "How I Met Your Mother" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" fame.  If this interview were to appear in a magazine meant for older generations of Christians it would be met with anger and hostility.  This is because it is not an interview with a Christian.   Relevant does it this way in order to remind Christians that they are not to be closed off from the world.  Many other Christian magazines have interviews only with leading Christian voices (pastors, speakers, etc.), but to do things this way could hinder the message of progression that Relevant puts in each issue.
The opinion pieces are also a little different.  They are aimed straight at Relevant's core group of readers.  Sometimes they talk about issues that today's young Christians are facing.  Typically in a Christian magazine, the articles focus on such-and-such pastor's favorite foods or sports.  Usually the articles in these magazines do not foster much critical thought and contain very little applicable information.  While Relevant  maintains the importance of the Christian faith, it focuses on the things that many young Christians struggle with or question today.  This can mean anything from the spiritual relevance of tattoos to the scriptural argument on illegal immigration.
 Relevant is also very good at being current.  Many Christian publications have ads and interviews with some of the hottest Christian bands from yesteryear.  Unfortunately, many of those bands are no longer considered important or are thought to be bands for older generations.  Relevant, on the other hand, brings attention to the newest upcoming bands in Christian culture, such as Gungor or Givers.  They point out bands that are on the rise, rather than fondly remembering the bands that people used to listen to but no longer care about.

All said and done, Relevant reaches an audience that many other publications cannot, and they do it extremely well by doing things slightly differently from the norm.  Relevant is built around the audience of young Christians, who are constantly looking for new ways of expressing their beliefs.  This is the "progressive" purpose of Relevant.