Eq1

Evaluation Question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Rap/Hip-Hop Conventions

Used Conventions:-Low angle shots-Sport Shirts-Wealth-Men-Street-Close ups-Baseball caps-Graffiti-Gold-Microphone-Hand gestures-Gangster appeal

Missing Conventions:-’American Dream’ lifestyle-loose clothes-yovenism-Jewelry-Cars-Fans

Where Conventions Were Met

Graffiti Style Masthead

Medium Close up shot

Baseball Cap

Low angle shot

Costume portrays wealth

Street background

Gold Title, as a symbol of wealth

Male main character

Expensive suit, as a symbol of power

Sport Shirt

Microphone

Hand gesture

In my production, I picked out several conventions of the Rap and Hip-Hop genre, which my magazine is based on. For example, gold is a main feature of my magazine, which I used on all the headings, and in several other features of the product, another main convention is graffiti, I used it as the background in two of the main pictures, and for the masthead, and all headings.I used a 1920s font, as it is a symbol gangsters, as then gangster activity was very high with people like Al Capone, they are stereotypically associated with crime. Also crime is something many rappers nowadays got involved in.

Comparison to existing productThe front cover, from the ‘XXL’ magazine, normally have fairly plain front covers, to connote the easy going style of Hip-Hop. In this issue, the front cover doesn’t have any cover lines, or adverts, it just contains the magazine masthead, and a splash, to give the reader an insight, on the main article. The splash connotes Jay- Z’s power, through the bold letters, and the gold font, which is iconic for wealth. This supports the hegemonic theory that people should work hard for money. Due to me representing many underground rappers in my production this varies to the XXL magazine, as in my magazine, they are given equal exposure. In my production, I already revealed several articles of my magazine on the front cover. Both of the front covers have a black white and gold color scheme, and both front cover pictures are medium close ups, which connote the rappers confidence and dominance.

Compared to my contents page, the colors used, are a lot simpler than on my contents page, also the magazine wrote whole paragraphs under each of their sub headings, this challenges the stereotype of hip- hop being for unsophisticated people, who received bad education and don’t appreciate a lot of text. whereas I just wrote one short line for each. In my contents page, I also have all my text on the right side of the page, compared to the XXL contents page, where they are found on the left side.Both of the contents pages have a splash, underneath the main picture, so you can find the article according to it.

The double page spread from the XXl magazine is set up completely differently to mine. This double page, has picture of the artist who the article is referring to, covering the whole of the first page, and then there is just text on the second page. This big picture support Richard Dyer’s theory of celebrities in pictures supporting and advertising their image for than their actual music. In my magazine I put text on both pages, with pictures inserted in between the pictures, I did this so that there is a good mix between pictures and text, making it more relaxing to read, compared to reading one whole page without any visual guide. In all of my pictures, I also added a background, which connotes the artistic aspect of hip- hop. The different backgrounds connote iconic aspects of rap, for example I took a long shot of my rapper standing on a rap carpet, which connotes his power and success, whereas in the XXL magazine the picture is left without one.The title of the article is also just a pull quote from the text, which is conventional to show the rappers personality. which in my case is a separate title, with pull quotes distributed on both pages.