Media evaluation[1]

Evaluati

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

My front cover of my media product includes media conventions the same as real music magazines have, these include a mast head, cover lines, bar code, date and price of the magazine, as well as a main image in the middle of the product. I have also included smaller images at the bottom of my magazine to illustrate some of the people and artist that are included in the magazine. I think the main difference between my magazine and a magazine such as Q is that the style of picture is different, obviously Q is a lot more professional and so appears to be a lot more eye catching, but I think if you were to compare the two technically, there wouldn’t be much difference as the conventions are near enough the same.

Mast head

Cover lines

Barcode

Date/price

Mast head

Cover lines

BarcodeDate/price

This is my contents page, as you can see it has very similar conventions to Q magazines page, it has the heading witch is the contents title, a similar side column, and also a review of this weeks feature. I think the one thing I am missing a main picture that includes the main artist which is featured in my magazine. One thing that I have also included is an editors piece telling the audience why they should by my magazine, which I think is a good selling point because it tells, simply, what the audience will be able to read in the magazine, and if they will know by that whether or not they will enjoy that particular one. Another thing I have included in my contents page is the artists that will have a small part to play in my magazine, with the page numbers next to them.

Heading Heading

Side column of featuresSide column

of artists

Editors piece

Review

Main Image

As you can see here, my double page spread has similar conventions to Q’s. Although the main image is not in the same place, there is the similarity of pull quotes and kickers. I think the kicker is important because it draws attention to the very start of the article. I have made sure that the article is written in columns so it ensures that is looks professional and can be read like ordinary articles in a magazine. I like how I have two contrasting colours on my double spread and not having the image as the background because that is how I set out my front cover, and I think the three smaller images at the top look quite affective with article. The stand first above the main image I think is also convenient because it helps the reader know, in short, what the article is going to me about.

Heading/ stand first

Columns

Kicker

Main Image ColumnsKicker

Heading/ stand first

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents the social group of ‘Indie Rockers’. This is because the magazine itself is classed just for that group of people. They like the music that’s featured, the fashion that is included and the type of people that are inside the magazine. I think if I was to produce a magazine that had a wider social group audience, it wouldn’t be as popular because there wouldn’t be the specific group, and unity that my target audience may feel with liking music that may not be classed as ‘popular’.

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

I would like to distribute my media product to Bauer Media. I think this would be a good choice because they are renowned for their music magazines, such as Kerrang!, Q, and Mojo. These are all magazines that fit under the same category as my media product. Therefore I could safely say that my product would be distributed well.

However, because Bauer Media are known for their music magazines already, as well as their radio and TV channels, the fact that there are a lot of similar products that are distributed by them already, the competition would be too much, and as most people prefer to stick to what they know, they probably wouldn’t be that comfortable trying something completely new, so this being a complication with choosing who to distribute my magazine. But I think that this would be the case with many distributors and I would just have to take that risk.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience that my media product would attract I think would be male and females within the age range of 16 to 21. However, when doing research about different genres of magazine that are available, I found that it was mainly males that preferred to read a magazine that was about Indie music, I think that style of music appeals to men more, therefore them being the more lenient to my media product. I have still aimed my magazine to females as well, as I don’t want a gender specific product because I personally don’t think there should be anything the aims at men and just men. The age range I have tried to keep quite broad, I think that this particular product could be bought by someone older than 21 or younger than 16, but I think the safest thing to do was aim it to people that, if interested in the type of music, would buy the product.

How did you attract/address your audience?

On my front cover, I tried to make the mode of address as informal as possible. When conducting my original research I found that the majority of music magazines use formal language, trying to get as personal to their audience as possible, which is what I decided to do with my magazine. I used exclamation marks to make the cover stories seem more exiting and so the audience can relate to it a lot easier, compared to magazine that is boring and uses words that may not even be understood. The contents page and double page spread I used the same technique of informal language. This sort of language I think appeals more to the actual age range because they would be used to hearing and talking the exact same way. Whereas for example, a gardening magazine that may be targeted for over 50’s, would probably appreciated a magazine that was more formal and almost ‘polite’.Another way in which I have tried to attract my audience is by making the front cover suitable for the age range that it is aimed at, as well as gender. I knew that if I made the magazine more attractive to men, then the woman that would ordinarily buy this sort of product, wouldn’t find it appealing to them, and vice versa, so I tried to use neutral colours, like red grey and black. I think this helped with the construction of my magazine because using 3 colours that can easily be liked by both genders, made it easier to use the correct language for both genders as well.

Here are the different ranges of fonts that I used on my front cover, I think that they are a lot more eye catching than the fonts that are already on the programme, and the different ranges look better when looked at together.

These are the 3 different ranges of fonts that I have used on my contents page and my double page spread. I didn’t want to do as many different ones as I did on my front page, because I think once the magazine has been bought, if the fonts are constantly changing it could look messy.

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

The process of making and constructing my magazine, I have learnt that there are many different ways in which different technologies can have an impact on the way a product like mine will look like. For example, when I took the pictures that would be included in the magazine on a digital camera they looked very ordinary, but when I tried taking them with a Nixon professional camera, I could see the difference instantly on how the background, foreground and small details became more prominent. I then edited the pictures on a website called Picnik. When editing the images I wanted to make sure that there were still natural features on the models appearance as I have never liked the ‘airbrushed’ look. I made the colours bolder, and the background blurrier so that the foreground stood out a lot more, and I think the end product was quite successful.

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

Another thing I have learnt from technologies is that the use of dafont.com really helped the way my magazine was presented. Dafont.com was a website that I used to get new fonts to include in my magazine, it had out of the ordinary fonts that you even sometimes see on professional media products, and because I didn’t just want to use the fonts that come already on publisher, I wanted different ones to make it look even more professionally made. Here are examples of some of the fonts I used to make my magazine stand out, compared to ordinary fonts that I could have used.

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

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel I have learnt quite a lot in the progression from that, to my full product. When comparing the two, they look completely different, my school magazine looks plain, and not very appealing to read. My music magazine on the other hand, in my opinion, would be a magazine that I could see in the shops on the shelves, next to other products like Kerrang! And Q. The pictures in the preliminary magazine are not edited, and therefore I think they just look plain and boring compared to the edited images that are on my full product. Overall I think the two products have shown my progression in making different styles of magazine and the way I have interpreted the genre of magazine that I had to make.

Music Magazine Preliminary Task