Evaluation

By Brett Dickenson

Conventions All good magazines must have conventions on them. These conventions are things such as the masthead, sub-titles, barcodes, price and date and the issue number.

These are very important as they must attract the audience in some way, for example the colours used, size, fonts etc. All magazines follow the same rule of making sure the genre of their magazine is obvious and the audience knows what they want just by looking at the front cover.

This is why conventions are so important because they make the magazine more realistic and give the reader a good idea of what the magazine is going to be about.

The body language and facial expression used by Eminem convey to the audience a negative representation. The direct contact that Eminem has with the audience really helps it to be a eye catching front cover. The crossed arms that Eminem has something to hide and this would attract the audience to carry on reading.

This skyline will appeal to the target audience as this would be the music they listened to as well as modern music.

The idea of rehabilitation through these words represent Eminem in a positive way and appeals to the audience through curiosity.This headline is used to create direct speech to the audience. Also by adding such a traumatic part of speech it creates impact and causes the audience to have sympathy. They are also tempted to buy the magazine out of curiosity of what happened to the artist.The play on words suggests that the article will be Eminem coming clean from drugs. This intrigues the audience as their needs are being gratified through entertainment. If they are true fans of Eminem they will certainly want to find out more about him.

The majority of the audience will be attracted to the artist due to the interest they may feel to his music and him as a person. The serious look he is giving off may relate to his story and this may make the audience more interested to carry on reading.

The puff is used to boost the status of the magazine. The font used is very bold and looks like it has been stamped on the page and it signifiers power.

The plug involves including well known artists from the rap genre. The use of well known artists reassures the reader that the magazine will be a good value for money.

The mis-en-scene used attracts the audience. For example, the dark clothes could represent darkness and relate to Eminem's story.

Real life magazine conventions

The masthead on my magazine is very clear and creative. The title wavy sticks to the main colours of my magazine (red and black) and the A in wavy has a signifier. It is the known shape of the magazine and when people see the shape they should know straight away that it is ‘WAVY’ the magazine. The bold four letter font is like ‘VIBE’ the previous magazine and makes my magazine look realistic.

My magazines

conventions

The rhetorical question attracts the reader as it inspires them to read on ‘Is 2012 the year of music?’ this makes them want to read on and answer the question themselves.

The main image on my front cover is very bright and eye catching. I used a mid shot and focused directly on the groups expressions. The facial expression shown by the ‘Last Kings’

are very serious however also happy. This conveys to the audience a positive impression. The lead singer of the group on the right has a direct contact with the audience and is also slightly closer to the camera whereas the producer/DJ doesn’t have direct contact and is further away from the camera. This shows how the lead singer has the most authority in the group. The DJ

of the band has a signifier on his hoody which is ‘Last Kings’ and shows who they are.

The plug of my front cover involves well known artists which will attract the readers attention. It shows the reader what the genre of the magazine is ‘R&B’ and also reassures the reader that the magazine will be a good value for money.

The bold font at the bottom of the page is very eye catching and the use of two colours in one makes the front cover more unique. The ‘exclusive’ makes it sound more interesting as it sounds more rare and unlikely to happen. This attracts the audience as they want to know more about the new up and coming group last kings. The last kings is in a red and could signifier how serious the group are. The other artists on the left are in white whereas the last kings are in red and are different. This shows they are someone to look out for and this makes the reader want to read on to see what the last kings are all about.

I linked some of my pictures with real life artists to see

how the camera angles and mis-en-scene linked.

Both are mid shots with very serious facial expressions. They both look very modern and are casually dressed. The light shining on both of the

pictures shows the importance of the people in it.

How does your product represent particular social groups?

How have you represented teenagers in your product? My magazine was based around the teenage market hence why I included bands

who teens would listen to a lot. I also included a teenage group on my front page as teenagers can relate to this photo and a small minority may even aspire to be like them and see them as role models. I believe the USP of my magazine was the clear representation of who it is aimed at. I made it very clear that it was aimed at teenagers through my conventions. During my preparation for my magazine I conducted a questionnaire which show 90% of my participants agreed they could relate to my music magazine. My audience in my questionnaire were between the ages of 14-17 which means they were all teenagers. My magazine was a very male dominated theme. The group on the front of my magazine are males and all the artists included in my magazine are also males. However if I was to complete my magazine again I would have included females so that my magazine would have been aimed at a wider audience and this could be a improvement for the future.

