In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Many magazines use different codes and conventions, such as a variety of fonts and font sizes, and a variety colours on the front cover and contents page, in the majority. I tried to incorporate a variety of fonts and font sizes on my contents page more so than on my front cover as I've seen from my research that there is more of a range on contents pages compared to front covers. I stuck to the same font on the cover but tried to vary it by using the style option on Serif Page Plus to make the cover lines look different, i.e. by making some words bold or underlining them. I chose to place a box underneath the 'exclusive interview', which I have seen some music magazines use, such as Vibe, which also have a similar target audience to mine in regards to age, for example. However, I think that I could have used a more varied range of fonts and possibly ones that appeal to my target audience more as I think the fonts I used are slightly too formal for the genre and target audience of my magazine. I think I may have been biased in the sense of using certain fonts, instead of following generic conventions of varying the fonts, because I, personally, don't like the look or feel of a magazine if there are loads of different fonts as I think it looks too crowded or messy. On the other hand, I do think that the decision to keep my fonts similar was a good one as it looks clear to the audience, ensuring they can understand what they are reading and doesn't make my magazine look too complex or unnecessarily crowded.
For the features part of my contents page, I challenged the ordinary convention, as seen in some of my research, of placing articles under headings such as 'Reviews' or 'News' and I decided to place them in one box underneath the heading 'Features' and placed boxes around the page numbers to try to separate them. After finishing my research, I saw in NME magazine that the new layout for the contents page was similar to this idea. I do think, however, that I should have followed the ordinary convention of most music magazines and their contents pages as it looked slightly messy and disorganised.I think that my double page spread followed the conventions of most features in music magazines. I used a pull quote from my feature article and placed it upon my image as I have seen in my research; I also changed the colour of the font for the pull quote, which is a convention for the majority of the music magazine double page spreads I saw in my research. Furthermore, I noticed in my research that the starting letter of the beginning paragraph of the feature articles are usually larger and of a different colour; I decided to follow this convention which I think was a good idea as the product looks professional this way. It also allowed me to learn new features of the software I used, Serif Page Plus, because I used the style tool to convert the first letter instead of just enlarging the font size. In the research stage of this coursework, I noticed that double page spreads tended to use colours that had connotations of the particular magazine genre and related to the artist/band of the feature, so I decided to follow this onto my double page spread and use darker colours and contrast them with a bright colour to make words and phrases stand out which will appeal to my target audience. I noticed that existing magazines such as NME and Q have done this.
As well as this, my product follows the forms and conventions of real media products in the sense of colour scheme, i.e. predominantly using three non-clashing colours; use of direct gaze on the front cover's main image; use of left side third, i.e. the majority of my cover lines are on the left side of the cover, the main exclusive interview is placed on the left. The left side third is developed slightly, however, because I have placed the puff on the right side rather than the conventional left.
Other conventions that are followed with my magazines are the use of a barcode, strapline/banner on the top and bottom of the front cover to entice readers by showing what is included in the magazine. One more convention that I challenged with my magazine was the use of only one image on my front cover; most music magazines, as well as other types of general magazines, use more than one image on their cover whereas I chose to have just one large, main image as I think that my magazine looks more aesthetically pleasing this way.
I think, overall, that I mainly followed and used the conventions existing media products instead of challenging them. I think this was a better idea than challenging them as it would give a more professional look, however, I think if I challenged and developed them more, I would've been able to use more of my skills and learn new ones in the process of making the magazine.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In the contents page of my products, I used 'live' shots, or images, to not only have a varied image display to attract my target audience but also to represent what my target audience are like, i.e. representing them in certain ways. By using live show images, my magazine represents the social groups who enjoy live music and may attend live music events more than the average person. It can therefore reach out to those who perhaps prefer live music to recorded and produced music, which was intended for my magazine from the start as I wanted it to have a particular focus on live and new music. As well as this, the use of live images could represent post-modernists as they are a particular social group who want to enjoy their life and youth as much as they can, which is usually connoted with attending live music events, such as festivals.
