Media evaluation

Media evaluation

By Sam Harrison

IntroductionMy music magazine is a Jazz magazine, my intended target audience was both males and

females aged 16-30. The reason this was my target audience rang is as Jazz is not typically favoured by young people but the reason I decided to attract a young audience is I wanted my magazine to try and present Jazz in a new way that was attractable to a younger audience that typical jazz magazines do not.

To attract Males and females I used colours that would appeal to them both for example the yellow and black title, also to appeal to both genders I used both male and female models for my photos so no one would be put off by seeing only 1 gender in the photos.

I decided to call my magazine Jazzstreet as when I was doing my music magazine research I found that a lot of Jazz music magazines included Jazz in the actual title one of the most popular was Jazztimes.

In what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions

of real magazines? The front cover of my music magazines has a clear big image of the main story within the article this is common among Jazz magazines, the main image also over laps the title although mine does not do this as much as other magazines do.

Most magazines contain competitions with prizes for readers, this helps the magazine to sell as readers are attracted to the possibility of free prizes.

The story lines on the real magazine use the same colours for the writing on the front cover, this particular magazine uses black writing for the titles and blue for the content whereas I used yellow for my titles and white for the content as these were my house colours.

The main story within the magazine is usually placed towards the bottom so it does not interfere with the picture, as I filled the whole left hand side of my magazine with writing I could not put a banner across the whole magazine like JazzTimes have done here. Both are advertised as exclusives by having an exclusive interview magazines are more common to sell as their story won’t be found on other magazines.

A barcode is a typical code and convention most magazines place these on the back page but as I was only asked to produce a front cover, contents and double page article I decided to place mine on the front page.

Both contain pictures in-between the writing this helps to break up the writing into smaller parts and stops the page from appearing boring.

The maintaining of house colours is important as if different colours are used it makes the pages appear out of place and not part of the same magazine. I also continued the splatter effect style from my front page.

Both contents pages have the page numbers clearly marked this is essential as the reader needs to know where the articles are.

As my main article is an exclusive I put a exclamation point after the title to portray this, the bold yellow text is used to keep within my

house style.

The questions in my article are in yellow while the answers are in black, I did this so people would be able to clearly distinguish between the two and also so it ties in with the house colours.

My double page article picture was imported then resized on the page, I resized the picture so it would fill the majority of the second page most music magazines do this to fill space and also to make the article look more attractive.

I placed the page numbers in the very corners of the two pages I then fitted the text around the number 24, I used plain black text so it would stand out I used a simple text so it would be easy

to read.

How does your media product represent particular social group?

My magazine is targeted at males and female aged 16-30, I have used both male and female models I used more male photos however as more men are interested in the Jazz genre.

To target the older people in my range group I used a practical and formal font although not too formal as it may deter the younger people in my scale, the tribute article is to attract the older end of my target range, as many young people may not of heard of Johnny Dankworth.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My intended audience is males and females aged 16-30, although because of the actual content I think that more people aged between 20-30 will buy the magazine.

The amount of male photos used in my magazine was intended to attract more of a male audience, however females may still buy the magazine as it contains articles about a female artist and they may be attracted by the photos I have used.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I attracted my audience by using a big clear image on the front of my page, the main image is a young model so it attracts the young end of my scale.

The splatter effect is unusual and looks something you would expect to see on a young persons magazine

By using the title Jazz Street people can clearly identify it as a Jazz music magazine.

The young models I used help to sell the magazine to younger people.

A interview with a Jazz artist that is around the same age as the middle part of my range scale will help to sell the magazine as many women like his style of music and his age helps keep the magazine balanced in terms of age targeting.

The splatter effect I have used on the contents page not only on the house style inside the magazine but gives it a young look.

The long written article helps to attract the older part of my audience range, while photo attracts the younger part of my audience range.

The yellow writing attracts females into buying my magazine while the black may attract men

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and

why?While searching for Jazz publishers I cam across http://www.jazzpublishing.co.uk/ this site is based in the UK so I thought it would be the best institution to publish my magazine as it is UK based Jazz magazine

WHSmith is a store that sells many magazines and many different genres, I think they would sell my magazine as it would not seem out of place on a store self next to real magazines of the same Genre.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

creating this product?

I had never used Indesign before creating the music magazine so I had to learn how to do things as I went along, I also had little experience with Photoshop so I when it came to editing my photos I just had to use trial and error.

Because I had never used Indesign before hand I had issues importing photos and my title from Photoshop at first, the first few times I had tried importing my title for my magazine I accidentally imported a white background with it.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full

production?I have learnt to manage my time better as I left some things till the last minute and it put pressure on me to get them finished in time.

I have learnt how to use both Photoshop and Indesign more efficiently and get the results I want without so many mistakes.

I learnt how to set up a studio and the different lighting, camera angles and zoom to make the pictures appear professional.