Evaluation one final

Evaluation one:In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge real media

products?

Alicia Rhodes

My Front Cover, Double Page Spread and Contents Page

Another reason, in which my magazine complies with forms and conventions of real music magazines is by using enigma codes on the front cover of the magazine. The biggest enigma code was on the front cover and reads “Most scandalous interview”. This would make readers in the shops want to buy the magazine, to see why it so “Scandalous”. This enigma code went with the main narrative of the magazine but I also included enigma codes in some of the sub-headings on the front cover such as one about Lady Gaga and Katy Perry collaborating, as people would want to buy the magazine to see if they really are collaborating. Again, while I was doing the research and planning part of this task, I found that a lot of music magazine used enigma codes on the front cover in order to entice the reader into buying the magazine. Lastly, some music magazines but mainly ‘Q’ magazine for example (displayed on the right of my page), make the magazine have a classy and sophisticate look as well as making the magazine a glossie. Also, if it is a female artist the magazine has on the front cover then they also try to show and bring out their natural beauty. As well as making them appear to be ‘not real’ linking in with ‘Dyer’s star theory’. I wanted my magazine to have a similar look of classy and sophistication. I used my 18 year old cousin (Jessica) to be on the front cover, who is already looks naturally beautiful like most of the female artists of today’s society. Jessica then wore a sparkly dress and heels this shows off the glamour that I tried to create like most magazines do with female artists. This could also show that I was being conventional. Another conventional feature was that I used ‘Q magazine’ to help me structure my ‘editors column’ in the contents page, therefore this would make it conventional.

Enigma code

Using forms and conventionsFirstly, one way my music magazine uses forms and conventions of magazines, is by having a conventional layout for both the front cover and double page spread. The Front of my music magazine has a background of black and white picture of the main artists and narrative for that issue of the magazine, there is then a caption to go with this narrative which goes across the image. The masthead of the magazine is at the top of the page and then around the side of the magazine and at the bottom are sub-headings which advertise other narratives that will be in the magazine. The barcode, price and date are also along the bottom. Therefore, my music magazine front cover is seen as a conventional front cover, as from the research and planning I did many magazines appeared in this format. As well as this another conventional feature of my magazine includes, contrast of the brightly coloured masthead against the black and white image. Some magazines, sometimes do this in order for features to stand out. Another conventional feature of the masthead on my magazine , is that it goes behind the artist in the image head. Magazines also sometimes do this as well making my magazine convetional.The double page spread also appears to have a conventional layout as it includes an interview with the main artist as well as pictures. The double page spread also has a main masthead at the top to title the article. In my double page spread I have also included an image of a tweet that my artist (in which the narrative is about) supposedly tweeted. This can be seen as being conventional as most magazines promote and now include social networking (convergence). I actually came up with the idea of my magazine double page spread and then partly based it on the layout of the contents page of Top Of The Pops magazine. Even, though these are two different types of pages in a magazine, I still think it worked and from research and planning I discovered that Top Of The Pops is the most popular magazine, therefore it should be successful.

Challenging Media forms and conventions My media product can also be see as challenging forms and conventions, as my contents page is unconventional to most music magazines. Conventionally, most music magazines choose to have a masthead at the top anchoring to the audience what page it is, they then have columns with titles of articles and page numbers next to them. Contents pages also conventionally include bright eye catching colours and images. However, my contents page only includes one conventional feature which is a masthead at the top to anchor the page to the audience. But, my contents page does not include columns and lists of articles and page numbers. Instead, I have chosen to display the articles by using polaroid images. I have put an image of the artist or related image to the narrative of the article in the image part of the polaroid photo, then on the white bit of the polaroid photo I have chosen to write the caption which advertises the narrative and article and also the page number it is on. I have chose to have my contents page like this because I thought it would look effective and modern as well as different and unconventional compared to other magazines, therefore making it stand out form others. The outcome of it was that I think it does not look effective as I thought it would, as you can not fully tell the that they are actually polaroid photos. However, I am still glad I choose to have it like this as it is unconventional and something different. This can be seen as challenging as it is not a convectional aspect of this form of media product. Another, way in which my media product could be seen as challenging towards existing media products is the target audience I choose as well as the genres and theme of my magazine.

• The theme of my magazine is international. Therefore, this means that I targeted a wide range of countries as well as including artists with different nationalities. My target audience was unisex and aged 15+ and the genre of the magazine was hybrid. I choose to include a mix of genres as I decided that it would be realistic if the different artists from the different countries had different genres. At, the beginning of my task I decided this would be a good idea as I could show off as many different countries and genres as I wanted, however it proved to be more difficult than I expected. This can be seen as challenging existing media products as it is unconventional to concentrate on many genres instead of just one or two. Making, my magazine international is also quite challenging as normally a music magazine is only known in one or few countries instead of being known in every country.

Developing forms and conventionsI personally think, that developing media products forms and conventions is also to do with my target audience and theme of my magazine. This is because conventionally, a magazine only has one or two genres maximum. As well as not really having a ‘theme’. Where as for my magazine, I choose it to have a theme. This can be seen as developing existing media products for in the future magazines might start being sold with not just a genre but also a theme. As well as this, magazines could start including a wide variety as genres like my magazine as this would encourage a lot the audiences to buy it and could also been sold in all countries (like my magazine) instead of just one or two countries.