The images used in my magazine mainly use female models which may reach out to a larger female audience, rather than a male one; this wasn't the aim in my original planning phase, where I had decided to try and make my magazine appear as neutral as possible so that it could appeal to both genders, but where I have used mainly female models, this is the way my magazine is portrayed. However, I think it was good to have my magazine reach to female audiences more as there are not many published and printed music magazines that target females as their audience. Furthermore, the images represent a youthful social group, which is who my magazine was targeted for, as the models used are young and their costume/clothing follow the trends and styles of many young people today who are interested in the alternative rock genre, so the target audience can feel like they can relate to the magazine.
I chose to make the price of my magazine £2.20 as this is the typical price of most music magazines of my chosen genre; due to this, my magazine may represent those of a higher class than working class as those of working class tend to choose not to spend money on magazine. However, it could be argued that due to the target audience appeal of my magazine, students, who may not have a good income to spend on leisure items, may choose to buy the magazine, particularly those who live in areas such as London or Manchester where the youth are more interested in live music and alternative music genres.
Another feature of my magazine that reinforces the idea of representing a youthful and alternative social groups who are interested in live music is the content within the magazine through the use of cover lines and contents page features. As seen from my contents page, a large majority of my magazine includes news of live music reviews and new music, such as 'Metronomy tease new song'. This again emphasises the idea of my magazine representing those who enjoy live music more so than others, suggesting the idea they are an alternative social group.
I chose to make the price of my magazine £2.20 as this is the typical price of most music magazines of my chosen genre; due to this, my magazine may represent those of a higher class than working class as those of working class tend to choose not to spend money on magazine. However, it could be argued that due to the target audience appeal of my magazine, students, who may not have a good income to spend on leisure items, may choose to buy the magazine, particularly those who live in areas such as London or Manchester where the youth are more interested in live music and alternative music genres.
Another feature of my magazine that reinforces the idea of representing a youthful and alternative social groups who are interested in live music is the content within the magazine through the use of cover lines and contents page features. As seen from my contents page, a large majority of my magazine includes news of live music reviews and new music, such as 'Metronomy tease new song'. This again emphasises the idea of my magazine representing those who enjoy live music more so than others, suggesting the idea they are an alternative social group.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
From my research of media institutions, the best ones to choose for publishing my magazine would be either IPC Media, or Bauer Media. IPC Media only publish one major indie rock/alternative rock genre magazine, which is NME, which is a very high ranking magazine and brings in a large audience from a range of ages that includes my target audience age. NME is mainly targeted at the male gender, although it is reaching out to more females which I found in my research, and as my magazine is of a similar genre but targeted more for females I think it would be good for the company to publish my magazine so they can reach an even larger audience, meaning there is more profit. However, IPC Media is less experienced with publishing music magazines, and especially music magazines of my chosen genre, than Bauer Media Group. Bauer Media already publish magazines such as Kerrang!, and Q so they are more aware of how to reach out to those who these magazines are targeted for. Having said this, Kerrang! and Q magazines are either targeted to those who prefer heavier rock music than my magazine has to offer (Kerrang!) or those who are older than my chosen target audience (Q). As to which media institution might distribute my magazine, I think IPC Media would be a more suited to publish it as their magazines tend to reach a more niche audience, which was an idea in my planning - to include more new music compared to well known music. Also, because the genre of my magazine is similar to that of NME magazine, IPC Media may be able to cater more for my target audience based off this and the previous point. My magazine can also offer IPC Media the chance to reach out to a more female audience when dealing with music magazines.
