1. In
what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and
conventions of real media products?
It was important to use traditional forms and conventions of
existing media products to produce a genuine music magazine. Some of these
forms I have developed to create a unique and interesting product so that my
product has an exclusive selling point compared to other similar magazines that
are on the target market.
I have analysed numerous amount of different existing music magazines
and it was clear that the name of the magazine was always placed at the top of
the front cover page and sometimes towards the left. I then used this
convention throughout my front cover and double page spread as this was a key
layout to.
A colour theme is important to give the magazine
a sophisticated and structured look however I have noticed that the more
colours used, the more crowded and unorganised the magazine looked which does
also reflect the rock genre which I am not looking to have for my music
magazine as the genre of my magazine is R&B/ hip-hop. My contents page also follows the
forms and conventions of a real media product as the contents colour scheme is
regular which does relate to the front cover of my music magazine which doesn’t
prevent any confusion to my target audience and does look authentic.
The straplines
are used to advertise the content on the front cover as it looks bold and
appealing. However the straplines are not essentially used in all magazines
that you come across. I have noticed they are often used on magazines aimed at
a younger audience and teenagers with a more crowded front cover. I have
decided to use straplines at the top of my magazine developing typical forms and
conventions to make a more appealing and visual front cover, which is what my
target audience is looking for.
A
convection that many real media product use are puffs which I also included in
my music magazine. My puff is a chance to win concerts tickets for 2 for
‘Leanne sheers’ tour. My puff will attract the target audience as the ‘FREE’
would be eye catching to my target audience.
In
addition, I have also challenged the convention of the contents page as when I
analysed some music magazine contents page the mast head of ‘Content’ was
always at the top of the page however, with my contents page I have placed
‘contents’ on the right hand of the page going down across the page. I placed
my ‘content’ like this in order for it to look unique from other music
magazines.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My
media product represents a group of teenagers to young adults, mainly from the
UK, aged around 16-25 years old. I
represented my social group firstly through the use of language and mode of
address in my music magazine. The mode of address of my magazine is informative
but in order to fit my magazine to the lower half of the age group I made it
easy for all of my target audience to understand no matter how intellectual
they are or not.
My
music magazine is aimed at both genders as my magazine include both female and
male content that the audience would enjoy reading and also is not biased if it
was directly aimed at one type of gender.
My
music magazine content is mainly focused around what my target market want such
as interviews which I have included and top charts which I found out by doing
research and conducted a questionnaire which I received feedbacks from.
In
my music magazine the genre are R&B, Hip-hop and rap so therefore I did not
include any classical music as from the research I conducted I have found that
it was not popular within my age group.
The
design of my music magazine is simple as I wanted to make it look elegant and
not cluttered and disorganised. However, I did want my music magazine to
attract to my audience therefore I used bold colours and unique layouts and
used images that are simple but effective. The main cover image of my music magazine
is of the celebrity with the double page spread ‘Leanne Sheer’. The main cover
is a female and this is a way of sex appeal and get my target audience
attracted to my magazine
For my media product, the price
I’ve chosen could represent a specific social group for example, as I am
targeting my magazine to the everyday teenagers and young adult, they would not
spend a lot of money on magazines as they may still be in education or may want
to spend money on things which may be better to spend on such as clothes. From
using the feedback from my questionnaire the majority of people answered that they
would be willing to spend £3 for a music magazine therefore I chose to price my
music magazine £3 which seems like a decent price for a magazine as its
affordable for a high quality music magazine like mine.
Q)
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The media
institution that I’ve chosen is called ‘Bauer Media Group’. The institution
caters over 19 million UK adults every week and has more then 80 media brands
such as Kiss 100, 4 Music, Kerrang, Parkers and many more which spans a wide
range of interests.
The type of
genre that my magazine will be is RnB and Hip-Hop. The reason why I chose this
institution is because it has a wide range of brands and magazines that the other
institution does not have for example like, IPC, Emap, and Hearst etc.
My target
audience that I want my magazine to cater is roughly the age of 16 to 25. I do
believe that my institution caters for the target audience that I’ve selected as
‘Bauer Media’ has wide ranges of brands that engages with the audience.
‘Bauer’
would be suitable for my magazine as oppose to ‘IPC Media’ because the
institution is more based of music brands however ‘IPC Media’ publish magazine
which are more based of TV, News, Sports etc.
‘Bauer
Media’ joined the media group in January 2008 and the group employs around
6,400 people. They publish a variety of
magazines such as Empire, Mojo, and Q etc.
The
institution that I’ve selected does use cross media convergence such as radio
station such as heat, kiss, magic etc. The institution also has cross media
convergence such as TV for example Box, Q. Kerrang, and 4 Music. Etc.
I
would distribute my magazine places where people go for transport, for example
I would distribute it at places like airports, train station, bus stops. The
reason why I chose to distribute my magazine at them places is because they are
usually busy and more people are likely to buy a magazine when they are
travelling as it would company them through their journey. I also would have a
mini stand by each place where the magazine would be sold. I will also
distribute my magazine in supermarkets near the till, as it also a place where
many people most likely to go to and the reason why I would have my magazine
near the till is because its will catch customers attention.
