Media evaluation questions

Media Evaluation QuestionsRORY DICKSON-STRINGER

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience of my magazine are males between the ages of 17-25. I can imagine young, “hipster” type of people picking up my magazine and reading it. I would put my ideal audience are students whether they are doing their A-levels or studying at university. The people who like and are always looking new, unique and fresh sounds, the next big thing. Practically the hipsters of the community. My readers are the type of who live for music who are willing to travel to festivals and live in a tent for a week just here their favourite bands perform. The people who would rather spend the money on concert tickets rather than buying the album.

My Audience

Influenced by…

Lives in large Cities like London,

Manchester etc…

Shops at….

Male

17-25 year olds

Spend their money on…

Goes to gigs & festivals…

They listen to music like…

Target Audience Profile Chris is 21 and is studying Fine Art at the University of Arts in London. He lives alone in his one bedroom apartment in Croydon. He have a part time job at a fast food restaurant where he works when he isn’t at Uni. Chris isn’t passionate about much in life but he one thing that Chris cares about anything in the world is his music. He loves the new, fresh sounds from upcoming indie bands. At every possibility he have Chris is in the pub down the road from his apartment that gives bands their show to show what they have got. Chris prefers a live performer to buying a CD as he feels it gives a greater experience of the music. When he wants to listen to music on the go, Chris have an old iPod Nano that he takes with him. He prefers the older generation of the IPod as they bring him back to his childhood. He even has a cassette player which belonged to his father. Chris’s dad was who the person that got Chris into music was and he have always been grateful for that.

To attract my audience I got my model to look directly into the camera as this would catch someone’s eye if they were walking past a shop or etc… Also I have a clear, distinctive patch in the corner which shows how you can win concert tickets. This will draw in any people as they want a chance to win free concert tickets. Furthermore, I held the information in a blood splat shape to attract people in. My masthead also sticks out from the rest of the magazine. I have made the my pull quotes from my DPS a different colour as well. I chose the more rebellious quotes as this would attract the readers in. I made the more important story in a larger font as I wanted that story to stand out to the others as I feel that is the story that would more appealing to my audience.

Q2: How did you attract/address your audience?

Q2: How did you attract/address your audience?

I made my magazine considerably cheaper than other magazines as people have less money especially my target audience. Most of my readers are going to be students at university or at college so they will be living on a student’s income and they would only have a part time job. This addresses and attracts my audience.

I made he other stories smaller and all in red, this is not very eye catching so I added my masthead in to eye to address the reader of the other stories.

Q3. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Age is mainly represented in my magazine.

My target audience is are the sort of “rebels of society” who don’t follow with normal social conventions, practically “the burnouts” My model is based on my reader, she is someone who they aspire to be. My magazine represents the young males of the UK to be rebellious and wild. On my DPS, I have used a pull quote saying “Have you heard most of the CR*P that have come out this year?” I wanted the readers to know that the young generation are wild, manic and in a form crazy. This are the people most likely to be buying my magazine. I used for the concert ticket prize I used a blood splat shape to hold the information in. When people saw I wanted them to think of violence and gore which I wanted them to think of young adults. I was using the stereotype of boys loving to fight to represent my male readers. Also, I wanted my female readers to different from the “girly girls” out there. That is my model isn’t where wearing a dress but skinny jeans and a t-shirt with “The Rolling Stones” written on it. Class is also represent in my magazine as well. As my readers will most likely be working class I wanted to represent them as I did for age, that they are frantic, wild, crazy and etc…

Q4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

NME was the product I based my own on as we have similar audiences and share the same kind of music. These were some of the covers I looked at towards the beginning of creating my own.

This was my annotated version of NME’s cover on MIA.

Eye contact

Masthead and Pull Quote in large red font.

Straight face , no smile. Representing the “bad girl”

Masthead copied on the bottom of the page to attract attention to the other stories

My own magazine annotated.

Q4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The NME magazine doesn’t seem to have a lot of information on what else is in the magazine. Also doesn’t have a lot text. I noticed this in a lot of NME’s covers and I challenge this by including more info, prizes and exclusive stories on my cover. Also NME haven’t got a sort of slogan and I wanted one to make my magazine unique and different to it.

5. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

My magazine would be available in most shops but mostly in large companies like WH Smith, Tesco and etc… Also my readers could subscribe to an app so they can read it digitally as well as a hard copy. Time Inc will publish and disturb my magazine. They could easily do this as they can do the same for a large company like NME. They also have the expertise to promote my magazine. A new issue of Fresh will come out monthly as it gives the customer a good range of time to buy the issue before the next one comes out. Also every year, Fresh will sponsor a festival/gig where the people choose who performs. The reason for this is because my target audience are the kind of people who goes out to festivals and gigs. There will also be a lot of merchandise available like clothing apparel, mugs, key rings and etc…Fresh would have is own website, Twitter account and even a Facebook profile. The reason for this is because this will be the easiest and cheapest way to promote Fresh also my target demographic are the younger generation and will be on social media sites such as these or at least have access to the internet to view the site. I wanted a large technological presence as I feel this is the easiest way to connect with my readers and successfully promote my magazine efficiently.

Time Inc also produce and distribute NME magazines.

5. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

This is an example of the app button and it on a phone screen.

The reason for wanting clothing apparel is because if people start to wear the t-shirts, the hats and etc. Then it is like having a walking billboard. This is great for promoting the magazine.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

To create my magazine I used software such as Photoshop and InDesign. I used these two soft wares because I have the most experience with them and feel comfortable using them. Also they both give professional results. The camera I used to collect my images was the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200. I only wanted natural lights in my photoshoot as I wanted it all to look natural. Anything new tools or software I used was mainly on the cover. I feel my skills on these software have developed dramatically as during the construct of the project I learnt how to use completely use new software which I now can work with easily and also learnt how to use software like Photoshop even better.

I first started on my masthead, I created this on Photoshop as I felt this was the easy way to do this. I started just using the rectangle tool. I created two boxes, one in red and one in white. I made the white smaller and put it inside the red rectangle. I merged the two together and then used the text tool to enter my text in Daniel Black font.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? – The Cover

Firstly, I just placed my cover photo on InDesign. I edited my photo on Photoshop. I used tools like healing brush and the dodge and burn tool.

Secondly, I placed my masthead on to the magazine with the issue number and the price. I mainly just used the text tool to add these features.

After that, I then added my slogan underneath the masthead which I used text tool to create. I also used the text tool to create my main feature story. To create my splat in the top right corner, I used Abode Illustrator, this was quite a challenge to me as I have never used this before.

Finally, I placed smaller version of my masthead into the cover to show the other features and added more text with stories. I pasted in a barcode as well and then that was it finished.

These are three examples of the tool I used to create my cover.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? – The DPS

For the main photo of my DPS, I used the feathering tool on Photoshop. This was quite complex at first but I practiced on other photos at first and I slowly got used to it. I also used the healing brush just to fix a few things in the picture.

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

The two on the left are my school magazines pages. The cover and the contents and the two on the left are my music magazine pages. I can see how my skills have developed over time. When I was constructing my school magazine I had only just started using InDesign and wasn’t too confident with it but when we moved on to the music magazine, I can clearly see where my skills have developed . I feel my contents page for my music mag have dramatically improved, it is more engaging and feels more professionally than my contents page. My feedback on the cover for the school mag said I should make it clear separation between each story and I feel like I have achieved this in my music mag by using bullet points. Finally, I have shown which are the bigger stories in my music magazine by using font size and colour of text.