From my research of media institutions, the best ones to choose for publishing my magazine would be either IPC Media, or Bauer Media. IPC Media only publish one major indie rock/alternative rock genre magazine, which is NME, which is a very high ranking magazine and brings in a large audience from a range of ages that includes my target audience age. NME is mainly targeted at the male gender, although it is reaching out to more females which I found in my research, and as my magazine is of a similar genre but targeted more for females I think it would be good for the company to publish my magazine so they can reach an even larger audience, meaning there is more profit. However, IPC Media is less experienced with publishing music magazines, and especially music magazines of my chosen genre, than Bauer Media Group. Bauer Media already publish magazines such as Kerrang!, and Q so they are more aware of how to reach out to those who these magazines are targeted for. Having said this, Kerrang! and Q magazines are either targeted to those who prefer heavier rock music than my magazine has to offer (Kerrang!) or those who are older than my chosen target audience (Q). As to which media institution might distribute my magazine, I think IPC Media would be a more suited to publish it as their magazines tend to reach a more niche audience, which was an idea in my planning - to include more new music compared to well known music. Also, because the genre of my magazine is similar to that of NME magazine, IPC Media may be able to cater more for my target audience based off this and the previous point. My magazine can also offer IPC Media the chance to reach out to a more female audience when dealing with music magazines.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my media product would mainly be young females, due to the use of more female models, and possibly young males who enjoy reading about new music, prefer the alternative/indie rock genre and enjoy live music. The demographics of the audience for my magazine include what was previously said, middle/working class people including students and young adults that perhaps want to work in the media/music industry or just have a general interest in music. The psycho-graphics of the audience, according to the V.A.Ls theory proposed by Mitchell in 1978, can be seen by my magazine through its content. They include those who are 'experiencers' and 'makers', who are often seen as creative, thrill seekers, rebellious and enjoy new experiences. This can be said as my magazine has a particular focus on new music, i.e. new experiences, and live music, which can often be seen as enjoyed by thrill seekers and in the past, i.e. the 1960s, those who are rebellious. My magazine can offer these types of people the new experience that they seek so they are most likely to be my audience.
The uses and gratifications theory can be applied to this as my magazine can offer my audience, who perhaps use media and read magazines to gain information as well as just to gain entertainment, a chance to read information about new music as that is a main focus within my magazine and so it fulfils their needs through my magazine (i.e. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). The primary audience of my magazine will be my target audience, which is young adults around the ages of 16 - 21, as they are more likely to want to follow up and keep up-to-date with new music and live music event news etc. The secondary audience of my magazine is an extension on my target audience, i.e. this may include people who are slightly older than my primary audience, around the ages of 22 - 24, for example. They may feel they want to read it purely out of interest and wanting to know, or wanting to feel companionship.
The uses and gratifications theory can be applied to this as my magazine can offer my audience, who perhaps use media and read magazines to gain information as well as just to gain entertainment, a chance to read information about new music as that is a main focus within my magazine and so it fulfils their needs through my magazine (i.e. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs). The primary audience of my magazine will be my target audience, which is young adults around the ages of 16 - 21, as they are more likely to want to follow up and keep up-to-date with new music and live music event news etc. The secondary audience of my magazine is an extension on my target audience, i.e. this may include people who are slightly older than my primary audience, around the ages of 22 - 24, for example. They may feel they want to read it purely out of interest and wanting to know, or wanting to feel companionship.
How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my audience by using generic conventions of magazines including a puff, which I placed at the top of my magazine so that it would be seen if the magazine was sold on a shop shelf, for example, and may attract the audience to picking up the magazines. The puff offered the chance to win tickets to a UK festival of the readers choice which is appropriate for my target audience and genre of my magazine as I wanted my magazine to feature live music fairly heavily; my research also showed that my audience preferred to listen to music live, were interested in finding out about gig/festival news and the majority had been to gigs before.
Although I didn't use extremely formal language, I also didn't use any colloquialism in my magazine, which I decided I would use in my planning but later went against, I feel that the language I used would have addressed my audience in a positive way. Many young people read magazines that are aimed for a slightly higher age group than what they are in, for example young teenage girls around the age of 14 would choose to read magazines such as Company that are aimed towards 18 - 24 year old women so that they can feel they are interacting with an older audience and feel older themselves. This could be applied to the language used in my magazine; as I didn't use any slang, the language appears to be targeting an older age range than the lower end of my target audience (16 years old) but those who feel they want to read a magazine that has slightly more formal language would like to read mine.