For my front page to be a success I had to research into real life magazines to get a full on understanding of how I could represent my particular social group. The R&B is usually stereo typically looked upon as black people who produce the music. However on my magazine I decided to go against the stereo typical view and use Caucasian males to represent the genre of music. However it would be stereo typically easier for the audience to know what kind of magazine it is if I used black males as the majority of R&B artists are black so it would be easier for the audience to relate their race with the music. The image on my front page has a denotation of hoodies and hats. The connotation of the hats and hoods represent a certain social group. This group is a ‘gangster’ like group and it shows how the clothes they wear links with the R&B artists of today. The image on the right shows how the clothes relate to real life R&B artists.

The bottom picture shows a real life R&B artist ‘Wiz Khalifa’. It shows how my image relates to the style of R&B with black hats and hoods and the connotation of these relate to the social group of ‘gangsters’.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media

product and why? If I had to pick one media institution who would distribute my media product it would defiantly be ‘The Island DefJam’. There are various reasons why The Island DefJam would be the best media

institution to distribute my media product. For starters my magazines genre is R&B and The Island DefJam are one of the best producers for R&B artists today. They help out artists such as Rihanna, Rick Ross, Frank Ocean and Big Sean. All these artists listed are at the top level of R&B and Hip-Hop and all belong to The Island DefJam Music Group. Also a lot of The Island DefJams music is loved by teenagers in fact the majority of their audience is teenagers. This relates to my magazine as it is also aimed at teenagers. Below is a magazine which has an Island DefJam artist on and also my magazine to see how they relate through style and genre. Both magazines have a very eye catching image and both people in the image have the same sort of modern, fashionable and teenage style. Straight away you can see that they are both R&B/Hip-Hop magazines in various ways. As you can see below the artist ‘Big Sean’ from Island DefJam records has many things in common with my magazine. Both images are very eye catching as the facial expressions used relate with the color red, serious and intriguing. Also they are both very fashionable and teenagers would look up to this fashion. This is a good feature because my magazine is aimed at teenagers. I believe Island DefJam would be the best media institute to distribute my product because the names listed on my front page are all related to Island DefJam. The two lads in my image have been heavily influenced by artists from Island DefJam and you can see this how they dress similar to the R&B artists of today.

On each magazine there are clear signifiers to show the magazines genre is Hip-Hop/R&B. On the real life magazine on the right, the ‘Giving you 12 years of Hip Hop’ shows you straight away the genre of the magazine. On my magazine on the left ‘Who is the best rapper ever?’ also shows the audience that the genre of the magazine is R&B/Hip-Hop.

Another way both magazines show the audience the genre of the magazine is through the list of well known R&B artists. Both magazines use bold font on the artists to catch the audiences attention and make the audience want to read on. Both magazines have also used red as there main color. This is because red is a very vibrate and powerful color this may also help catch the audiences attention.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My audience for my product is teenagers. I aimed my product at teenagers due to many reasons. I believe the music my magazine focuses on is listened to

by teenagers more than any other age. Also a lot of teenagers look up to the artists I have mentioned and are inspired by them. This makes the audience

want to read on if they see the people they like and are inspired by. The R&B scene is stereotypically black people as the majority. However the music has spread over the years and all races now respect and love the R&B music of today. Artists such as Eminem have inspired teenagers of today that it is not

just black people who can make quality R&B music.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted and addressed my audience in various ways. Through the use of conventions on my front cover I made my front cover as modern and eye catching as I could. I researched other real life magazines and tried to get

ideas from them. I addressed my audience through trying to relate the teenagers on my image with the teenage audience who like R&B. I included many well known artists to help address my audience especially ones who a

lot of teenagers look up to today.

My magazine on the left shows how I used various conventions to attract my audience. I used red as my main color because it is eye catching and relates to the boys expression of seriousness. Also the ‘exclusive interview’ on my front page makes it seem like to the audience that the interview will be interesting but have to read on to see it. By using teenage lads as my background it is much easier for the teenage audience to relate to their music.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product? I have learnt a lot from technologies from the process of constructing this

product. I have used various different technologies such as Blogger, Prezi and also PowerPoint. All have these have made it easier for me to thoroughly describe and evaluate. I used various other things such as photo editing. This helped me to make my images more eye catching for the audience.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have

learnt in the progression from it to the full product?