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




I did a lot of research before designing my music magazine, to see what styles work best for my target audience and what codes and conventions are used within music magazines. I chose to include basic codes and conventions that you would find in all music magazines, for example including important things such as a barcode and the price of the magazine on the front cover. I also noticed from looking at other music magazines that it is common for them to include a pug on the front cover so I chose to advertise free downloads in a bubble on my front cover, as this draws the audience’s attention in. My research showed that I need to make sure my front cover is eye catching, as this will help target my audience and get people’s attention. I have therefore made the title of my magazine bold and in large font. I think the font style of my title challenges the music genre of my magazine, as the font style is quite feminine and vintage looking, which I think works well with the magazine as it is not what you would expect to see on a music magazine that features drum and base and heavier music. I thought this would help to make my music magazine look more unique, and as well as this I thought it looked quite ironic and worked well on the page, so hopefully this will help to attract my audience.



I analysed many contents pages, which helped me understand the key codes and conventions, as well as the best working parts of the page. I found that it was very important to layout my contents page into rows, usually between 2 or 3. I chose to include three rows across my contents page, as three makes the page look busier and as though the magazine is full of information. When doing my research I personally thought that two rows often looks bland, as the page has less information on it so therefore looks less professional. Many contents pages have a very simplistic style, for example Q often follows the same basic layout for each issue. A key code and convention of a contents page would be the letter from the editor, I made sure that I included this, as well as this I also looked in to how the editor’s letters are written; whether they are just basic information or show personality from the editor. I made notes of what kind of phrases are said, as a way of making the music magazine look more exciting. I also took into account where the letter is normally placed on the contents page, as it is typically seen in the top left of the page. I challenged this slightly by putting it in the right hand corner, as the readers eye will travel from right to left this should hopefully result in the letter from the editor being the first thing they see on the page. I wanted to include some colour in the page, as an important code and convention is sticking to a house style or colour theme, I therefore needed to include the colours I used on my front cover in my contents. I followed the basic codes and conventions by including the logo and title of my music magazine at the top of my contents. I then made the title of my contents page bold and in capital letters as this is a common convention for titles, as they need to be clear and easy to read. Another important code and convention of any magazines contents page, would be including a small image of the front cover and showing information about the image, for example the photographer, makeup artist and hair stylist. I tried to include as many of the basic codes and conventions as possible for this, and also experimented with tweaking certain things, as this allowed me to make my contents page slightly different as I did not want it to look too basic and boring.



For my double page spread, I found that it was common for font to bleed onto both pages of a double page. I wanted to challenge this by only featuring font on one of my pages, as I wanted to image featuring on my double page to make more of an impact on my readers, and having it separate from my text made it stand out on the page. As well as this, I also used a more modern code and convention over the text, as I layered a capital “M” behind the text, as this is the first letter of the artist who is featured. I found this convention in Q magazine when doing my research, as there is a double page spread featuring Lady Gaga and they have put a capital “L” in a bold colour behind the text. This makes the text stand out more, and will hopefully draw the readers eye to the text making them more likely to read it. I stuck to the same house style when creating my two previous pages, so it was important that I included the same colours on my double page spread, as this allowed my three pages to flow more easily and look more professional. I tried various different colours for my double page spread, but eventually decided on a pale blue as I learnt from my codes and conventions that it is important to suit the style with the artist. A pale blue was also the easiest colour to read on the page, which I needed to take into account because if my audience found something difficult to read it’s likely that they would not bother to read it.



As my music magazine is aimed for young adults, I chose to develop the forms and conventions of a music magazine that targets a similar audience. I found a successful magazine called MOJO which is similar to the magazine I was trying to create, so I then studied this magazine and learnt what worked well within it and what did not work so well. This helped me to plan my music magazine as I was learning the forms and conventions of the magazine and developing them further into my own work. I think the general house style of MOJO magazine challenges the usual codes and conventions of a music magazine, as the overall style is quite minimalistic. This gives the music magazine an edge to it, which the audience may find intriguing as it is unusual and makes the magazine stand out from others. I thought this was a clever technique and tried to develop this style in my own music magazine.



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



It’s possible to predict the different social groups that may be interested in buying my music magazine. My media product would reflect a younger generation; the house style of the magazine represents the social group of young adults as it uses colours that are young and fashionable, without being too childish. I made sure that I did not use neon colours, as this would attract younger teenagers instead of young adults. The artists that featured in my magazine generally represent an indie and drum and base genre, therefore generally speaking most of my audience will also fall into this genre. In my magazine I have featured night life, this ties in with the drum and base genre of my magazine, as most people buying the magazine will enjoy going out and want to know about new events. The genre of my music magazine will result in me having many different social groups, as it is not specifically one gender of music, instead it is a mix between drum and base and indie music. The indie genre of the music magazine would represent a strong social group, as indie music is quite popular. Generally speaking indie lovers are more laid back and relaxed compared to people that enjoy music such as rap. I have therefore represented this in my real media artefact, by using a pale tone of colours, connoting relaxation and calmness. If my music magazine was based around another genre such as rap, then I would have used stronger colours as these represent a heavier style of music and represent that social group well.