The price
of my magazine would be £3.95 each, the reason I chose this price is because my
magazine will be made from recycled material which is environmentally friendly
and I would like my magazine to be high quality with loads of information and
news which will be worth it for the price.
For my
magazine, I have considered control and regulation for safety. I will follow
the editor’s code of practice in order to maintain a high professional standard.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
My target audience for my music magazine would be aged
between the late teens and their early twenties (16-25), I believe it is
suitable for the kind of magazine that I have created, this is backed up
further by the price of the magazine, it has to be made affordable because of
the ages of the audience as the price is £2 which seems fairly decent. I made
sure my target audience would contain a mixture of both females and males as I
do not want my music magazine to be stereotypical and promote it more than the
other.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
With my music, I attracted and addressed my target audience
in many ways, for instance;
Taken professional pictures for my magazine which looks high quality
and not juvenile also the use of imagery that has a clear connotation and
representation of a typical R&B/Hip-hop music artist however also keeping
the originality of my magazine of a youthful look.
Used a people in their late teens to model for me and be in my magazine
which related to the target audience as having a child on my main cover image
would not address to my target audience.
Bold titles and masthead to draw the attention of the target audience.
Using colours which suit both genders for example the colour gold and black.
- Making sure the colour scheme is consistent throughout my music
magazine to avoid any confusions or distractions.
- The use of variety of bold and vibrant colours and the use of extreme style
of text included in my magazine.
6. What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout
the process of creating my media product I have gained many abilities using
different technologies. The equipment’s that I had used were the mac computers,
cameras and adobe Photoshop.
Photoshop
was one of my main technology I worked with over the process of my media
product. The Photoshop program was very difficult in beginning as I have never
used it since my preliminary task which I didn’t feel like I used Photoshop
well. Photoshop was very hard to get use to and was very stressful throughout
the whole process of my media product however, without Photoshop my media
product would be very poor as it mainly consisted in using the program to edit
photos etc. in addition, The Photoshop tool came in extremely useful in the
construction of my media product and was the handiest tool we were provided
with as I used it a lot to edit my photos.
Throught the process of constructing my music magazine, I also learnt how to use powerpoints, publishers and word much better. As i did most of my research using the programs.
The image
that I have used for my double page spread was not taken with a plain background
instead, it was taken outdoors. By using Photoshop I used brush tool by
changing the background to white and gave a faded background and reason why I
did not crop the background one instead was due to it looking messy and the
edges would not be refined so instead I used the brush tool which made me feel
satisfied with the background. I then blemished the face by using the healing
tool brush and also the spot healing brush. After, I used the brush tool again
and selected the shade black to add more eyeliner to make it more bold and also
I changed the colour by using the eyedropper tool and selected the eyebrows
which automatically gave me the same colour which them I used to go over the
eyebrows and make them more bold and neat.
Overall, throughout the
construction of my media product i have gained the ability to use many
different technologies which are helpful in the media industry, all of which
came in unbelievably handy in the production of my magazine and will help with
other things over time.
7. Looking back
at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression
from it to the full product?
Looking back on my preliminary task, I have learnt various
new technical skills as well as how to create a successful media product.
During my preliminary task, my product was very bland and included much
creativity. However, in my full product I have ensured a consistent colour
scheme in order for all my pages to look as though they’re from the same
magazine.
My school magazine looked very crowded whereas my full
product has a small amount of writing to match my style model of Q! However,
still looked like a legitimate magazine. I feel that since my preliminary task
I have progressed as beforehand I did not really understand how to attract an
audience successfully.
My contents page looked dull and looked like it was something
you would see on a newspaper as there wasn’t much colour that attracts to the
audience. However in the full task I ensured that my contents page fit in with
my cover using eccentric colours effectively.
I believe that my final product looks a lot more professional
and elegant as I think this is because I had a style model to follow as well as
research I had done on various other magazines
My preliminary task helped me to reflect on what I was doing
wrong so that I could improve this within my final magazine. I realised that
image quality and model choice was important, in my school magazine I used
blurred images however my final product images were better quality.
The layout of my magazine was also important. My preliminary
task did not have a specific layout causing it to look disorganised and
unprofessional, to ensure my final product could be sold next to huge magazines
such as Q! I tried to follow the layout of my style model in order to create a
genuine feel to my product.
My Photoshop skills lacked at the beginning of the course
however after the preliminary task I was able to learn how to use various tools
such as blur and brush tool, this helped as I used these on my final product.
With my school magazine, it was target to a small audience
however, my final media product is aimed more to a wider audience as it is
within the age group of 16-25.
Having an audience feedback to create my media product helped
me be able to create a successful product.
In addition, overall after creating my preliminary task I
made sure that my final media product had majority of the forms and conventions
for a music magazine.
