Magazine Evaluation

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

My magazine uses conventions such as the title block. The masthead in most magazine’s is bold and also the largest font on the front cover and I have done this on my magazine. I have used the Title ‘Electric’ because it links to the instrument of an Electric guitar which is usually featured in Rock bands and Indie etc. So it gives an idea that my magazine is based on the Rock Genre. Especially using a colour such as black to help it stand out on a plain white/black gradient background.My Central image is of a teenage female using a direct mode of address, so she is looking into the reader’s eye. Her body language is a feminine position, with her hand under her face to reveal a flower to introduce purity towards a rock magazine. Her hair is curly, and she’s wearing a different style of make-up that the particular teenager who is interested in Rock would wear, gentle natural make-up instead of bold eye-liner and dark lipstick. So I am developing typical conventions just not for a distinctive Rock magazine.The anchorage text reads ‘Burning Dreams’ which is the name of the band in my feature article. The font is similar to the title to create a house style for the magazine, using similar fonts help link the magazine pages all together. It is placed on the female’s torso, across her chest to show that it is part of the central image’s article. I also have a slogan used at the top of my page that reads – The newest, bestest and most electrifying rock magazine yet. Words such as ‘electrifying’ are very attractive and obviously suit the Masthead.
I have placed a barcode on the right bottom corner which includes the price and website of my magazine. It also tells the audience that this magazine is Issue 1 and lets the audience know the date the magazine was released – January 2011. The price tells a lot about the magazine, being only £1.50 every two weeks is a reasonable price. I have placed the price in a yellow puff next to my title on my front cover to stand out so the audience can know the price straight away and not struggle to search through the page. I’ve used many puffs around the page to attract the human eye using my three main colours of Black/Yellow/Red.
My magazine gives away a freebie on my first issue as many magazines do a free poster of a new artist.
I challenge forms and conventions by making my target audience mainly towards females even though it’s a Rock Magazine which usually attracts males. Overall my magazine uses the usual layout that most Music magazines use. My magazine contents page doesn’t use typical conventions as the information is splattered other the page, and most magazines have their information organized. I thought that having my contents page a little different would attract a different audience that most Rock magazines wouldn’t. Also making the information all over the page and not placed in stanzas could attract teenagers easier as the look is more interesting, whereas adults would prefer a much more organized layout. There are plenty of images around the page of females with one featuring a young male, to attract some male audience. I used the same colour scheme and house style (same fonts) as the front cover to show how the pages link together, used black/white/red.My article pages use typical conventions of most magazines as they layout is organized and looks identical to most magazine articles. An image, which is similar to the front cover image, takes up the first page of the article including a quote introducing the artist easily. She looks feminine once again, in the same costume as the front cover to show that this is the main feature article inside the magazine. The quotes are neatly positioned around the page breaking up the paragraphs. I did this so that the audience could notice what part of the paragraph was most important. On the second page of my article I used the exact same house style from the double-page spread. Four images placed next together to attract the reader break up the paragraphs (also the quotes do the same). All pages of the article use a lighting background attraction which helps link to the masthead ‘Electric’ which some magazines do.


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

The way I have represented females in a rock magazine challenges the usual look from other Rock magazines. My magazine represents young females with an interest in Rock, Emo/Punk/Indie girls in a different way but in a different way using all the points below.My media product represents mostly young females in a different way than they are usually stereotyped. The quote from the article, which links to the Anchorage text, says – “My sister has taken over my band”. This represents women in a way of them being in control and being the more powerful gender (which is usually represented as males). The image looks innocent and by transforming the image into black and white brings emotion into the image. Especially as the girl uses a feminine body position, and clothing. Her feminine hair and make-up represents women in a nice way. These are points are focusing on the Front cover page of my magazine.
The contents page from my magazine represents young females in the same way. ‘Rock chicks’ are represented as feminine once again. There are seven images placed on the page all including females. Both main artists (Roxy Phillips and Daisy Hamlyn) are wearing outfits that consider a Rock-ish look. The artist in the top right corner of my contents page is wearing a black and white dress in all three images which are colours that the stereotypical girl interested in Rock would wear daily. The other artist in the bottom left corner is wearing a dress featuring the word ‘Rock’ on, which is also quite stereotypical. But as both outfits include glitter, stiletto’s, make up and the uncharacteristic hairstyle of a typical indie/Emo/punk teenager it brings back the identity of femininity on the page. The last image on the page is featuring ‘The Weasles’ which sounds like more of an Indie band. The girl in this image is represented differently than the other two artists which is one of the reasons I made this the smallest image on the page as it isn’t as significant to the magazine as the two female artists. The boy who is featured in this image has his arm behind the female, showing she has power over the two of them (once again challenging the stereotype of males being the strongest gender). He wears red and grey which suggest Rock, especially as he is holding a guitar, and the female wears nerdy glasses which contrasts well with their band name ‘Weasles’.
My media product represents one particular Social group which is C1/C2 socio-economic group, as my product is aimed at middle class and some working class students of secondary school, college, and maybe some elder teenagers attending university. Teenagers would use their pocket money or EMA, also some who work on weekends etc. could use this money to spend £1.50 every fortnight as this is a reasonable price for a music magazine. Most Rock magazine’s that are aimed at a wider audience are usually quite expensive. Most young teenage girls attended school and college are a little confused about how they want to be seen to others, and what groups they would like to be placed in. Which is one of the reasons I have used attractive images of females in nice outfits featured in my magazine. Most girls search for magazines including beauty products and fashion so if my magazine includes nice-looking images will get plenty more females interested in the Rock genre.