The fonts I used within my product could attract my audience - on the front cover I did use the same font but used different styles to make the cover lines look interesting and bold so they stood out to the reader, therefore attracting them. However, I think I could have used a more 'quirky' font on the cover to attract my audience more. The fonts on my contents page were a lot more varied than those on the cover so this will attract my audience to reading what is involved in my magazine.
I attracted my target audience through my images as I used models who are of, or around, the same age as them so they can feel like they can relate to the magazine; the images also use direct mode of address (direct gaze) which makes the audience feel connected and this addresses them. As my magazine uses mostly female models, aside from the live shots used, I think that this would attract a more female audience than male; as the models are not shot in a sexualised way, this could either attract a larger male audience or a smaller male audience. As well as this the use of live images will attract my audience because of their interests, found from my research of pre-existing magazines and my questionnaire results.
Although I didn't use extremely formal language, I also didn't use any colloquialism in my magazine, which I decided I would use in my planning but later went against, I feel that the language I used would have addressed my audience in a positive way. Many young people read magazines that are aimed for a slightly higher age group than what they are in, for example young teenage girls around the age of 14 would choose to read magazines such as Company that are aimed towards 18 - 24 year old women so that they can feel they are interacting with an older audience and feel older themselves. This could be applied to the language used in my magazine; as I didn't use any slang, the language appears to be targeting an older age range than the lower end of my target audience (16 years old) but those who feel they want to read a magazine that has slightly more formal language would like to read mine.
The fonts I used within my product could attract my audience - on the front cover I did use the same font but used different styles to make the cover lines look interesting and bold so they stood out to the reader, therefore attracting them. However, I think I could have used a more 'quirky' font on the cover to attract my audience more. The fonts on my contents page were a lot more varied than those on the cover so this will attract my audience to reading what is involved in my magazine.
I attracted my target audience through my images as I used models who are of, or around, the same age as them so they can feel like they can relate to the magazine; the images also use direct mode of address (direct gaze) which makes the audience feel connected and this addresses them. As my magazine uses mostly female models, aside from the live shots used, I think that this would attract a more female audience than male; as the models are not shot in a sexualised way, this could either attract a larger male audience or a smaller male audience. As well as this the use of live images will attract my audience because of their interests, found from my research of pre-existing magazines and my questionnaire results.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
To construct my product I mainly used Serif PagePlus. I have had experience with this programme before so I already knew the basics before starting to design my magazine but I learnt more advanced skills during this process. For example, I was able to make my double page spread look more professional by using the 'style' option for fonts when I started to write my article. I noticed that a generic convention of most double page features included a larger starting letter compared to the rest of the font on the page. Instead of just increasing the size of the font of the first letter, I decided to use the style option and selected the 'drop cap' so that the first letter and sentence of my article was larger than the rest of the text. This was a much simpler and neater way of making this generic convention happen and looks much more professional.
There were many small programmes within Serif PagePlus, such as image cutout studio, which ensured that I could cut out any unnecessary backgrounds that I didn't want to be included in my images. I learned that cutout studio was more simple to use than I thought - an option was available that made it easier to see which parts of the image are being cut out, so very small details could be seen and this, therefore, made my images look much neater when they were cut out. Here is an example of this:
The green area is the area that will be kept. This is a print screen of an image I was halfway through editing.
There were many small programmes within Serif PagePlus, such as image cutout studio, which ensured that I could cut out any unnecessary backgrounds that I didn't want to be included in my images. I learned that cutout studio was more simple to use than I thought - an option was available that made it easier to see which parts of the image are being cut out, so very small details could be seen and this, therefore, made my images look much neater when they were cut out. Here is an example of this:
As well as this, Serif also has two options to edit photos within the programme instead of using Adobe Photoshop, for example. These are photo lab and PhotoPlus, another Serif programme. I learnt about these two technologies during the making of my magazine and I found that I could use PhotoPlus to edit my live images to look less grainy by reducing the noise of the image. This was definitely a new way of editing photos for me, however I think my edited images would have turned out better if I used a programme such as Adobe Photoshop because I think Serif lacks a lot of quality compared to other programmes.