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



I found out where people prefer to buy their music magazines from my questionnaire. The most popular choice for young adults to read magazines was online, so if I was in charge of distributing my magazine I would make sure that it featured a website where subscribers could read it. Another popular choice was subscription, so I would also make sure that my magazines could be posted door to door, as this would ensure that my magazine made a certain amount of money each month. As people tend to forget to buy magazines each month, by subscribing it would ensure that they never miss an issue. The most popular choice for people to buy the magazine each month was in a Supermarket, as stores such as this are more convenient for the audience, compared to shops they are less likely to visit on a regular basis such as HMV or Water stones. It’s therefore important that I consider this when distributing my magazine, as Supermarkets are a popular choice for my audience. In Supermarkets such as this, my magazines main competition on the shelves would be indie/rock music magazines, such as NME, Q, and MOJO. I think these three magazines would be my strongest competition, as their readers tend to be a little bit older than magazines such as KERRANG!



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



Young adults that are music lovers, the genre of my music magazine is mostly indie but also features drum and base. So my target audience would be young people that enjoy these types of music, and that also enjoy big nights out such as drum and base events. Something like this is fits in well with my target audience, as young adults are going to be more interested in events such as this. If I was targeting a younger audience I wouldn’t mention nights out, as many of them wouldn’t be old enough to go. I have tried to make my magazine look quite professional and give it a grunge feel so that the house style suits the genre of the music in my magazine, so my target audience could possibly match this type of style. A younger audience is also more likely to be interested in an online magazine, which was my most popular way of distributing my music magazine, so this would work well with my audience.



5. How did you attract/address your audience?



I looked at other music magazines and worked out what worked best when it came to attracting a younger audience. I tried to make my music magazine look edgy and up to date with the time, so that young adults would be interested in buying it, as younger audiences want something new and exciting. As well as this, I also made sure I took notice of my questionnaire, as it helped me to get a better understanding of what young adults want to see in a music magazine. It was important that I featured up and coming artists and new music in my magazine, as I found this was the most popular feature in a music magazine as well as the most popular thing to see on a front cover from my questionnaire. In my questionnaire I asked my target audience what captures there eye most on a front cover, my results showed that the image is the main thing that draws the audience in. As well as this, a quote taken from an interview with a new artist also interests my target audience so I chose to include a quote from a new artist on my front cover as a way of drawing my readers in. Another feature that proved popular in my questionnaire was featuring free downloads in my magazine, so I added a pug advertising this on my front cover.







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



I learnt how to use Serif Page Plus, which I used to construct my music magazine. Although I had never used the programme before it was very useful for this piece of coursework and I learnt a lot of new skills from it. I’m glad that I used Serif for my music magazine as it has more options and made my magazine look much more professional, compared to a magazine that has been created on a common programme such as PowerPoint. I played around with the different fonts on Serif, the option of making thing 3rd, and putting text in different shapes such as circles or L shapes for a double page spread, allowing me to make the most effective music magazine possible.



As well as this, I also edited the images I took that featured in my magazine on Photoshop. This allowed me to edit my images to follow the style of my music magazine and suit the genre of music I was including in my magazine. As my music magazine follows an Indie/drum and bass Genre it was important that I edited my images so that they suited the grunge genre. I therefore made all my images that featured in my magazine black and white as it made them look darker and more edgy, which suited the style of the magazine. I then played around with the contrast for the images of the main artist. It could be argued that this is an unusual thing to do to an image that is going to feature on a front cover, as I learnt from researching other music magazines that artists are usually airbrushed and made to look as perfect as possible as a way of promoting them. However, I wanted to challenge this when it came to my front cover, so by highlighting his bad skin instead of trying to airbrush it, it made the image seem more realistic which fitted in well with his “unfortunate background” which featured in the interview.



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



Looking at my Preliminary task now that I have completed my final pages for my music magazine, I think the Prelim looks very amateur. This could be for a number of reasons; one being that my choice of background colour on my Preliminary task is quite childish. For my final front cover I chose to make the image take up the entire page, which made my front cover look more professional. The image on my final front cover was also taken at a better angle, as the image was closer up, this showed more detail on the artist and I think the photo was more effective compared to the image I used in my Prelim which was a medium close up and seemed too distant. I think the main reason my final pages for my music magazine are much better than the preliminary task would be largely to do with my research, as I learnt a lot from analysing existing music magazines, for example the codes and conventions which I have mentioned previously. My questionnaire also helped me to target my audience and get a better understanding of what my audience want to see in a music magazine, this really made a difference when it came to constructing my music magazine. I think if I handed out my questionnaire earlier on and did my research before my Preliminary task, then it would have been good enough to use for my real media artefact. It is however, nice to see how much I have improved when looking at the Prelim to the final results of my music magazine, as planning what my audience want to see in a music magazine really makes a difference.