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

The type of media institution I would like to distribute my media product to would be Development Hell. The reason being is that my magazine would be closer to being a Niche type magazine and Development Hell has published two Niche magazines such as Mixmag and The Word. I would like to distribute my media product with them to help them succeed in the future. Development Hell is a growing company and if they distribute more magazines (such as mine) they could grow bigger. They have provided consultancy to the IPC Media, which would be great for me as I am going to try and battle with the opposite magazine of mine, NME. NME is a magazine distributed by IPC Media which is a Rock magazine mainly aimed at a male audience as I searched the NME reader profile and most images used are aimed at men. Snickers chocolate advert (with a slogan of ‘get some nuts), converses advertisement, K-Swiss trainers, Fred Perry, Top man etc. The magazine uses an audience of the same age group as mine (but also older). As my magazine uses the rock genre and so does NME, however we have a difference in audience gender. I looked up on the percentage of NME’s audience, and it is proved that the male audience dominated the readership with 74% females just 26%. Also the median for the age group of NME were 23 year olds, proving that it is aimed at College and University students, similar to my Electric magazine. There are many readers who belong to the C1 socio-economic group which is the group I would aspect mine to reach.
All these similarities gave me the idea to create NME as Electric’s enemy, battle of the genders.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product is teenage females from the age group of 14-19. I am challenging the usual conventions and going against the typical market. These young females will be placed in the socio-economic group of C1/C2, roughly middle class students attending School, College and University. The price of my media product is £1.50 which is a sensible price for the style and also considering it only comes out once every two weeks. This proves that Students could use work money/pocket money to buy the product.I have chosen this audience as most magazines aimed at this particular audience are focused on beauty, fashion and boys. Music magazines that are attractive to teenage females around the age of 14-19 would usually be R n B or Pop magazines. I’m challenging the gender by spotlighting on the females interests in Rock; using attractive images of Women helped me do this.


5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I will attract my audience in an obvious way, using female images. Using attractive images of females with fashionable outfits on, and wearing make-up helps attract most teenage girls. Using a direct mode of address in my Central image, on my front cover, helps attract the reader’s eye. I give away a free poster of a new artist which is a good way of attracting young teenagers with an interest of Rock. The stereotypical rock image of a teenager surround their bedroom walls so including a freebie is a great way to attract the audience of 14-19.


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

With technology items such as Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, I have learnt many useful techniques on how to develop a professional look to my magazine. Using brightness and contrast tools to make the image look darker/lighter and using sharper edges gives a specialized image making it look suitable for a real-life magazine product. Using filtering tools and magic tools which I have never understood before, but now have realised how to make a bland image look great. I have also learnt how to create a blog. Place information and images onto my blogger. I can now find my way round blogger.com much easier, and sort it out in organized matter. The blog helped me with my coursework, as I could view my teacher’s work quicker and also find out what I have to do next faster than other ways of teaching. I have never used Survey Monkey before and as a result I have now found out a simpler way to create a questionnaire. It is easy to link to my blog, creating an effortless way to answer my questionnaire from my audience. The benefits of creating the questionnaire on Survey Monkey was so it looked much more impressive/professional and easier to use, also easier to gather up the answers.

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

I have learnt a lot of skills and techniques from computer products in the time of creating my media product. Looking back at my preliminary task I have developed many new skills and made very good progression throughout. I have learnt many new techniques using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. My image in my preliminary task was very simple; I only used brightness and contrast tools on the image, to help the orange colour scheme stand out. Whereas in my final image I used a black and white tool, and many filtering tools to help the image look smoother/sharper edges. I cut out the background parts of my final front cover image to make it look like a newspaper; however my preliminary front cover image is a boxed image.My preliminary contents page was extremely plain. I only used one image on my preliminary contents page on the side with the writing next to it, so its uses a very plain layout. From contents pages I have learnt that there is usually two sections: features and reviews. Most use the page order of:

· Feedback/Emails/Letters
· News Articles
· Artists/Introducing New Band
· Live Reviews
· Articles (features/main article) with Posters featured in-between.
· Album Reviews
· Gig Listings
· Quizzes and games.

So I used this layout for my final media product contents page so that it is similar to other magazines, whereas my Preliminary task contents page has random information on random page numbers. Researching target audiences for magazines such a NME help me develop a specific target audience for my genre of magazine. I didn’t research any audiences for my preliminary task, so I have learnt a lot about different ages/genders/ethnicities etc. that have an interest in different styles of magazines.
All these things will help me in the future to develop many more skills throughout the years. As I continue Media A Level into the A2 Level, the skills I have learnt will grow stronger and get higher. So all the skills I have learnt in my AS Level will help for future references.