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 think I have learnt a lot more on how to use a simple programme to make quite a professional looking product. The progression certainly showed me that attention to detail in magazines is vital for a professional look as it is the small details that can often make a difference. My preliminary task showed that I didn't know much about the generic codes and conventions of magazines before any research, such as varying the fonts and styles for my cover lines and contents page features, which is something I did for my final product but not in my preliminary task. During my preliminary task, I was unaware of the left side third so I simply placed my cover lines across my front cover which looked very basic and wouldn't attract an audience; I learnt whilst producing my final front cover that the left side third is useful for making my magazine look professional and ensure that it didn't appear too crowded or untidy.
Also, I learnt a lot about the images used in magazines and that there is often more than one on a contents page, for example. My preliminary task contents page didn't include any images but I saw from my research that is was a convention to include a variety of images in the contents page, so for my final contents page I placed live shots and staged shots on the page so it looked less dull than my preliminary task where I simply used a block colour as the background. This contributed to the learning of skills where photo editing was concerned, for example using the image cutout studio Serif offered as explained above. Furthermore, I learnt more about the framing and angles of a shot and what works best for which kind of genres; i.e. rock magazines such as Kerrang! would tend to use slightly lower angles to show their cover stars as being powerful and perhaps rebellious, which is connoted with rock music figures. This allowed me to chose the right kind of angle for my cover star to suit my genre. In my preliminary task, the framing of my front cover main image was not particularly good as it cut off the top of the school building which should have been shown, but in my final product my images were framed much better and showed the whole of the image that I wanted to be seen, i.e. I did not miss out a part of the models' heads.
Furthermore, the masthead for my preliminary task was very basic as I only used a simple font on a basic programme and I think that it didn't reflect the normal codes and conventions of magazines, whereas my final product used a more advanced font that I downloaded and edited to get the final outcome of it; however, I think that I could have made it look more advance by maybe adding a 3-D edit to it which could have allowed for me to show more skills.
My preliminary task was also very basic in the context of typography, i.e. the contents page features and cover lines were not as in depth as most magazines use. As the progression through my final product continued, I learned how to use language to make my cover lines and contents page features more suitable for magazines, and in particular music magazines. In my preliminary task, I missed out the use of images in my contents page which, from my research, was a vital component of the way a magazine looks so I placed images in my final product which made it look more like a real contents page and more professional.
Also, I learnt a lot about the images used in magazines and that there is often more than one on a contents page, for example. My preliminary task contents page didn't include any images but I saw from my research that is was a convention to include a variety of images in the contents page, so for my final contents page I placed live shots and staged shots on the page so it looked less dull than my preliminary task where I simply used a block colour as the background. This contributed to the learning of skills where photo editing was concerned, for example using the image cutout studio Serif offered as explained above. Furthermore, I learnt more about the framing and angles of a shot and what works best for which kind of genres; i.e. rock magazines such as Kerrang! would tend to use slightly lower angles to show their cover stars as being powerful and perhaps rebellious, which is connoted with rock music figures. This allowed me to chose the right kind of angle for my cover star to suit my genre. In my preliminary task, the framing of my front cover main image was not particularly good as it cut off the top of the school building which should have been shown, but in my final product my images were framed much better and showed the whole of the image that I wanted to be seen, i.e. I did not miss out a part of the models' heads.
Furthermore, the masthead for my preliminary task was very basic as I only used a simple font on a basic programme and I think that it didn't reflect the normal codes and conventions of magazines, whereas my final product used a more advanced font that I downloaded and edited to get the final outcome of it; however, I think that I could have made it look more advance by maybe adding a 3-D edit to it which could have allowed for me to show more skills.
My preliminary task was also very basic in the context of typography, i.e. the contents page features and cover lines were not as in depth as most magazines use. As the progression through my final product continued, I learned how to use language to make my cover lines and contents page features more suitable for magazines, and in particular music magazines. In my preliminary task, I missed out the use of images in my contents page which, from my research, was a vital component of the way a magazine looks so I placed images in my final product which made it look more like a real contents page and more professional.
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